"Why so, Mrs. Seymour? I can sleep any where. There is a press bed in the little room; and I care not where I sleep, so I am but permitted to stay." Here she attempted to throw her arms fondly round me, while she repeated, "Do, there's a sweet woman, do let me stay!" "Impossible!" I replied, disengaging myself with a look of aversion from her embrace. On which she started up and exclaimed, "I am sure some one has been telling you stories of me, and you are set against me!" "There is no one in this house, Miss Jermyn, who would presume to say any thing to me against any guest of mine." "And pray, does Mr. Pendarves know I am to be sent away at a moment's warning?" "He does not yet know that you are going away at two day's notice, to make room for my mother, and that I may enjoy her society, after a long absence, uninterrupted." "Oh! if that be all, I will promise never to interrupt your _tête-à-têtes_." "They will not be _tête-à-têtes_: my husband will be of our party." "And pray," answered she with great sullenness, "how am I to go home? I am sure Mr. Pendarves will not approve of my going home in the stage without a protector." "Nor would his wife: and I will settle the mode of conveyance with him." "Oh! if I must go, I will see if I cannot settle that myself." At this moment my mother entered the room, and with her my husband; and Miss, to hide her disordered countenance, abruptly disappeared. "What is the matter with Miss Jermyn?" said Seymour: and I told him, but in a voice that was not as assured as I wished it to be. "So soon!" cried he, starting. "Is it not too sudden? Will it not look as if she was sent away in a hurry?" "Sent away in a hurry!" exclaimed my mother, looking earnestly in his face. "Why should any one suspect that?" "Oh, dear! No one ought, certainly; but after her having staid so long--However, I think she has been here long enough, and the sooner she goes the better." "Then, as you think thus, and her mother has long wished for her, her departure shall remain fixed for the day after to-morrow, and"--Here I was interrupted by Seymour's being called out of the room: he did not return for some minutes; when he did, he seemed disturbed. During his absence the nurse brought me my child; and both my mother and myself were too agreeably engaged with her to talk of Charlotte Jermyn. But Seymour's evident abstraction and uneasy countenance drew my mother's attention to him; and after a moment's thought she said, "That seems a very strange presuming girl, Seymour; and I really think with you it is time she were gone." "Oh, yes, certainly! and she is very willing to go." "So much the better," replied my mother; while I suppressed, for fear of alarming her suspicions, the "How do you know that?" which was on my lips; for, if her feelings were so changed, he must have changed them; and she it was who had desired him to be called out of the room.