to signify that the audience was ended. "But what about the Wroughtons, Edgar?-They must be a sad incumbrance in the house?" "Not at present," replied Lord Wilchester, who was now preparing to leave the room. "Mrs. Wroughton will not appear till she has laid aside her weeds." "And the girl?" "Will be, for some time to come, occupied with masters." "More masters?-Is the Grandisons' story true, then, (picked up by Berty at Frankfort,) that there was some idea of her going out as governess ?" "Ideas are unsubstantial things. But I never heard so." "At all events, now that Wraysbury has taken them up, such a humiliation is out of the question. But even myself, though far from a millionary like Sir John W. W., I should not have allowed it. Not on account of the Wrough tons, for whom I care not a rush, but for - your sake, and Theo.'s.-Few people are aware that we are hampered by such a relationship.But it might transpire.-Going to my mother's? -Tell her, then, with my best regards, that I am looking out for a match for her bay horse, as she-(or the old coachman,) quested." re CHAPTER IV. "Three children sliding on the ice, All on a summer's day!" YES! those three cousins,-Hilda, Netta, and Theodosia,-almost served to realise into gloomy truth the fantastic chimera of Shakspeare. For, lovely as they were in disposition, form, and features, what were they but children; and was not their path of life, alas! traced out on ground as unsubstantial as if created by a midsummer frost? The grave, the mild, the wild, was charmingly embodied in the trio.-But as the incomparable Dr. Primrose observed of his daughters, that they sometimes changed characters for a day; and that a new set of ribbons occasionally converted his prude into a coquette; certain it was, that the society of Miss Wroughton imparted strange gravity to the girlish features of Janetta.-As to Lady Theodosia, she was a creature of impulse, whose Monday humour seldom lasted till Tuesday. If she began the week as gay as a bird, she was pretty sure to end it in a fit of the dolefuls. To her cousin Hilda, she did not take kindly. Miss Wroughton, either from a tinge of Woolston pride, or the experience of personal humiliation, made not a step forward towards acquaintance. But with Netta, she sympathised in a moment; for towards high and low, old or young, the natural graciousness of the heiress of Lynchcombe, prompted courtesy and kindness. The idea of a repulse never occurred to her. Her father and Miss Avesford were the only persons of whom she had ever stood in awe. The rest of her fellow-creatures were all friends, past, present, or to come. It gave her some pain, at first, to hear the person she had been accustomed to name to Sir John and Edgar as Aunt Emma, saluted by that familiar name of "Lady Dinton," which she had so often sportively bestowed on her beloved Bessy. Still more so, when the honoured title of Lord Dinton was applied to the made-up old beau, whose pompous homage to herself was almost too much for her gravity.-But the ear soon gets accustomed to such changes. He who was no longer Lord Dinton, was an angel.—She who had been fated never to become a Countess, was a saint.—The pleasure-loving couple before her, who seemed to affection her almost more than their own children, were, perhaps, better qualified to parade the gauds of hereditary nobility in the factitious sunshine of fashionable life. Both were equally charmed by the grace and artlessness of their heiress niece.-Her fair com VOL. III. E |