ABSTRACT
In the minutes that Clifford and Henrietta walked together, they had insensibly drawn nearer the cottage. Mrs Willis was walking in the garden, and perceived her beloved charge engaged in earnest talk with a young man of a very noble and prepossessing air, whom Mrs Willis herself had never seen before. Their gestures to an experienced eye told I know not what of partiality and confidence. It occurred strongly to Mrs Willis’s mind, that this could be no other than Clifford. Poor Henrietta had been wholly unaccustomed to precaution and disguise; she lived with / Mrs Willis as a friend only, and not as a person by whom she was to be controled; and her innocence taught her, that she had nothing to conceal, and nothing to fear. She did not therefore regard this interview as a furtive one; and the thought did not occur to her, ‘Let us take care, and set proper limits to our walk, that we may not be seen.’
