The letters from Mr. Hamilton, of course, greatly increased the general hilarity, and the arrival of Mr. Grahame's family about the same time, added fresh zest to youthful enjoyment. In the few months she spent at Moorlands, Annie actually condescended to be agreeable. Percy, and some of Percy's boyish friends, now young men, as himself, were quite different to her usual society, and as she very well knew the only way to win Percy's even casual notice was to throw off her affectation and superciliousness as much as possible, she would do so, and be pleasing to an extent that surprised Mrs. Hamilton, who, always inclined to judge kindly, hoped more regarding Annie than she had done yet. Little could her pure mind conceive that, in addition to the pleasure of flirting with Percy, Annie acted in this manner actually to throw her off her guard, and so give her a wider field for her machinations when Caroline should enter the London world; a time to which, from her thirteenth year, she had secretly looked as the opportunity to make Caroline so conduct herself, as to cover her mother with shame and misery, and bring her fine plans of education to failure and contempt. Mrs. Greville and Mary were also constantly at the Hall, or having their friends with them; Herbert and Mary advancing in words or feelings not much farther than they had ever done as boy and girl, but still feeling and acknowledging to their mutual mothers that, next to them, they loved each other better than all the world, and enjoyed each other's society more than any other pleasure which life could offer. Excursions by land or water, sometimes on horseback, sometimes in the carriages, constant little family reunions, either at Oakwood, Moorlands, or Greville Manor, passed days and evenings most delightfully, to all but Ellen, who did not dare stay at home as often as inclination prompted, and whose forced gayety, when in society, did but increase the inward torture when alone. Mrs. Hamilton had as yet refrained from speaking to her--still trying to believe she must be mistaken, and there really was nothing strange about her. One morning, however, about a month after the young men had been at home, her attention was unavoidably arrested by hearing Percy gayly ask his cousin-- "Nelly, Tiny wrote me such a description of your birthday watch, that I quite forgot, I have been dying to see it all the time I have been at home; show it me now, there's a dear; it can not be much use to you, that's certain, for I have never seen you take it from its hiding-place." Ellen answered, almost inarticulately, it was not in her power to show it him. "Not in your power! You must be dreaming, Nell, as I think you are very often now. Why, what do you wear that chain, and seal and key for, if you have not your watch on too?"