"Certainly not so tastefully dressed," said Lady Annette; "these Swiss have so much the advantage of our peasantry; but she was a most interesting creature. And yet, Mr. Thornley," added her ladyship, who retained the taste for morality, "I fear the transaction did not turn out to her benefit. They had strange reports in that part of the country, and my niece and I have often observed her since we came to London." "Oh, aunt!" interposed Emma, "but she dressed and looked so--so--very properly. I am sure she has married some person of her choice, and lives happily. It would just complete her story." The mention of a story after dinner, in the height of the London season, is sufficient to wake up any drawing-room, and had its natural effect on Lady Annette's. "Oh, pray what was it?" demanded half a dozen voices; and Emma was of course obliged to relate the tale, with frequent applications for assistance to Mr. Thornley, whose replies, though always brief, were satisfactory, as he turned over the annual, apparently the least interested person in the room. When they had marveled sufficiently over her narrative, Lady Annette, being a little proud of Miss Leveson's sentiments, felt bound to acquaint them with the episode of the ring, which she had just finished when the first of the dining-room deserters straggled in. "The last time I saw her she looked sickly and careworn--far worse than that day we met her in the Park. You recollect it, Charles. We are speaking of Grace Greenside," said Emma, addressing her aunt's cousin, as he took the nearest seat. "What of her now?" said Charles, bending eagerly forward; but here Mr. Crainor interposed, with a petition that Emma would sing them that charming song with which she enchanted Lady Wharton's party, as he, and in fact the whole company, was dying to hear it. In less than five minutes, which were consumed in general pressing, Emma was conducted to the piano by Mr. Thornley. There was a deal of music, tea, chit-chat, and a breaking-up, but no more talk of Grace Greenside. "My dear boy," said Mr. Crainor, taking his nephew's arm with something of the warmth of wine in his manner, when they were fairly in the streets, it being eleven o'clock on a calm summer's night, and part of their way the same. "My dear boy, you are not aware of what injury you are doing to your best interests, as one may say, by keeping that girl so long about you. She has been notorious; and notorious people--women, I mean--are always dangerous. Weren't they talking of her at Lady Annette's to-night? Depend on it, the story will ooze out, you are so well known, and so much visited now. Then people will call you dissipated, and I can't tell what. Such tales always spoil a man's chances with advantageous ladies." "I was thinking of that myself," said Edmund; "but it's a delicate point, and one wouldn't like a scene, you know."