"Really?" said Eleanor Portinscale, with the faintest suspicion of laughter in her eyes. "Poor Lady Catherine! I recollect last year that you and your sister-in-law were continually brewing some kind of rebellious mischief against her." "That is just the cause of the trouble now," responded Elizabeth. "My sister-in-law became engaged to Colonel Fitzwilliam last November; but I saw that they were both so extremely unhappy in their engagement that I was instrumental in breaking it off, and this happened only last week; so that is why Robert Fitzwilliam is looking ten years younger, Georgiana is sheltering safely at home, and Lady Catherine is furiously angry with everyone all round, especially with me." "I am sorry," said Lady Portinscale with gentle sympathy. "These things cannot be done without regrets and heartburnings. I hope it will mean real happiness for them both in the end." "One has to take that part of it on trust," was Elizabeth's answer; "in the meantime it has upset my husband dreadfully, and I am afraid he will never be quite reconciled to it until he sees Georgiana happily married to somebody who has at present not appeared on the scene." "I suppose she felt altogether disinclined for coming with you to Bath, else she might have met friends here who would have distracted her thoughts." "Yes; but, of course, she would not come, and I could hardly persuade her even to accept an invitation to go and stay with my sister Jane for part of the time that we shall be away. We left her in such terribly low spirits that it is really some consolation to see Colonel Fitzwilliam looking as if a weight had been taken off his mind. It would be a sad pity that we should all have got into hot water with Lady Catherine and nobody be a penny the better for it." Lady Portinscale smiled. "He is a very handsome man, and extraordinarily young-looking; he is nearly forty, is he not?" "Yes, one would not suspect him of it. There is Captain Wentworth talking to him now; they seem to come here every year. Mrs. Wentworth and Georgiana became rather friendly, and they correspond. But those relatives of hers are impossible! Why, what is going on? Lady Catherine seems to be carrying off Colonel Fitzwilliam; poor man, he was in such a congenial group! Whom can she be introducing him to? They are people I never saw before." "I do not know them myself, but I have several times seen them with Lady Catherine," replied Lady Portinscale. "They are called Ferrars; at least, one of them is Mrs. Ferrars, I am not sure which."