So a treacherous appearance of calm and happiness existed at the Deane during the months which succeeded the departure of the friends, and none but those concerned were aware of two circumstances which had entirely changed the lives of the bright and beautiful sisters. One was the fact that Eleanor Baldwin was secretly betrothed to Robert Meredith, with the understanding that on her coming of age she would marry him, with or without the consent of her relatives. The other was that the plodding industrious barrister George Ritherdon, who carried back to his chambers in the Temple more than one unaccustomed sensation, had taken with him, unconsciously, the unasked heart of the young mistress of the Deane. CHAPTER VII. DRIFTING. With the commencement of the season, Major and Mrs. Carteret and their nieces followed the multitude to London. This proceeding was but little in accordance with the wishes of Gertrude Baldwin, who loved her home and her dependents, the pleasant routine of her country duties and recreations; but she could not oppose herself to the general opinion that it was the right thing to do, in which even Mr. Dugdale, her great support and ally, agreed with the others. In her capacity of woman of fashion, Mrs. Carteret was quite shocked that Gertrude should have passed her twenty-first year without coming out in proper style in London; but in that of chaperone, or, as she called it, maternal friend to a great heiress, she had recognised the wisdom and propriety of permitting her to attain to years of discretion before she should be formally delivered over to the wiles of the fortune-hunters and the perils of the "great world." Not but that there were fortune-hunters in Scotland, witness the Honourable Matthew Dort; but Gertrude was not likely to be bewildered by their devices in the sober atmosphere of her home.