After Lord Albert had parted with his friend in the Park, he returned again to Lady Dunmelraise's house; but still in vain—they came not. The agony of suspense, when prolonged, is perhaps the severest which the human mind can know; but like all chastisements or corrections, it is never sent without a meaning, and if entertained as it is mercifully intended it should be, we shall reap the fruits of the trial.

In the present case, Lord Albert's disappointment brought back a livelier sense of the attachment he really felt for Lady Adeline, and awoke all those tender fears and reminiscences which cherish love, but which a too great security of possession had for the present blunted, or at least laid in abeyance. He now wondered how he could have suffered so much time to elapse without writing to her. He wondered, too, that he had not heard from her; she had not then missed the blank in his part of the correspondence; and it was evident some other interest had supplied that one in her heart.—He looked at her picture, as if he could read in that image an answer to these various surmises; but it was placid, and serene—it smiled as was her wont, and he felt displeased at the senseless portrait, for an expression which he could not have borne her to wear, had she really known what his fears and feelings were. He shut the case and pushed it from him;—he felt angry—and then ashamed—for conscience goaded him with its sting, and in turn questioned him, as to his right of indulging one such sensation against her, whom in fact he knew he had neglected: but all this process of mental analization was salutary, and as he came by degrees to know himself better, he was enabled to form a truer estimation, not only of the amiable person to whom he was bound by every tie of honour, but of the true nature of real worth.

At length, on the fourth morning from that on which he met Lord Glenmore, he found in North Audley Street a note from Lady Adeline. "A note only!" he said, hastily breaking the seal. It was written from an inn on the road; it informed him that Lady Dunmelraise had borne the journey very ill, which had occasioned them to stop frequently; but that they would reach town she hoped on the following evening. Lord Albert turned quickly to the date, and found that it was of the preceding day, so that he might expect their arrival that very evening. A gleam of delightful anticipation now shed joy over his heart. We easily gloss over our own faults; and Lord Albert found all his self-reproaches for neglect and temporary coldness merged in the fondness he actually felt at that moment, and his present determination to abide by, and act upon this feeling, silenced all self-accusation. With a beating pulse, and an emotion he did not wish to quell, he determined on not leaving the house till he should once more have seen his Adeline.

He seated himself, therefore, in the drawing-room, and gave a loose to those pleasurable sensations which now flowed in upon him. The apartment had been prepared for Lady Dunmelraise, and all the usual objects in her own and her daughter's occupations were set in their wonted places. He recognized with transport a thousand trifling circumstances connected with them, which brought his love, his own love, more vividly before his eyes. As he carefully enumerated and dwelt upon these, his eyes rested on a vacant space in the wall near the piano-forte, where a drawing of himself had hung; and the enchanting thought that it had been her companion in the country, came in aid of all the rest to soften and gladden every sensation of his heart. As his eyes wandered over the apartment in quest of fresh food for delight, they rested on a parcel of papers, and letters, lying on the writing table. He turned them over, hardly knowing why he did so, when a frank from Restormel, directed to Lady Adeline Seymour, gave him an unpleasant shock, and he dropped it with a sudden revulsion of sensation that was any thing but gentle.

He again resumed the letter, turned it round and round, looked at the seal—it was a coat of arms, but the motto, "for life," was a peculiar one. He wondered to what family it belonged; he thought of consulting some heraldic work in order to discover, when the sound of a heavy laden carriage passing in the street, drew off his attention. He flew to the window—it was a family coach, but one glance told him it was not that of Lady Dunmelraise. Back he came to the letter table; again the letter was before his eyes—the letter, for amongst many he saw but one.

"It is surprising," he said to himself, "that Adeline should have a correspondent at Restormel, and I not know of it; but shortly, very shortly, this mystery shall be solved. I will ask her at once—but carelessly, naturally, who is her unknown friend at Restormel? Ask her? no, she will of course tell me, if she has formed any new acquaintance with whom she is sufficiently intimate to correspond, and if she does not of herself tell me, I shall never inquire into the matter—indeed why should I? No, there is nothing renders a man so silly as jealousy, or throws him so much in a woman's power as letting her see he is jealous."

