A Simple Story | Page 8

departed mother on the article of religion, and therefore
consigned his daughter to a boarding-school for Protestants, whence
she returned with merely such ideas of religion as ladies of fashion at
her age mostly imbibe. Her little heart employed in all the endless
pursuits of personal accomplishments, had left her mind without one
ornament, except such as nature gave; and even they were not wholly
preserved from the ravages made by its rival, Art.
While her father was in health he beheld, with extreme delight, his
accomplished daughter, without one fault which taste or elegance could
have imputed to her; nor ever enquired what might be her other failings.
But, cast on a bed of sickness, and upon the point of leaving her to her
fate, those failings at once rushed on his thought--and all the pride, the

fond enjoyment he had taken in beholding her open the ball, or delight
her hearers with her wit, escaped his remembrance; or, not escaping it,
were lamented with a sigh of compassion, or a contemptuous frown, at
such frivolous qualifications.
"Something essential," said he to himself, "must be
considered--something to prepare her for an hour like this. Can I then
leave her to the charge of those who themselves never remember such
an hour will come? Dorriforth is the only person I know, who, uniting
the moral virtues to those of religion, and pious faith to native honour,
will protect, without controlling, instruct, without tyrannizing, comfort,
without flattering; and, perhaps in time, make good by choice, rather
than by constraint, the dear object of his dying friend's sole care."
Dorriforth, who came post from London to visit Mr. Milner in his
illness, received a few moments before his death all his injunctions, and
promised to fulfil them. But, in this last token of his friend's esteem, he
still was restrained from all authority to direct his ward in one religious
opinion, contrary to those her mother had professed, and in which she
herself had been educated.
"Never perplex her mind with an idea that may disturb, but cannot
reform"--were his latest words; and Dorriforth's reply gave him entire
satisfaction.
Miss Milner was not with her father at this affecting period--some
delicately nervous friend, with whom she was on a visit at Bath,
thought proper to conceal from her not only the danger of his death, but
even his indisposition, lest it might alarm a mind she thought too
susceptible. This refined tenderness gave poor Miss Milner the almost
insupportable agony of hearing that her father was no more, even
before she was told he was not in health. In the bitterest anguish she
flew to pay her last duty to his remains, and performed it with the truest
filial love, while Dorriforth, upon important business, was obliged to
return to town.
CHAPTER II.

Dorriforth returned to London heavily afflicted for the loss of his friend;
and yet, perhaps, with his thoughts more engaged upon the trust which
that friend had reposed in him. He knew the life Miss Milner had been
accustomed to lead; he dreaded the repulses his admonitions might
possibly meet; and feared he had undertaken a task he was too weak to
execute--the protection of a young woman of fashion.
Mr. Dorriforth was nearly related to one of our first Catholic Peers; his
income was by no means confined, but approaching to affluence; yet
such was his attention to those in poverty, and the moderation of his
own desires, that he lived in all the careful plainness of oeconomy. His
habitation was in the house of a Mrs. Horton, an elderly gentlewoman,
who had a maiden niece residing with her, not many years younger than
herself. But although Miss Woodley was thirty-five, and in person
exceedingly plain, yet she possessed such an extreme cheerfulness of
temper, and such an inexhaustible fund of good nature, that she escaped
not only the ridicule, but even the appellation of an old maid.
In this house Dorriforth had lived before the death of Mr. Horton; nor
upon that event had he thought it necessary, notwithstanding his
religious vow of celibacy, to fly the roof of two such innocent females
as Mrs. Horton and her niece. On their part, they regarded him with all
that respect and reverence which the most religious flock shews to its
pastor; and his friendly society they not only esteemed a spiritual, but a
temporal advantage, as the liberal stipend he allowed for his apartments
and board, enabled them to continue in the large and commodious
house which they had occupied during the life of Mr. Horton.
Here, upon Mr. Dorriforth's return from his journey, preparations were
made for the reception of his ward; her father having made it his
request that she might, for a time at least, reside in