“So she was. She did not behave with propriety, and mamma would not keep her longer. Papa did not like it very well, for he was bewitched with her pretty face, and they were good friends, so she left the box with him until she should be settled somewhere else. You know what happened after that, and we have never had an opportunity to return her property, which papa left in our keeping, until now.” “What did she do that was so very improper while she was with you?” he asked. “I have never heard.” “Really, Charles,” Isabel replied, flushing and pouting in a grieved way, “I do not like to enter into particulars quite so minutely; but if you must know, why, you must, I suppose. One day mamma and I were out on a shopping expedition, when we were obliged to return much earlier than we expected to. On entering the library, we found Miss Douglas lying in Wilbur’s arms, with apparently as much composure as if she were reclining upon a couch.” “Is that so!” exclaimed Sir Charles, much shocked. “She does not seem like such a person at all.” “Oh, no; and when mamma talked with her about it, she put on that haughty, queenly air which you noticed the other evening in London, and again this morning, and would listen to nothing.” “But did your father uphold her in this?” Sir Charles asked her, gravely. “Oh, no, indeed; but she had so bewitched Wilbur that he took all the blame upon himself, and told papa something so that he excused it, and she made him think she was the injured one, after all.” Isabel was almost frightened at herself as she coined these base falsehoods; but she felt that the truth must be concealed from him for the next two days at all hazards. If she could only bridge them over until the fatal vows were spoken, and she was once mistress of Vallingham Hall, all would be well. “I never would have believed her to be guilty of such indiscretions if you had not told me,” Sir Charles said, not yet wholly convinced, but greatly disturbed by the account. “No, you would not, nor any one else, she is so demure and ladylike,” Isabel hastened to say, with every appearance of fairness. “But she never met Mr. Dredmond, to my knowledge, more than three or four times in her life; and, to my mind, it does not look just right for her to run away to be married to him upon so short an acquaintance.” “That is so. It does not seem just the thing, I must confess. And I am surprised at Adrian, too. I thought him a man of more depth,” Sir Charles assented, gravely. Then, with a fond glance into the face of his betrothed, he asked: “But what did you wish of me? Can I do anything for you?” “Yes, indeed; but you nearly made me forget, with all your catechising,” she laughed, and then went on: “I find that my dress is altogether too loose, and I must have a seamstress to fix it immediately; then I find I neglected to get a pair of pearl-colored gloves to match my traveling suit. Would you mind riding over to the village to attend to it?”