Mr. Temple not unfrequently talked _by inch of candle_, and would have gone on, perhaps, for an hour, had not his wife, tapping him on the shoulder, told him it was time to return home: and, as is usually the case in parties in the country, the announcement of one carriage was the signal for the abrupt departure of the whole company; and though Mrs. Sullivan roared out in an audible voice, "Why, Cilly, you haven't a gone half through the hairs you practised this morning! Where's your bravo hair? and your polacker?" before the anxious mother had recapitulated half the catalogue, she found, equally to her surprise and dismay, that all her guests had disappeared, nearly as suddenly as Tam O'Shanter's companions, before he had finished his commendatory exclamations: "In an instant all was dark, And, "Out the hellish legion sallied." CHAPTER XII. Pure was her bosom, as the silver lake, Ere rising winds the ruffled waters shake; When the bright pageants of the morning sky Across the expansive mirror lightly fly, By vernal gales in quick succession driv'n, While the clear glass reflects the smile of Heav'n. HAYLEY. "What a delightful girl Miss Wildenheim is!" exclaimed Selina Seymour, as she sat at work in Mrs. Galton's dressing-room the day after she had dined at Webberly House.--"I am sure we shall become intimate friends; I never saw any body I admired half so much." Mrs. Galton coincided in Selina's praise of her new favourite; for though she was not equally prone to form "intimate friendships" at first sight, her penetration had led her to conceive nearly as favourable an opinion of Miss Wildenheim as Selina had expressed. Indeed, Mrs. Galton was particularly desirous of improving her acquaintance with Mrs. Sullivan's interesting ward; for though she was, in general, extremely suspicious of the friendships girls so frequently contract and break with equal precipitation, she was extremely anxious that Selina should meet with a suitable companion of her own sex; and the refined elegance of Miss Wildenheim's manners, the calmness of her deportment, and the good sense which all her observations evinced, led Mrs. Galton to hope, that from her society her beloved niece might derive as much advantage as satisfaction. But at the same time, she recollected, that a degree of mystery seemed to hang over Adelaide's situation; and, therefore, while she gave a willing assent to Selina's encomiums, she cautiously withheld her sanction to a sudden intimacy, until a longer acquaintance confirmed or destroyed her present prepossession in Miss Wildenheim's favour.