Such a reverie as this boded ill for innocent Irene yonder, smiling at the keys of her harpsichord, her whole soul in the music, heedless of Lord Lavendale's compliments, neither valuing them nor fearing them, as easy in her simplicity as a woman of fashion after her seventh season: ill, too, for Irene boded Lavendale's musing, which tended to a determination to win the heiress, and repair his fortunes with one triumphant stroke. He had been told of that great _coup_ made by Mr. Bosworth during the South Sea craze--how he had bought largely when the shares were first issued; held gingerly, always on the alert for a catastrophe; and how he had played a vigorous part with the bulls in sending up the value of the stock to an almost fabulous point, and just when the town was maddest had sold his shares for exactly ten times the price at which he had bought them. "God help the wretches who bought that rotten stock!" thought Lavendale. "He only knows how the blood of suicides and the tears of orphans may have stained that worthless paper--but that is Bosworth's business and not mine. She is the prettiest, sweetest soul I have seen for ages, and what would Lady Judith say if I faced her at fête or ridotto with such beauty and freshness hanging on my arm, and a fortune behind it? That proud soul would be humbled at the thought of my triumph. I shall never forget her insolence as she passed me in the Park. Her pride infected the air of London for me. I would not go back to town if she were there; but the papers tell me she is queening it at Topsparkle's Abbey in Hampshire, with a houseful of grand company, all the old Tories and out-of-office gentry flattering and fawning upon her, and manoeuvring for her husband's half-dozen boroughs." Lord Lavendale's coach was announced at ten o'clock, and the two gentlemen took their leave. "If you have more guns than birds next October, you and your friends are welcome to my pheasants, Lord Lavendale," said the Squire, as he escorted his neighbour to the hall. "I am no sportsman, and I keep no company. I hope we shall see more of you when you come back from town." "Nay, Mr. Bosworth, thirty miles is not an overwhelming distance. I think I shall take a leaf out of your book and oscillate 'twixt town and country. I have an old house in Bloomsbury which ought to be aired occasionally; and I have a place here that has been too long abandoned to rats and solitude. Pray do not think that you are rid of me till October." They parted with cordial hand-shakings, and an assurance on his lordship's part that there should be no difficulty about the peninsula of meadowland. "By Heaven, Herrick, she is an angel!" cried Lavendale, when he and his friend were snug in the coach. "You say that of every handsome woman you meet, from a duchess to a rope-dancer," growled Herrick.