The dreams were not in the style of Dr. Young, though Lady Bell had been lately reading his “Night Thoughts,” and admiring them greatly, as everybody admired them then. The dreams implied rather a vague sense of waiting and of want, and of stirring in the unfathomable depths even of a girl’s nature. Was unruffled tranquillity, after all, the secret of life’s best fulfilment?—whether was it worse to have been torn by warring passions like Mrs. Sundon, or that passion should never be awakened in the dead calm within? Might not the last be a greater loss to Lady Bell than the first had proved to her friend? Was Lady Bell to pass through life and have adventures, be sad and glad, poor and in comparative affluence, friendless and with many friends, a wife and a widow, and her heart still remain void of a history? CHAPTER V. BOW BELLS AND THE FAMILY IN CLEVELAND COURT. “Bell,” said Mrs. Sundon one morning, looking up from a letter which she had been reading, “here is something for you. The Sundons of Sundon Green, who have always been on good terms with me, write to invite us to pay them a visit in town, as they have taken a house in Cleveland Court, St. James’s, for the winter and spring. What have I to do with town sights and gaieties till Caro is a finished young lady? But your day is only beginning. This invitation is the very thing for you, since I hate to think of you being moped up here continually.” Lady Bell protested that she did not pine for change, and that to spend her life with her beloved, excellent, agreeable Sunny ought to be more than enough for her, as it would at one time have been beyond her wildest wishes. But Mrs. Sundon was bent on the change for Lady Bell. “You have no friends of your own to take you out,” Mrs. Sundon pursued the theme, “but Lady Sundon will be quite pleased and proud to usher into the great world a young lady of title above that of a country baronet’s wife. She is a worthy, cordial soul, in spite of weakness for rank, and will be really kind to you.” Lady Bell tried to look indifferent, but her eyes sparkled, and Mrs. Sundon was resolute in carrying out the proposal. Nevertheless, Lady Bell was sentimental and almost rueful the night before she was to start for town, to which happily the Mayor of Lumley was bound in order to figure in a deputation, and Lady Bell with a young waiting-woman who was to be about her person, was to make the journey with the Mayor in his semi-official capacity.