The Hon. Val did _not_ have as many offers as her aunt and chaperone had on the first flush of her pride in her anticipated. Young ladies, educated on the "best systems," are apt to be a trifle wearisome, and _don't_, somehow or other, take so well as the sedulous efforts of their pruners and trainers--the rarefied moral atmosphere of the conservatories, in which they are carefully screened from ordinary air, and the anxiety evinced lest the flower should ever forget itself, and sway naturally in the wind--deserve. But Cardonnel had gone mad after her, that perfect face of hers had done for him; and whatever Goodwood might be, _he_ was serious--he positively haunted the young beauty like her own shadow--he was leaning on the rails every morning of his life that she took her early ride--he sent her bouquets as lavishly as if he'd been a nursery gardener. By some species of private surveillance, or lover's clairvoyance, he knew beforehand where she would go, and was at the concert, fête, morning party, bazaar, or whatever it happened to be, as surely as was Lady Marabout herself. Poor Cardonnel was serious, and fiercely fearful of his all-powerful and entirely eligible rival; though greater friends than he and Goodwood had been, before this girl's face appeared on the world of Belgravia, never lounged arm-in-arm into Pratt's, or strolled down the "sweet shady side of Pall-Mall." Goodwood's attentions were very marked, too, even to eyes less willing to construe them so than Lady Marabout's. Goodwood himself, if chaffed on the subject, vouchsafed nothing; laughed, stroked his moustaches, or puffed his cigar, if he happened to have that blessed resource in all difficulties, and comforter under all embarrassments, between his lips at the moment; but decidedly he sought Valencia Valletort more, or, to speak more correctly, he shunned her less than he'd ever done any other young lady, and one or two Sunday mornings--_mirabile dictu!_--he was positively seen at St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, in the seat behind Lady Marabout's sittings. A fact which, combining as it did a brace of miracles at once, of early rising and unusual piety, set every Belgravienne in that fashionable sanctuary watching over the top of her illuminated prayer-book, to the utter destruction of her hopes and interruption of her orisons.