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Lady Aurora would accept no aid save from Juliet; fondly leaning upon whose arm she reached a sofa in her bed-chamber; where she assumed, though with cruel struggles against her yielding nature, voice and courage to pronounce, "My dear Mrs. Howel, you have always been so singularly good to me,—you have always done me so much honour, that you must not, will not refuse to be kinder to me still, and to permit me to introduce to you . . . Miss Granville! . . . For this young lady, Mrs. Howel, is my sister! . . . my very dear sister!"
Utterly confounded, Mrs. Howel made a silent inclination of the head, with eyes superciliously cast down. The letter of Sir Jaspar Herrington had not failed to convince her that this was the real offspring of Lord Granville; whose existence had never been doubted in the world, but whose legitimacy had never been believed. Still, however, Mrs. Howel, who was now, from her own hard conduct, become the young