With these, and many such contradictory reasonings as these, did Lord Albert continue to pace the room along and across, and every now and then stop and fix his eyes on the offending letter; when again a sound attracted him to the window, and though it was dusk, and objects were indistinctly seen at a distance, he recognized the well-known equipage. The next moment he was in the street; and the next it drove up to the door. He heard Lady Adeline's soft voice cry out, "There's Albert!" as she half turned to her mother, and kept kissing her hand to himself. The carriage door was opened, and she sprang out, receiving the pressure of his hand with an answering expression of fondness.

"Dear Albert, how do you do? have you not thought we were an age on the road? But I hope you received my note." Ere he could reply, Lady Dunmelraise's extended hand was cordially presented to him, and as affectionately taken; and while each rested on his arm on entering the house, he felt in the kindly pressure of both that he was as welcome to them as ever.

When he had assisted Lady Dunmelraise, who moved feebly, to the drawing-room, and placed her pillows on the couch, even in this moment of joyous re-union, he could not fail to observe what ravages sickness had made in her frame since they last met; and as he expressed, though in modified terms, in order not to alarm her, the regret he felt at seeing her so unwell, he observed the eyes of Lady Adeline fixed upon him, in order to read his real opinion on the first sight he had of her mother; and before he could regulate his own feelings on the subject, those of Lady Adeline's overshadowed her countenance with an expression of sadness she was not prepared to command, while the tears rushed to her eyes. Again holding out her hand to Lord Albert, while a smile of mingled joy and sorrow beamed over her features, and partly dispersed the cloud, she said,

"All will be well now; my dearest mamma will soon be better—joy and happiness will once again be our's." Lord Albert thanked her with his eloquent eyes; and as he impressed a kiss on her offered hand, he replied:

"How fortunate that I received your letter when I did, for in another hour I should have been on my way to Dunmelraise."

"Indeed!" said Lady Adeline, her eyes sparkling with pleasure.

"Yes; and I had, but for something which detained me, been on my road there long before your letter arrived."

"That would indeed have been unfortunate," said Lady Dunmelraise; "to have missed you after so long hoping to have seen you there in vain, would have doubled our regret;" she spoke with a tone of something like reproach, at least so Lord Albert took it; and she added, with a melancholy smile, "It is a bad omen that a letter from Adeline should have prevented you from coming to us."

Lord Albert felt embarrassed; there was something relative to the delay of his coming which he knew he could not explain, and this consciousness made him feel as if he were acting a double part. At this moment Lady Adeline perceived the letters lying on the table, and taking them up, she glanced her eye over them as she turned them round one by one, saying, "this is for you, mamma—and this—and this—and this, as she handed them to Lady Dunmelraise—but this one is for myself." Lord Albert's attention had from the first moment of her taking up the letters been riveted upon her, and now with ill-concealed anxiety he watched every turn of her countenance, while she broke the seal and perused the letter. She read it, he conceived, with great interest; and said, when she had concluded, addressing Lady Dunmelraise—

"It is a kind word of inquiry for you, my dear mamma, from George Foley." Lord Albert changed colour as this name was pronounced; but neither she nor Lady Dunmelraise observed the circumstance, and this gave him leisure and power to recover from the confusion he experienced. Lady Adeline again resumed, after a short pause, "You must have met Mr. Foley at Restormel, Albert; what do you think of him?"

"I had little opportunity of judging of him," replied Lord Albert, hesitating as he spoke; "but he was only at Restormel for a part of the time I was there. He had, however, a strong recommendation to my favourable opinion, from the warm terms of praise and admiration in which he mentioned you, Adeline." She smiled, and without any alteration of manner went on to say:

"I am afraid then he has too favourable an opinion of me; and if he has raised your expectations so high of my improvement since last we met, I shall have reason to lament your having become acquainted with him; but he is such an adorateur of mamma's, that he thinks every thing that belongs to her is perfection!"

