"Receive the people tonight in his place! Why, we cannot do so, colonel. Did you forget that we dine with those people at Hounslow? It's hard to say at _what_ time we shall get back." Colonel Hope looked a little perplexed too. "I did forget it," he said in his solemn way. "What is to be done?" "Let mamma be here early and receive them," suggested Lady Frances. "I will help her." It was an excellent solution of the difficulty. Mr. and Mrs. Didnum took their departure; and Lady Sarah Hope, accompanied by Frances, entered her carriage and ordered it to Chenevix House. The colonel walked away to his club. Lady Acorn was alone when they entered. She listened to the news her daughters told her of her son-in-law's being summoned away, and of the request that she would take his place that night, and receive his guests. "I suppose I must," said she, in her tart way; "but I shall have to get round to Grosvenor Square at an inconveniently early hour. Something is sure to happen when you want things to go particularly smoothly. And now--who do you suppose is here?" continued Lady Acorn. "How can we tell, mamma?" cried Frances, before Sarah had time to speak. "Mary?" "No; Adela." "_Adela!_" The countess nodded. "She and MacIvor arrived here this morning by the Scotch mail. Sandy had an unexpected summons to London, from the lawyers who are acting for him in the action about that small property he lays claim to; and when he was starting from home, nothing would do for Adela, it seems, but she must accompany him." "Has Harriet come also?" asked Lady Sarah. "No. Sandy goes back in a day or two." "And Adela? Does she return with him?" "_I_ don't know. Sir Sandy says she seems miserable with them, and he thinks she will be miserable everywhere." "Where is she?" asked Frances. "Upstairs somewhere: Grace is with her. Grace pities and soothes her just as though she were a martyr--instead of a silly woman who has wilfully blighted her own happiness in life, and entailed no end of anxiety on us all." After their short stay in Paris in the spring, where we last saw Lady Adela, the MacIvors went straight to Scotland, avoiding London and the cost that would have attended a London season, which they could ill afford. Adela also shrank from that; she would have left them had they sojourned in the metropolis. They took up their abode in the Highlands, in the old castle that was the paternal stronghold of the MacIvors, which was utterly bleak, dull, and remote; and, here, for the past three months, Adela had been slowly dying of remorse.