“I’m very sorry, dear; but if you knew what pleasant dreams I’ve enjoyed, you would not wish to have dispelled them,” returned Laura demurely, though there was a fund of merriment gleaming in her dark eyes which Annie in her innocence did not perceive. Feeling, however, that under the circumstances her friend had no business to have been so very happy, even in her dreams, she answered somewhat pettishly-- “You have been more favoured than I have been. I went to bed cross and worried, and fretted over all my troubles again in my dreams. Laura dear,” she continued, “I want to say something to you, if I thought you would not be angry with me: I wish you--but can’t you guess what I’m going to say?” Miss Peyton shook her pretty head, and confirmed the conviction expressed by De Grandeville, that her family was of modern date, by repudiating any connection with the race of Odipus. So poor, sensitive Annie was forced to clothe her meaning in plain and unmistakable words, which she endeavoured to do by resuming-- “My cousin Charles, dear Laura--you know we were brought up together as children, and I love him as a brother; he is so kind-hearted and such a sweet temper; and of course I am aware he makes himself rather ridiculous sometimes with his indolence and affectation, but he has been so spoiled and flattered by the set he lives in--it is only manner--whenever he is really called upon to act, you have no notion what good sense and right feeling he displays. Dear Laura, I can’t bear to see him so unhappy!” At the beginning of this speech Miss Peyton coloured slightly; as it proceeded her eyes sparkled, and any one less occupied with their own feelings than was Annie Grant might have observed that tears glistened in them; but at its conclusion she observed in her usual quiet tone-- “I don’t believe Mr. Leicester is unhappy.” “Ah! you don’t know him as well as I do,” returned Annie, her cheeks glowing and her eyes beaming with the interest she took in the subject; “he was so wretched all yesterday evening; he ate no supper, and sat moping in corners, as unlike his natural, happy self as possible.” “Did you hear that he had ordered post-horses at eight o’clock this morning?” inquired Laura. “No! you don’t mean it!” exclaimed Annie, clasping her hands in dismay. “Oh, I hope he is not gone!” “You may depend upon it he is,” rejoined Miss Peyton, turning to the glass avowedly to smooth her glossy hair, which did not in the slightest degree require that process, but in reality to hide a smile. “He must be on his way to town by this time, _unless_ anything has occurred this morning to cause him to alter his determination.” “That is impossible,” returned Annie quickly; then adding in a tone of the deepest reproach, “Oh, Laura! how could you be so cruel as to let him go?” she burst into a flood of tears. And Laura, that heartless young hyæna of fashionable life, that savage specimen of the perfidious sex of whom a poet sings--