As soon as Lord and Lady Avondale had quitted Castle Delaval, they returned to Allanwater, previous to their departure for England. Buchanan, as if to mark his still-continued resentment against Calantha, arrived at Castle Delaval, accompanied by some of his London acquaintance almost as soon as she had quitted it. He soon distinguished himself in that circle by his bold libertine manners, his daring opinions and his overbearing temper. He declared himself at utter enmity with all refinement, and professed his distaste for what is termed good society. It was not long, however, before Lady Margaret observed a strange and sudden alteration in her son’s manners and deportment:—he entered into every amusement proposed; he became more than usually condescending; and Alice Mac Allain, it was supposed, was the sole cause of his reform. Alice was credulous; and when she was first told that she was as fair as the opening rose, and soft and balmy as the summer breeze, she listened with delight to the flattering strain, and looked in the mirror to see if all she heard, were true. She beheld there a face, lovely as youth and glowing health could paint it, dimpling with ever-varying smiles, while hair, like threads of gold, curled in untaught ringlets over eyes of the lightest blue; and when she heard that she was loved, she could not bring herself to mistrust those vows which her own bosom was but too well prepared to receive. She had, perhaps, been won by the first who had attempted to gain her affections; but she fell into hands where falsehood had twined itself around the very heart’s core:—she learned to love in no common school, and one by one every principle and every thought was perverted; but it was not Buchanan who had to answer for her fall! She sunk into infamy, it is true, and ruin irreparable; but she passed through all the glowing course of passion and romance; nor awoke, till too late, from the dream which had deluded her.