The scene in the refreshment room was adverted to. “When you kindly spoke,” he said, “of the consolation I ought to derive from friendship, and of my disappointed hopes never having been well founded, how bitter were my feelings! I understood you to mean, coolly to inform me that, if I had ever entertained a hope of being acceptable to you, it was false and presumptuous! I almost felt resentment; for, shall I say it, Julia, I thought,” and he hesitated, “that you had not always treated me as—as honour and good feeling should have dictated to a woman, whose affections were engaged to another.” “And I,” said Julia, colouring, “could not help thinking you very unkind and unfeeling, indeed, in rejecting, in the scornful and almost angry manner you did, my—all our friendship, and saying that the hope of being accepted by Lady Susan, (as I supposed,) was all that, in your eyes, had given value to existence!” “Yes, Julia,” he said, “the hope I spoke of was, indeed, all that in my eyes gave value to existence!” When they had thus discussed points of tenderer interest, and at length seated themselves in an arbour particularly well calculated for the reception of lovers, Edmund, after a short silence, said, rather suddenly, “What must you have thought, Julia, of my interference about Lord Surrel?” “I was very much obliged,” she replied. “Why, nothing could have justified me,” he continued, “but the belief, not only of your attachment, but of your engagement, and of my being the sole person to whom that engagement had been confided. Why, what could you have supposed when I requested a private interview, and commenced questioning you on such a subject?” Julia did not reply; but she blushed, and looked away in so hurried a manner, that a sudden thought darted across the mind of Fitz-Ullin. He caught her hand, and looking in her face with the most curiously amused expression of countenance, said, “No, Julia, did you give my request the common interpretation?”