Notwithstanding Lady Adeline's seeming calmness while speaking of Mr. Foley—notwithstanding the natural and ingenuous expression of her words and countenance, Lord Albert could not divest himself of the idea that Mr. Foley had some undue power over her affections. It is easy, perhaps, to shut the door against evil thoughts; but when once they are admitted, they obtain a footing and a consequence which it was never intended that they should have. Beware, all ye who love, of admitting one spark of jealousy into your breasts, without immediately quenching the same by open and free discussion with the object of your affections! But there lies the difficulty—we are ashamed of harbouring an injurious thought of those we love; or rather, we are ashamed of confessing that we do so; and we go on in the danger of concealment, rather than by humbling our pride, and laying open our error, obtain the probable chance of having it exposed, and removed. While monosyllables of indifferent import dropped from Lord Albert's lips, he was in his heart cherishing the false notion that had the letter, which gave him so much uneasiness, been entirely of the import which Lady Adeline represented it to be, it would have been more natural to have addressed it to Lady Dunmelraise herself.

He did not, indeed, dare to impugn Lady Adeline's truth: but he conceived that no other man should presume to have an interest in her—in her who belonged to himself (every man will understand this), which could entitle him to hold a correspondence with her. He consequently became abstracted, and there was a sort of restraint upon the ease of his manner and conversation, of which Lady Dunmelraise's penetration soon made her aware, and to which even the young and unsuspecting Adeline could not remain wholly blind.

In order to replace things on the footing which they had been formerly, and which on their first meeting they still appeared to be, Lady Adeline turned the discourse to her pursuits in the country, and spoke in detail of her drawing, her music, her flower-garden, and the families of the poor in their neighbourhood whom she and Lord Albert had so often visited together.

"You remember," she said, "poor Betsy Colville, who never recovered the loss of her lover who was shipwrecked; she is still in the same state. She goes every day to the gate where they last parted, takes out the broken sixpence he gave her at their last interview; and having returned home, looks in her father's face, and says 'to-morrow.' She never repines, never misses church—joins in family worship; but her poor mind is touched, and she can no longer do the work of the house or tend on her aged parents. I have therefore paid my chief attentions to that family—and they are so grateful—so grateful, too, for what you have done for them. The myrtle we planted together, Albert, on the gable-end of the house, now nearly reaches the thatch; and in all their distress about their daughter, the good old pair have never forgotten to tend that plant. Mr. Foley and I rode or walked there every day."

The latter words of this discourse poisoned all the sweetness of the preceding part; and the idea of Mr. Foley became associated in Lord Albert's distempered mind, with all the interest and all the enthusiasm expressed by Lady Adeline; so that he read in her descriptions of her mode of having passed her time, and the pleasure she had innocently enjoyed, nothing but her love of Mr. Foley's company.

Lord Albert became still more silent, or spoke only in broken sentences; and a deeper gloom gradually spread over each of the three individuals, usurping the place of that cordial outpouring of the heart, which had at first rendered the moment of meeting so delightful. After a silence, during which Lady Adeline and Lady Dunmelraise appeared mutually affected by the awkwardness which the change in Lord Albert's manner had excited, yet anxious to conceal from each other the knowledge that such was the case—they felt relieved, when he took up a newspaper, and read aloud the announcement of an approaching drawing-room.

Lady Dunmelraise, glad of an opportunity to find some subject of discourse foreign to the thoughts which obtruded themselves so painfully upon her, said, "Well, Adeline, that is a favourable circumstance, À quelque chose malheur est bon; had I not been so much worse exactly at this very time, we had perhaps not been in London; for though I have for some months past wished you to be presented at court, we might, ten to one, not have had courage to leave Dunmelraise at this sweet season; but as it is, the opportunity must not be lost, and the only question is, by whom shall the presentation take place—for alas! I am not able myself to have that pleasure, and I fear my dear sister Lady Delamere will not either;" then pausing a moment, she added, "perhaps, Lord Albert, Lady Tresyllian will kindly take that office, if she is to be in town."

"I am sure she would readily comply with any wish of yours; but I know my mother has, in a great measure, given up the London world, and has not been at any of the drawing-rooms during the present reign; but, perhaps, on such an occasion, she might be induced to forego her determination of retreat."

"Oh, I would not for the world," said Lady Adeline, "torment Lady Tresyllian about it; for," she added, smiling, "you know how very little I care about such things."

