He released the hand he had taken instantly, and Miss Slingsby took a step away, but looked round, and returning at once, gave it back again, saying more gravely, "What is the use of any long history?--and yet it had better be too. I will take a walk with you when you like, for I must speak with you too--but not now: there's no time. So farewell for the present," and she left him. The dinner passed more quietly than Sir John Slingsby's dinners usually did. The baronet's spirits, which had risen immensely after the first pressure was taken off, fell again during the course of the day; and for the first time in his life, perhaps, he was grave and thoughtful throughout the evening. Isabella had her store of meditations, and so had Mary Clifford. The mother of the latter was calm and sedate as usual; and Doctor Miles dry and sententious; so that Beauchamp, happy in what he had done, and happy in the confidence of love, was now the gayest of the party. Thus the evening passed away, though not sadly, any thing but very merrily; and the whole party retired early to rest. The next morning early Beauchamp rose and went down to the drawing-room, but there was nobody there. One of the housemaids just passed out as he entered, and he waited for about a quarter of an hour with some impatience, gazing forth from the windows over the dewy slopes of the park, and thinking in his heart that Isabella was somewhat long. Now, to say the truth, she was longer than she might have been, for Isabella had been up and dressed some time; but there was a sort of hesitation, a timidity, a weak feeling of alarm, perhaps, which she had never known before. She shrank from the idea of going down to meet him, knowing that he was waiting for her. It would seem like a secret arrangement between them, she thought, and she took fright at the very idea. Then again, on the other hand, she fancied he might imagine she was treating him ill not to go, after the sort of promise she had made; then he had been so kind, so generous, so noble, that she could not treat him ill, nay not even by the appearance of a caprice. That settled the matter; and, after about a quarter of an hour's debating with herself, down she went. Her heart beat terribly; but Isabella was a girl, who, with all her gaiety and apparent lightness, had great command over herself; and that command in her short life had been often tried. She paused then for a moment or two at the door of the drawing-room, struggled with and overcame her agitation, and then went in with a face cleared, a light step, and a cheerful air. Her hand was in Beauchamp's in a moment, and after a few of the ordinary words of a first morning meeting, he asked, "Will you take a walk, dear Isabella, or shall we remain here?" "Do you not see bonnet on my head and shawl over my arm?" she said in a gay tone; "who would stay in the house on such a bright morning as this when they have a free hour before them?"