Among Lady Lundie’s other accomplishments the power of making disagreeable discoveries ranked high. At the dinner in the glade she had not failed to notice--what every body else had passed over--the absence at the festival of the hostess’s brother-in-law; and more remarkable still, the disappearance of a lady who was actually one of the guests staying in the house: in plainer words, the disappearance of Mrs. Glenarm. “Am I mistaken?” said her ladyship, lifting her eye-glass, and looking round the tables. “Surely there is a member of our party missing? I don’t see Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn.” “Geoffrey promised to be here. But he is not particularly attentive, as you may have noticed, to keeping engagements of this sort. Every thing is sacrificed to his training. We only see him at rare intervals now.” With that reply Mrs. Delamayn attempted to change the subject. Lady Lundie lifted her eye-glass, and looked round the tables for the second time. “Pardon me,” persisted her ladyship--“but is it possible that I have discovered another absentee? I don’t see Mrs. Glenarm. Yet surely she must be here! Mrs. Glenarm is not training for a foot-race. Do you see her? _I_ don’t.” “I missed her when we went out on the terrace, and I have not seen her since.” “Isn’t it very odd, dear Mrs. Delamayn?” “Our guests at Swanhaven, Lady Lundie, have perfect liberty to do as they please.” In those words Mrs. Delamayn (as she fondly imagined) dismissed the subject. But Lady Lundie’s robust curiosity proved unassailable by even the broadest hint. Carried away, in all probability, by the infection of merriment about her, her ladyship displayed unexpected reserves of vivacity. The mind declines to realize it; but it is not the less true that this majestic woman actually simpered! “Shall we put two and two together?” said Lady Lundie, with a ponderous playfulness wonderful to see. “Here, on the one hand, is Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn--a young single man. And here, on the other, is Mrs. Glenarm--a young widow. Rank on the side of the young single man; riches on the side of the young widow. And both mysteriously absent at the same time, from the same pleasant party. Ha, Mrs. Delamayn! should I guess wrong, if I guessed that _you_ will have a marriage in the family, too, before long?” Mrs. Delamayn looked a little annoyed. She had entered, with all her heart, into the conspiracy for making a match between Geoffrey and Mrs. Glenarm. But she was not prepared to own that the lady’s facility had (in spite of all attempts to conceal it from discovery) made the conspiracy obviously successful in ten days’ time. “I am not in the secrets of the lady and gentleman whom you mention,” she replied, dryly. A heavy body is slow to acquire movement--and slow to abandon movement, when once acquired. The playfulness of Lady Lundie, being essentially heavy, followed the same rule. She still persisted in being as lively as ever.