escape the punishment.

But at this instant his steward passed, and into his hands he delivered
his apparently dead child, his face agitated with shame, with pity, with
anger, with paternal tenderness. On her recovery she was sent to a
neighbouring farm, not more than thirty miles away, her father having
given orders that it should be so.

Then a libertine lover of Lady Matilda's, finding her no longer under
her father's protection, resolved to abduct her, and by raising an alarm
of fire, caused all the inhabitants of the farmhouse to open the doors,
when two men rushed in, and, with the plea of saving her from the
flames, carried her away. News of this being taken to her father, he at
once set out in pursuit, and reached her in her last agony of despair,
folding her in his arms with the unrestrained fondness of a parent.

It was now the middle of November; and yet, as Matilda passed along,
never to her did the sun shine so bright as upon this morning; never did
her imagination comprehend that the human heart could feel happiness
true and genuine as hers!

Rushbrook had been detained at Elmwood during all this time, more from
the persuasions, nay, prayers, of Sandford than the commands of Lord
Elmwood. His uncle's summons for him to join them in town was,
therefore, received with delight. Yet his joy was tempered by finding
that it was to propose a matrimonial alliance that his uncle had sent
for him; after a thousand fears, much confusion, and embarrassment, he
at length frankly confessed his "heart was engaged, and had been so,
long before his uncle offered to direct his choice."