The avenue at Noone was not imposingly long, and in a few minutes Miss Dopping had turned the corner, and was almost at the hall door. Noone House was a straggling building, with no pretensions to beauty, dignity, or even antiquity--merely a big, grey mansion, with three rows of windows, and a glass porch, overlooking a low flat demesne, fringed with rows of dreary fir-trees. The back of Noone was flanked by a fine, old, seasoned garden, and many acres of worthless woods, which swarmed with rabbits. The land was poor and marshy--not to say boggy--neither useful nor ornamental, and the rabbits were an important item in Mrs. Redmond’s income. She was the widow of an idle Irish gentleman, with a magnificent pedigree and a meagre fortune, who had departed this life, leaving her two hundred a year and one fair daughter--and she had endeavoured to make the most of both. At eighteen, Isabel Redmond was a remarkably handsome girl, the cynosure of many eyes, as she and her mother paraded about in showy costumes, to the strains of a seaside band. She was unusually lively: she could sing pretty little French songs, and act and dance in a sprightly manner, and was taken up, and asked about, by discriminating matrons--with no unmarried daughters--and more than once had been upon the brink of an enviable match. Mrs. Redmond was ambitious, and her anticipations in the shape of a son-in-law modestly stopped just short of royalty. She strained every nerve--and she was an energetic woman--to dress her idol with fitting display, and to carry her into the most popular haunts of men (eligible men). Garrison towns, where cavalry were quartered, French watering places, and German spas, affected by rich and gouty bachelors, were visited in turn by Mrs. and Miss Redmond. These visits were brilliant, if brief; they generally made some gay, agreeable acquaintances--“birds of passage” like themselves, who voted them charming, and loudly regretted their departure--as did also their too trustful tradespeople, for Mrs. Redmond had a bad memory for small bills. She was an indefatigable chaperon, the most industrious and intriguing of her sex; and no galley slave, toiling at his oar, under the blazing Mediterranean sun, worked harder than she did at the business--the vital business--of keeping up appearances, and “getting Isabella settled.”