Penelope was not sufficiently ill to keep her apartment for any great length of time. The medical attendant thought it desirable that the patient should be amused as much as possible; the air also was recommended, and, if possible, a little change of scene. To all these suggestions prompt and immediate attention was paid. It was fortunate that the Earl of Smatterton had a residence in the immediate vicinity of London, and it was the intention of the family to spend the Christmas holidays there. It would therefore be very opportune to afford the young lady a change of air and scene: for from her childhood Penelope had never wandered beyond the two villages of Smatterton and Neverden. The proposal was made to her to accompany the family, and the proposal was made so kindly, she could not possibly refuse it, even had it not been agreeable. There was something perplexing to the inartificial and unsophisticated mind of Penelope Primrose, in the wonderful difference between fashionable manners under different circumstances. She had not the slightest doubt that Lord Smatterton and her ladyship were people of high fashion, nor could she have the least hesitation in concluding that the Duchess of Steeple Bumstead was also a woman of high fashion; but she recollected how rudely the Duchess had stared at her, and she had also a general feeling that many more persons of fashion at the select party had appeared, both in their manner towards her, and their deportment towards each other, absolutely disagreeable, unfeeling, and insolent. There also occurred to her recollection, amidst other thoughts of a similar nature, the impertinent and conceited airs which Lord Spoonbill had exhibited when she had formerly met him by accident; and she compared, with some degree of astonishment, his present very agreeable with his past very disagreeable manners. The day on which Lord Smatterton and his family removed to their suburban villa was the very day that saw Mr Primrose depart from Smatterton on his way to London. And if on this occasion we should, by way of being very sentimental and pathetic, say, “Little did they think, the one that the father was coming to town, and the other that the daughter was leaving it,”--we should be only saying what our readers might very readily conjecture to be the case without any assistance from us: but we should not be perhaps exceeding the limits of truth. For, in truth, it was a thought which actually did enter the mind of Mr Primrose just as he set out on his journey: feeling somewhat angry at the disappointment which he had experienced, he actually said to himself at the very moment that he entered the chaise: “Now I suppose, when I get to town, Lord Smatterton and his family will be gone out of town again.”