fetch you when the time comes: so you need not fret about it." "I suppose papa will be absent for some time?” "Two months, I heard it said, at the least." Then Gertrude was silent, and tolerably contented. She should probably stay where she was for a few days at least, and she did not despair of obtaining her mother's permission to pay another visit to Audley Park before her father's return. In the afternoon Edgar came to see her, and made Mr. Lifford's excuses to Mr. Audley, not to Lady Clara, for the trouble that Gertrude occasioned in his house, and his apologies that his own sudden departure for Spain prevented him from calling to acknowledge in person their kindness to her. Mr. Audley, who had taken very little cognizance of the whole affair, was quite puzzled to find himself made so prominent in it, but he was very gracious and civil, and was sure it was a great pleasure to Lady Clara, and hoped Miss Lifford would stay with them as long as possible, and all sorts of kind expressions; and then Edgar met his father at the station, and nothing passed between them beyond a brief question whether Gertrude was going on well, with the affirmative answer, which was received without comment; and both were that night. in London, and embarked the next day for Spain. It was Mr. Lifford's pride that had forced him to a piece of civility which cost him a great deal, but which he 1 was too well-bred to omit: but it seemed to him as if Gertrude was destined to be a perpetual source of annoyance, and that chance had now connected her with the plague spot which had been so long festering in his heart. Gertrude wrote little gay affectionate notes to her mother, in which she spoke of her enjoyment of the change of scene which her accident had so unexpectedly procured her of Lady Clara's great kindness, and wish to keep her as long as possible; but she added that as soon as she could, she must go home, and show her that she was well again and that in the meantime, she would write every day. With something between a smile and a sigh, Mrs. Lifford gave these notes to her uncle, who took snuff, "pshawed," and said, "Foolish people, all of you." Whom he exactly included in that general condemnation was not quite apparent, but Mrs. Lifford found safety in the number, and satisfied herself that at all events he did not blame her more severely than the rest, whoever they might be whom he so vaguely designated. CHAPTER XII. "Whence and what are we, to what end ordained? Is duty a mere sport, or an employ? COWPER. ON the third day after Gertrude's accident, Lady Clara was sitting writing letters in her morning-room, which opened on one side on a conservatory which formed a kind of drawing-room, and on the other on a library where several of her guests were assembled. The three Miss Apleys were sitting round a table, one of them occupied with some abstruse embroidery, another with a design for a flower-garden, and the third, Harriet, alias Cherry, with a music-book, into which she was copying German waltzes. Mrs. Crofton and Mrs. Apley were reading the newspapers near the window, several men were lounging about the room, and the sound of billiard-balls in the one beyond it indicated that others were killing time in a somewhat more active manner. "Harriet," said Mrs. Crofton, "have you been to Miss Lifford, yet?" "O yes, I went up to her room last night, after dinner; she is looking prettier than ever." "O, do you think so, Harriet?" exclaimed Fanny, the next sister, "I was disappointed with her. Have you never observed that her teeth are not quite even?" "I never knew any one like you, Fanny, for detecting faults," said Mark Apley, who was picking off the leaves of a tall geranium that was apparently growing out of the middle of an ottoman, on which he was stretched out nearly at full length. "If there is a spot, a blot, a flaw in anything, you are sure to pounce upon it. Now, Cherry likes to admire, and I think she is right." Fanny put down her pen, for she was the copier of music; and going up to him, said something in a low voice which made him laugh and colour, and say, but not angrily, "Leave me alone, don't spoil the button of my coat. Come and look at them playing at billiards." "No, I will not! your friend Adrien is conceited enough already, without our going to stare at him.” "O Miss Fanny, it would be lucky for you if you had but half as little conceit in your foolish little head as there is in his wise one." "You are so entiché with him." "Don't use French words, like Lady Roslyn is so affected." "You do not call her affected, do you?" - it "If she is affected," Mrs. Crofton said, "I think she must have been born so. I have no doubt that in the nursery she cried out for a tartine instead of for bread and butter, like other children." Mr. Latimer, one of the men who had been reading before the fire-place, put down his book and said, "There are some people whom nature has provided with stilts, and they may be very charming in their way, but it never answers to provide them for one's self." "There, now," Mark said, "don't you attempt to get upon them, little Fanny; you are a great love in your way, but in no other way, and certainly not in Lady Roslyn's, whom you as little resemble as your pretty Fido Lady Clara's greyhound. Are you angry, little woman?” "Tout autre que mon [frère] l'eût éprouvé sur l'heure," she answered with a smile. "There is a bit of downright French; you don't object to that, do you? And now," she added, in a low voice, "let us go to the billiard-room, and learn grace from Mr. Crofton, dignity from Mr. Ashton, and every earthly perfection from M. Adrien d'Arberg." The last person whom she alluded to was standing near the window when they entered the room, absorbed at that minute in his own thoughts, which Fanny somewhat unreasonably always ascribed to con |