She took to inviting Pamela to a dish of chocolate in the sewing parlour at Hertford Street of a Saturday afternoon, promising her also a plate of those queen cakes “which my Lady’s still-room maid do turn out rather well, and which you’re so fond of, my dear.” These invitations Pamela accepted with increasing frequency; and if Lydia happened to be washing her Ladyship’s best lace caps or ironing out her ribbons, it was only becoming, from a niece to an aunt, that she should lend a hand, particularly considering the money obligations between them. But Pamela’s real reason for presenting herself at Hertford Street lay so deep down that it could scarcely be said that she acknowledged it even to herself. She was hankering for news of Jocelyn Bellairs; and at last, by an artful twist of the conversation, Miss Lydia was induced to drop a stray word in connection with him: “that rubbish! Her Ladyship had got a place for him at Bristol, with an India merchant,” and she hoped to goodness he’d keep steady, and they’d hear no more of him. That was the first item of information which Pamela gathered for her starving heart. She tried to tell herself what a relief it was not to have him hanging about, and how splendid that he should have work, and how sure she was that he, so clever, would now make a way for himself, even as she had done. But it was poor comfort! After two Saturdays wasted, she once more heard the beloved name mentioned: this time again in no uncertain tones of condemnation. My Lady was so put about. Lydia hadn’t known her so upset since the day my Lord was took up as a highwayman; and she the widow Bellairs and he Denis O’Hara. “That audacious young villain! He’s been making a regular popinjay of himself at Bath. There’s my Lady Nan Day, recovering from the measles, writes: ‘Your nephew, my dear, your nephew is the rage here; driving the most elegant curricle you ever saw with a pair of bloods, which, my Philip says, make his mouth water. Has he come into a fortune or not?’ writes my Lady Nan--and she was always a spiteful one--‘for he will need it,’ says she. ‘We was all mortal sorry that his horse, what he set such store by, failed at the Spring races.’ My Lady has wrote to him,” pursued Lydia, her green eyes maliciously fixed upon her niece, “to explain, for goodness gracious sake, ‘for unless he’s robbed the mail, Lydia,’ says she, ‘or been more successful on the highway than my poor Denis’--and that was what put it into my head, Pamela, my love--‘I’m very much afraid,’ she says, ‘’tis his master’s strong box he’s been at, and that will spell prison,’ she says, ‘and the name so well known.’ Oh, the shame of it!” “Shame indeed!” cried Pamela, her glance flashing back at Lydia’s taunt; she knew very well what gave such extra zest to these tales; but she, Pamela, was not one to wear her heart on her sleeve for an old magpie to peck at.