"It is well," said Lady Dunmelraise, "to hold every thing in estimation according to its due value. Most young persons are too fond of the gaieties and pleasures of the world; but you, my dear Adeline, perhaps contemn them in one sweeping clause of indifference, without having properly considered to what advantages they may tend when resorted to in due degree, and in subordination to better pursuits. A drawing-room I hold to be one of those very few worldly pageants which are connected with some valuable and estimable feelings; the attending them is an homage due to the state of the sovereign; they uphold the aristocracy of the country, which is one of the three great powers of government, now too much, too dangerously set aside; and they ought to, and do in great measure, keep up those barriers in society, which prevent an indiscriminate admission of vice and virtue, at least as far as regards an outward respect to the appearances of decorum. Whenever drawing-rooms shall be abolished, you will see that much greater licence in society will take place. The countenance of the sovereign, the right to be in his presence, is one which none would voluntarily resign; and to avoid losing it, is a check upon the conduct of many, who are not regulated by better motives; while those who are, will always duly appreciate those honours which flow from monarchs, and which form a part of our glorious constitution. 'Love God, honour the king,' is the good old adage; and with this conviction on my mind, and the remembrance of that loyalty and attachment to the present House of Hanover which your ancestors have ever displayed, even to the sacrifice of their lives and fortunes, my Adeline, I have set my heart on your being presented to your king; and the only consideration is, who shall be the person to present you."

"Well, dearest mamma," replied Lady Adeline, "any thing you wish, I shall be delighted to do, and I make no doubt you are perfectly right; only I did not feel the least anxious, and I wished to set your mind at rest upon the subject of my going into public." Lord Albert said, with an expression of melancholy and displeasure, "It is quite unnatural for a young person of your age, Adeline, to affect to despise the amusements of the world; and unless you have some cause for doing so, best known to yourself, I confess I do not understand it."

Lady Adeline was too quick-sighted not to perceive that something or other pained and displeased Lord Albert, and had they been quite alone, she might have asked him the occasion of this change in his humour; but as it was, she did not dare to question him; and by way of turning the conversation into another channel, she inquired, of whom consisted the party at Restormel; if they were clever, or distinguished, or agreeable; and whether the mode of life there was to his taste? Lord Albert seemed to awake out of a sort of reverie into which he had fallen, and his countenance was agitated by many commingling expressions as he replied,

"I really can hardly tell you; there were the Tilneys, the Tenderdens, the Boileaus, Lady Hamlet Vernon, Mr. Leslie Winyard. At that sort of party there is little occasion for the display of talent, and people are glad to be quiet for a few days when they go to their country houses; so that each individual is thinking more of repose than of shining. As to their mode of life, it was pretty nearly, I think, what it is when they are in town."

Though Lord Albert spoke this in a hurried tone, he felt as though he had got well over a difficulty. But the remark Lady Dunmelraise made upon his answer, did not particularly serve his turn at the moment:—"Either the persons who I heard composed that party, or Lord Albert, must be much changed since I knew them, if they could be in unison," and she fixed her eyes upon him;—his embarrassment was visible, and did not subside as she went on to speak particularly of Lady Hamlet Vernon: "She remembered her marriage," she said, and commented upon those sort of marriages, saying, "that all intriguing schemes were detestable, but those respecting marriage were of all others the most thoroughly wicked and despicable. Lady Hamlet's conduct, too, after marriage was not very praiseworthy: if a woman sacrifice every other consideration in allying herself to her husband for the sake of aggrandizement, she must at least continue to act upon that system, and if possible wash out the disgrace of such an act (for I consider it to be no less) by her subsequent mode of behaviour, and the dignified uses to which she applies her power. But in the present instance this was far from being the case, and she had allowed an apparent levity of conduct, at least, to sully her character. In one instance, I know, she has drawn a person, in whom I feel great interest, into a manner of life, and an idleness of existence, which, to call it by no harsher name, is one of vanity and folly; but I had hoped her influence was over in that quarter."

