Lady Susan spoke again,—“It would be mere affectation in me, Captain Montgomery,” she said, “to pretend blindness to the state of your feelings, and I respect the motives that have prevented their open declaration—” Her ladyship looked down, paused, and trembled excessively. Voices were heard without. The party passed the paling gate, and moved along the little walk of the garden. Lady Susan looked in alarm towards the door, coloured very deeply, and said, in a hurried tone, and with a kind of smile that struggled with a few tears of mingled pleasure and shame, “It is rather hard, that I should have it to say, half unasked after all; yet, in favour of your motives, which I honour, I will say it—I am yours!” At this moment, the whole party flocked in, and filled up the little cottage room. Lady Susan snatched away her hand, which Edmund had been too much puzzled to resign, and resumed her spinning in a state of overwhelming confusion. Edmund stood rooted to the spot, looking and feeling, if possible, still more confounded; his colour mounting gradually as his perception of the truth cleared up, while his countenance became filled with expressions the most inexplicable! Lord Arandale, fortunately for Lady Susan, was too busy speaking to Julia about some of the beauties of the grounds to observe his daughter. But he addressed an ear that heard little of what he said. Julia, during the walk, had been wishing that Edmund would join them. She had observed him when going on before the rest of the party with Lady Susan, and, seemingly engaged in a conversation so earnest; and she had, even then, felt a slight unacknowledged sensation of uneasiness.