family, in the greatest of their hitherto sustained afflictions.
In the regular correspondence of Rosilia with her sister, she had not failed to transmit accounts of Sir Howard and Melliphant, and of the suspected character and warning she had received, respecting the former, from Mrs. Philimore. Oriana, in consequence, conjured up to her fancy a thousand fears, and imagined her sister to be surrounded by dangers. Some months had passed since she had seen her family, and, beginning to feel impatient for a renewal of that happiness, her aunt obligingly gratified her wishes, and she once again found herself in the embrace of her parents and sister.
The General had returned from his excursion into Wales, and the family were all assembled to receive her. She feared she pained their minds by giving them those accounts she had so frequently heard to the prejudice of Sir Howard, finding that he had not lost the estimation of her father, who, so little disposed to mistrust or observe defects, maintained that he was an honourable man, sometimes, perhaps, by a natural volatility, betrayed into indiscretions, but which, in his prudent and reflecting moments, he himself was the first to condemn. Oriana, nevertheless, thought it prudent to caution her sister, wholly in the dark as to Sir Howard having so suddenly relinquished his claims, and that it was now against Melliphant only that Rosilia had to stand upon her guard.
