 and kindness towards him.

Emmeline took an affectionate leave of her amiable acquaintance, Miss
Lawson, whose uncommon kindness, on so short a knowledge of her, filled
her heart with gratitude. She promised to write to her as soon as she
got to Woodfield, and to return the cloaths she had borrowed, to which
she secretly purposed adding some present, to testify her sense of the
civilities she had received.

Delamere enclosed, in a letter which he sent by Miss Lawson to her
father, a bank note, as an acknowledgment of his extraordinary kindness.

They quickly arrived in London; and as Emmeline still remained in the
resolution of avoiding a return to Mrs. Ashwood, they changed horses in
Piccadilly to go on.

Tho' by going to her former residence she might have escaped a longer
continuation, and farther journey, with Delamere, of the impropriety of
which she was very sensible; yet she declined it, because she knew that
as her adventure might be explained several ways, Mrs. Ashwood and Miss
Galton were very likely to put on it the construction least in her
favour; and she was very unwilling to be exposed to their questions and
comments, till she could, in concert with Mrs. Stafford, and with her
advice, give such an account of the affair as would put it out of their
power to indulge that malignity of remark at her expence of which she
knew they were capable.

She therefore dispatched a servant to Mrs. Ashwood with a note for her
cloaths, whom Delamere directed to rejoin them at Staines.

At that place they arrived early in the evening; and Emmeline, to whom
Delamere had behaved with the utmost tenderness and respect, bore her
journey without suffering any other inconvenience than some remaining
languor, which was now more visible in her looks than in her spirits.
Charmed with the thoughts of so soon seeing Mrs. Stafford, and feeling
all that delight which a consciousness of rectitude inspires, she was
more than usually chearful, and conversed with Delamere with all that
enchanting frankness and sweetness which made her general conversation
so desireable.







As they had an hour or two on their hands, which Emmeline wished to
employ in something that might prevent Delamere from entertaining her on
the only subject he was ever willing to talk of when they were together,
she desired him to enquire for a book. He went out, and returned with
some volumes of novels, which he had borrowed of the landlord's
daughter; of which Emmeline read in some a page, and in others a
chapter, but found nothing in any, that tempted her to go regularly
through the