"As I do not know to what you allude," rejoined Lord Albert, "I cannot exactly reply; but certainly Lady Hamlet Vernon is very handsome, very agreeable, and, for aught I know to the contrary, leads now a very good sort of life. She has a finely-disposed heart, and, I should think, is better than half the people who find fault with her. If, from having married an old rouÉ, she was thrown into danger, which her personal charms rendered very likely to have been the case, kindness I am sure would at any time open her eyes to avoid these; whereas undue severity might make her rush headlong into them—for harsh opinions in similar cases, nine times out of ten, drive such persons from bad to worse."

"I conceive," said Lady Dunmelraise, "that this may sometimes be the case; but it is frequently only an excuse for not choosing to hear the truth told. However, there is a society, of which Lady Hamlet Vernon is one, which I hold to be the subverter of every thing estimable. Its great danger is the specious ease and indifference of those who compose it, the system being without any system whatever. The great gentleness of manner and entire freedom, which seem to be its characteristics, are its most dangerous snares. No consecutive speech upon any subject, no power of reasoning, no appeal to religion, are tolerated by these persons. They have a lawless form of self-government indeed, by which they keep up their own sect and set,—but there is a mystery in the delusions which they cast around their victims, the more difficult to detect since the whole of their lives is spent in a seeming carelessness about every thing.

"The warning voice of a parent can alone put a young and unsuspecting member of society on his guard against being drawn into this vortex; but it is the young married persons to whom such warning is more particularly necessary. However, because there are persons, who by artful intrigue arrogate to themselves a certain consideration, which they receive from the uninstructed and unwary, and whose ways are certainly not those of pleasantness or peace—we are not to say but that there are others who to the highest rank unite the highest principles, and who reflect honour on the class to which they belong—persons who consider their high stations as being the gifts of God, and themselves as responsible agents. Yes, the true nobility of Britain will yield to none other of any country for intrinsic worth; all the virtues adorn their families, and religion and honour stamp them with that true nobility of soul, without which all distinction is but a beacon of disgrace.

"It is not, therefore, because a few worthless or foolish persons, in the vast concourse of London society, affect an exclusiveness which rests on no basis of real worth or dignity, but on the very reverse, that all intercourse with the world is to be avoided, or all innocent pleasure to be denied to young persons; and I should be exceedingly disappointed to see my Adeline retiring from her state and station, and coming to have a distaste for its amusements, because I feel certain that so violent a re-action is not natural, and that the real way to be of service to herself and others, is to fulfil the rank and station of life wherein she is placed, and in fact to do as our great inimitable Pattern did—to go about doing good."

Lord Albert's feelings, while Lady Dunmelraise was speaking, had undergone many changes, but the last was that of pleasurable approval at finding Lady Dunmelraise's opinion so much in coincidence with his own—and he said, in his own natural warm manner, "I hope Adeline will feel quite convinced, by your sensible manner, my dear Lady Dunmelraise, of representing this matter, that there is no virtue, nothing commendable indeed, in despising or condemning the world en masse, and that there is just as much real good to be done by living in as living out of it. True virtue does not lie in time or place—it is of all times, of all places; and it is a narrow, bigoted view of the subject alone, which partakes of monastic rigour and hypocritical ambition under the garb of humility, which would promulgate any other doctrine."

"My dear Albert, you know that I have no wish but to please mamma and you; and I need not pretend but that I shall be exceedingly diverted by going to public places. All I meant to say was, not to make yourselves uneasy about finding a chaperon for me, because I am perfectly contented to remain as I am—although I might be equally well diverted in leading what is called a gayer life."

Lord Albert's countenance relapsed into brightness as he said, taking her hand and putting it to his lips, "You are a dear and a rare creature—is she not, Lady Dunmelraise?"—and this appeal Lady Dunmelraise felt no inclination to controvert; but, rejoicing in the present disposition which she once more beheld in her future son-in-law, she now dismissed him for the evening, saying, "Adeline and I require some repose, that we may be fresh to-morrow for all the great events to which we shall look forward with pleasure, I am sure, as you seem to be quite of our way of thinking respecting her dÉbut in the great world—and so good night." The wish was reiterated kindly, warmly, by all parties, and they parted happier even than they had met.

