"Pretty well," said the young lady, with just a slight tinge flushing her haughty cheek. "But no one, who has been a week in the same house with him, could fail to see all that." Miss Maubray herself, I am told, had hopes of Lord Wynderbroke about a year before, and was not amiably disposed towards him now, and looked on the triumph of Alice a little sourly; although something like the beginning of a real love had since stolen into her heart--not, perhaps, destined to be much more happy. "Lord Wynderbroke--I don't know him. Is that gentleman he whom I saw talking to Miss Arden in the music-room, I wonder? He's not actually thin, and he is not at all stout; he's a little above the middle height, and he stoops just a little. He appears past fifty, and his hair looks like an old-fashioned brown wig, brushed up into a sort of cone over his forehead. He seems a little formal, and very polite and smiling, with a flower in his button-hole; a blue coat; and he has a pair of those little gold Paris glasses, and was looking out through the window with them." "Had he a high nose?" "Yes, rather a thin, high nose, and his face is very brown." "Well, if he was all that, and had a brown face and a high nose, and was pretty near fifty-three, and very near Alice Arden, he was positively Lord Wynderbroke." "And has this been going on for some time, or is it a sudden thing?" "Both, I believe. It has been going on a long time, I believe, in old Sir Reginald's head; but it has come about, after all, rather suddenly; and my guardian says--Mr. David Arden, you know--that he has written a proposal in a letter to Sir Reginald, and you see how happy the young lady looks. So I think we may assume that the course of true love, for once, runs smooth--don't you?" "And I suppose there is no objection anywhere?" said Longcluse, smiling. "It is a pity he is not a little younger, perhaps." "I don't hear any complaints; let us rather rejoice he is not ten or twenty years older. I am sure it would not prevent his happiness, but it would heighten the ridicule. Are you one of Lady May Penrose's party to the Derby to-morrow?" inquired the young lady. "No; I haven't been asked." "Lord Wynderbroke is going." "Oh! of course he is." "I don't think Mr. David Arden likes it; but, of course, it is no business of his if other people are pleased. I wonder you did not hear all this from Richard Arden, you and he are so intimate." So said the young lady, looking very innocent. But I think she suspected more than she said. "No, I did not hear it," he said carelessly; "or, if I did, I forgot it. But do you blame the young lady?" "Blame her! not at all. Besides, I am not so sure that she knows." "How can you think so?" "Because I think she likes quite another person." "Really! And who is he?" "Can't you guess?" "Upon my honour, I can't."