ABSTRACT
At the hour of supper, Ethelinde, whose solicitude for Sir Edward her own extreme unhappiness could not lessen, collected strength enough to go down. She found Miss Newenden alone in the eating parlour, and that her brother’s visitors were but just gone. In a few moments he came to them; and Ethelinde, accustomed by the innocent affection she had ever felt for him to study and understand every change of his countenance, saw with infinite concern that he had suffered greatly in a conference which had removed no part of his unhappiness. While the servants waited, however, he affected to talk with his sister of her journey of the next day, and of other indifferent matters; but as soon as the table was cleared, and the servants withdrawn, Miss Newenden, who never had the least notion of checking whatever she had a mind to say, lest it should hurt the feelings of another, asked him very abruptly what the Maltravers’s had said to him.