As soon as Lord Albert reached his hotel, he found a note from Lady Hamlet Vernon, announcing her arrival from Restormel, and requesting to see him. In an instant, as though by magic, his doubts and fears respecting Lady Adeline returned; for with Lady Hamlet Vernon was connected the recollection of her mysterious note at Restormel, on the morning of his departure from thence—and with that recollection George Foley was but too deeply mingled. Then ensued a chaos in his mind, one thought chasing another, and none abiding to fix any purpose or decide any measure. At one moment he determined—if such passing impulse can be called determination—not to go near Lady Hamlet; but the next he thought she had shewn so much true interest for him—she had listened so often to his rebukes—apparently with more pleasure than she did to praise from others—that he should be ungrateful to avoid her now, because other dearer interests filled up his time and his heart, and he finally resolved on obeying her wishes, and visiting her the next day.

In the morning of that day, before he had finished his late breakfast, and ere he was prepared to deny himself, the door of his apartment opened, and Mr. Foley was close to him ere his servant had time to announce his name.

"I am come," said the latter, with his polite and honeyed phrase, "to bring you pleasant tidings, which I trust will apologize for this my early intrusion. I am just arrived from South Audley Street, where I had the happiness of finding our friends pretty well; Lady Dunmelraise, indeed, was not up, having been fatigued by her journey; but Lady Adeline is blooming in beauty—I do not know when I have seen her looking better." Lord Albert bowed, and in his coldest manner replied, "he was very happy indeed to hear that Lady Adeline Seymour was so well, and he hoped, when he should make his personal inquiries, to find Lady Dunmelraise in the drawing-room."

Mr. Foley was too penetrating not to see that this information, as it came from him, conveyed no pleasurable feeling; but affecting not to observe this, he went on to talk of the late party at Restormel—spoke of Lady Hamlet Vernon as being a delightful creature, and drew a kind of parallel raisonnÉ between her character and that of Lady Adeline's. Lord Albert was thinking, all the time he spoke, of the impertinent assumption of Mr. Foley's addressing him on the subject of Lady Adeline, and discussing her merits, as though he were not aware of them, and had not a better right and ampler means to know and to value them.

Still there was a suavity—a delicacy even, in Mr. Foley's mode of expressing himself, which gave no tangible opportunity to shew offence; and Lord Albert, though writhing under impatience, was obliged to control himself. As soon as he could possibly contrive to do so, he changed the conversation, and spoke of the Opera, the Exhibition, the topics of the day—of all, in short, that was most uninteresting to him; and carried on an under current of thought all the time on the impropriety Adeline had been guilty of, in receiving Mr. Foley without her mother's presence to sanction such a visit, and on going himself directly to South Audley Street, in order that he might disclose to her his opinion on the inexpediency of such a measure, as that of her receiving the visits of young men when alone. But though the evident abstraction of Lord Albert D'Esterre rather increased than diminished, still Mr. Foley sat on, and sometimes rose to make a remark on a picture—sometimes opened a book, and commented upon its contents. Similar provocation must have occurred to every one at some time or other, and it is in vain to describe what, after all, no description can do justice to. A note arrived for Lord Albert—it was from Lady Adeline—very kind, but desiring him not to come to South Audley Street till four o'clock—saying she was going, by her mamma's desire, to see her aunt Lady Delamere, who was confined by a feverish cold, and could not leave her chamber to come to them.

Lord Albert's mortification was painted on his countenance. "If you have nothing better to do this morning, D'Esterre, and that your note does not otherwise take up your time, will you accompany me to Lady Hamlet Vernon's?" Lord Albert felt, "what, am I to be balked, dogged, forestalled in every trifling circumstance by this man!" but he said, hesitating as he spoke, "yes—no, that is to say, I had an engagement, but it is postponed for the present—therefore, if you please, I will accompany you to Lady Hamlet's door;" and Mr. Foley, evidently triumphing in having foiled Lord Albert's real intentions, whatever they might be, but maintaining still his quiet composure, offered Lord Albert his arm, and they walked together towards Grosvenor Square, each talking of one thing and thinking of another.