Meantime, Sir Henry had strolled out, leaning on the arm of Augustus: at last, after a silence unusually prolonged, the Baronet exclaimed, "Good Lord! bless my heart, who would have thought, this day se'ennight, that Bell and Lord Eltondale would have been come and gone again by this time?"--"She must have been very beautiful," returned Mordaunt. "Aye, she was once very handsome indeed," replied Sir Henry.--"Bless my heart, how time passes on! I remember the winter she was presented at Court, how much she was admired! and good Lord! how things come about: every body said she was to have been married to your uncle, Lord Osselstone, though, I believe, there was never any truth in the report. That was the very year you were born, Augustus, two-and-twenty years ago, last Michaelmas. I have never been in London since; and, please God, never shall!" Augustus had attended more to his own thoughts, than to Sir Henry's observations; and would perhaps have continued his reverie, had not the old man's silence had the effect of rousing him, which his conversation had not. "I think," said he, at last, "Selina is very like her aunt: her eyes, to be sure, sparkle more, and her countenance is more animated, but her figure is nearly the same, if she were but a very little taller."--"Aye," returned Sir Henry, with a sigh, "Selina will grow a great deal yet, I dare say.--Well, to be sure, who would have thought it? Bless my heart, she was but a child the other day: and then," he added, after a few moment's pause, "I wonder what sort of a chap that Frederick Elton is? I wonder will he like to play backgammon with me of an evening, as Selina does? Poor girl! he mustn't think of taking her to London, it would be the death of me, God help me!"