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Lady Diana Chillingworth went to calm her sensibility at the card-table; and Lady Frances turned to Miss Burrage, for further information.

“All I know,” said Miss Burrage, “is, that one night I saw Miss Warwick putting a lock of frightful hair into a locket, and I asked her whose it was.–‘My amiable Araminta’s,’ said Miss Warwick, ‘Is she pretty?’ said I. ‘I have never seen her,’ said Miss Warwick; ‘but I will show you a charming picture of her mind!’–and she put this long letter into my hand. I’ll leave it with your ladyship, if you please; it is a good, or rather a bad hour’s work to read it.”

” Araminta! ” exclaimed Lady Frances, looking at the signature of the letter–“this is only a nom de guerre, I suppose.”

“Heaven knows!” answered Miss Burrage; “but Miss Warwick always signed her epistles Angelina, and her unknown friend’s were always signed Araminta. I do suspect that Araminta, whoever she is, was the instigator of this elopement.”

“I wish,” said Lady Frances, examining the post-mark of the letter, “I wish that we could find out where Araminta lives; we might then, perhaps, recover this poor Miss Warwick, before the affair is talked of in the world–before her reputation is injured.”

“It would certainly be a most desirable thing,” said Miss Burrage; “but Miss Warwick has such odd notions, that I question whether she will ever behave like other people; and, for my part, I cannot blame Lady Diana Chillingworth for giving her up. She is one of those young ladies whom it is scarcely possible to manage by common sense.”

“It is certainly true,” said Lady Frances, “that young women of Miss Warwick’s superior abilities require something more than common sense to direct them properly. Young ladies who think of nothing but dress, public amusements, and forming what they call high connexions, are undoubtedly most easily managed, by the fear of what the world will say of them; but Miss Warwick appeared to me to have higher ideas of excellence; and I therefore regret that she should be totally given up by her friends.”

“It is Miss Warwick who has given up her friends,” said Miss Burrage, with a mixture of embarrassment and sarcasm in her manner; “it is Miss Warwick who has given up her friends; not Miss Warwick’s friends who have given up Miss Warwick.”

The letter from the “amiable Araminta,” which Miss Burrage left for the pervsal of Lady Frances Somerset, contained three folio sheets, of which, it is hoped, the following abridgment will be sufficiently ample to satisfy the curiosity even of those who are lovers of long letters:–

“Yes, my Angelina! our hearts are formed for that higher species of friendship, of which common souls are inadequate to form an idea, however their fashionable puerile lips may, in the intellectual inanity of their conversation, profane the term. Yes, my Angelina, you are right–every fibre of my frame, every energy of my intellect, tells me so. I read your letter by moonlight! The air balmy and pure as my Angelina’s thoughts! The river silently meandering!–The rocks!–The woods!–Nature in all her majesty. Sublime confidante! Sympathizing with my supreme felicity. And shall I confess to you, friend of my soul! that I could not refuse myself the pleasure of reading to my Orlando some of those passages in your last, which evince so powerfully the superiority of that understanding, which, if I mistake not strangely, is formed to combat, in all its Proteus forms, the system of social slavery? With what soul-rending eloquence does my Angelina describe the solitariness, the isolation of the heart she experiences in a crowded metropolis! With what emphatic energy of inborn independence does she exclaim against the family phalanx of her aristocratic persecutors!-Surely–surely she will not be intimidated from ‘the settled purpose of her soul’ by the phantom-fear of worldly censure!–The garnish-tinselled wand of fashion has waved in vain in the illuminated halls of folly-painted pleasure; my Angelina’s eyes have withstood, yes, without a blink, the dazzling enchantment.–And will she–no, I cannot, I will not think so for an instant–will she now submit her understanding, spell-bound, to the soporific charm of nonsensical words, uttered in an awful tone by that potent enchantress, Prejudice ?–The declamation, the remonstrances of self-elected judges of right and wrong, should be treated with deserved contempt by superior minds, who claim the privilege of thinking and acting for themselves. The words ward and guardian appal my Angelina! but what are legal technical formalities, what are human institutions, to the view of shackle-scorning Reason! Oppressed, degraded, enslaved, must our unfortunate sex for ever submit to sacrifice their rights, their pleasures, their will, at the altar of public opinion; whilst the shouts of interested priests, and idle spectators, raise the senseless enthusiasm of the self-devoted victim, or drown her cries in the truth-extorting moment of agonizing nature!–You will not perfectly understand, perhaps, to what these last exclamations of your Araminta allude:–But, chosen friend of my heart!–when we meet—and oh, let that be quickly!-my cottage longs for the arrival of my unsophisticated Angelina!–when we meet you shall know all–your Araminta, too, has had her sorrows–Enough of this!–But her Orlando has a heart, pure as the infantine god of love could, in his most perfect mood, delight at once to wound, and own–joined to an understanding–shall I say it?–worthy to judge of your Araminta’s–And will not my sober-minded Angelina prefer, to all that palaces can afford, such society in a cottage?–I shall reserve for my next the description of a cottage, which I have in my eye, within view of–; but I will not anticipate.–Adieu, my amiable Angelina.–I enclose, as you desire, a lock of my hair.–Ever, unalterably, your affectionate, though almost heart-broken,