Several minutes elapsed before Augustus could make his way up to Selina, so closely was she surrounded by the unregarded throng; but when he did reach her, one short sentence expressed his delighted surprise at her new acquirement. "Do you think dear aunt Mary will be pleased too?" whispered Selina. Before he could give any answer to this simple query, gratifying as it doubly was by the sympathy it accidentally expressed to his feelings at the moment, Lady Eltondale approached, and applauded, in the strongest terms, her niece's performance. "Have you also learned to sing, Selina?" said Augustus, as he turned over the loose music that lay on the piano forte. Lady Eltondale hastily replied, with a slight emphasis, "Miss Seymour practises Italian music constantly:--Frederick will find, on his return, good singing is not confined to Italy." A cold weight fell on Augustus's heart;--the visions of happiness, that an instant before had fleeted over his mind, vanished like a charm. He gave a deep sigh, and, seemingly without design, turned towards Selina a duet that caught his eye. It was Mozart's arrangement of Metastasio's beautiful words:-- "Ah! perdona al primo affetto, Questo accento sconsigliato Colpa fu d'un labbro usato A cosi chiamarti ognor." Selina read the couplet, and casting her eyes over the following verse, coloured deeply at the application she involuntarily made of it. Lady Eltondale, who in the mean time had narrowly watched her changing countenance, roused her from her reverie by introducing to her at that moment Lord George Meredith, who was one of the young men who had been loudest in Miss Seymour's praise. His compliments were now however disregarded, as Selina looked anxiously round for Mordaunt--but he had disappeared. She fancied he had retired to one of the adjoining rooms, and made many excuses not only to her companions, but even to herself, for restlessly sauntering through them all. Sometimes she recollected she had left her fan behind; another time she persuaded herself Lady Eltondale wanted her;--but still the object she really sought was not to be found. By degrees she became painfully convinced he was actually gone. "It is very odd he should go away so abruptly," thought she; "I had a thousand things to say to him about aunt Mary." And then a confused idea occurring, that the pretty flirting girl, she had seen him talking to, had said something about going to a ball after Lady Eltondale's party, she mechanically retraced her steps, and finding she too had departed, a sickening depression came over her, and she retired to the boudoir to recover herself. But she was not long permitted to rest in peace:--Sir James Fenton, who, led by Lady Eltondale, entered the room laughing with all the exaggerated action that became his character, though not his figure, exclaimed, "Where is the Syren? Where is the goddess of the night?" Then on perceiving Selina, he resigned the