“There is no knowing. There is quite a little crowd below, and more are coming up every minute. If all these people are here on business, like you, there is no telling when it will be done.” Leaning forward to whisper, she added, “The Swallows are here, I see. Let me ask the girls to this window. I want you to see Sarah. I don’t call it seeing her, to sit in the park, and take a curtsey from her as she passes.” Nor did Richard: but he did not wish to be aiding and abetting in deceiving the poor girl. From this hour James’s head would be full of Miss Lee—— “Of Mary Lee! he never cared for her in London.” “Because he was taken up with other things then. At Fellbrow, he fell in love for want of better amusement——” “If I thought that——”—cried Fanny. “I do not mean but that he would be as angry as you, if he heard me say so. He is fully persuaded,—at least he was yesterday,—that he has lost his heart in that direction,” glancing towards the girls; “but before Christmas-day, he will find that he has it to lose again.” Fanny spoke not another word. She repeated again and again to herself how glad she was that she had warned Sarah against the infirmity of some of James’s purposes, though she had believed as fully as Sarah herself that he was really in love. She had prepared Sarah for his house never being finished,—for his betaking himself to the turf when he should be tired of the field,—for his putting a curate into his living, and carrying Sarah to London, never perhaps to visit A—— again: but that he would give up Sarah,—that is, that he did not really love her, was a danger that Fanny herself had not anticipated since she had witnessed the courtship. Her spirits were sunk fathoms deep in a moment.