When Anthelia had attained her sixteenth year, her father deemed it necessary to introduce her to that human world of which she had hitherto seen so little, and for this purpose took a journey to London, where he was received by the surviving portion of his old acquaintance as a ghost returned from Acheron. The impression which the gay scenes of the metropolis made on the mind of Anthelia—to what illustrious characters she was introduced—‘and all she thought of all she saw,’—it would be foreign to our present purpose to detail; suffice it to say, that from this period Sir Henry regularly passed the winter in London and the summer in Westmoreland, till his daughter attained the age of twenty, about which period he died. Anthelia passed twelve months from this time in total seclusion at Melincourt, notwithstanding many pressing invitations from various match-making dowagers in London, who were solicitous to dispose of her according to their views of her advantage; in which how far their own was lost sight of it may not be difficult to determine. [Illustration: _A journey to London._] Among the numerous lovers who had hitherto sighed at her shrine, not one had succeeded in making the slightest impression on her heart; and during the twelve months of seclusion which elapsed from the death of her father to the commencement of this authentic history, they had all completely vanished from the tablet of her memory. Her knowledge of love was altogether theoretical; and her theory, being formed by the study of Italian poetry in the bosom of mountain solitude, naturally and necessarily pointed to a visionary model of excellence which it was very little likely the modern world could realise. The dowagers, at length despairing of drawing her from her retirement, respectively came to various resolutions for the accomplishment of their ends; some resolving to go in person to Melincourt, and exert all their powers of oratory to mould her to their wishes, and others instigating their several _protégés_ to set boldly forward in search of fortune, and lay siege to the castle and its mistress together. CHAPTER II FASHIONABLE ARRIVALS It was late in the afternoon of an autumnal day, when the elegant post-chariot of the Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney, a lady of high renown in the annals of match-making, turned the corner of a stupendous precipice in the narrow pass which formed the only access to the valley of Melincourt. This honourable lady was accompanied by her only daughter Miss Danaretta Contantina; which names, by the bye, appear to be female diminutives of the Italian words _danaro contante_, signifying _ready money_, and genteelly hinting to all fashionable Strephons, the only terms on which the _commodity_ so denominated would be disposed of, according to the universal practice of this liberal and enlightened generation, in that most commercial of all bargains, marriage.