What representations Egerton had thought proper to make to his wife, we are unable to say; but she appeared to resent something, as she never approached the dwelling or persons of her quondam associates, although in her heart she was dying to be on terms of intimacy with their titled friends. Her incorrigible mother was restrained by no such or any other consideration, and contrived to fasten on the Dowager and Lady Harriet a kind of bowing acquaintance, which she made great use of at the rooms. The Duke sought out the society of Emily wherever he could obtain it; and Mrs. Wilson thought her niece admitted his approaches with less reluctance than that of any other of the gentlemen around her. At first she was surprised, but a closer observation betrayed to her the latent cause. Derwent resembled Denbigh greatly in person and voice, although there were distinctions easily to be made on an acquaintance. The Duke had an air of command and hauteur that was never to be seen in his cousin. But his admiration of Emily he did not attempt to conceal; and, as he ever addressed her in the respectful language and identical voice of Denbigh, the observant widow easily perceived, that it was the remains of her attachment to the one that induced her niece to listen, with such evident pleasure, to the conversation of the other. The Duke of Derwent wanted many of the indispensable requisites of a husband, in the eyes of Mrs. Wilson; yet, as she thought Emily out of all danger at the present of any new attachment, she admitted the association, under no other restraint than the uniform propriety of all that Emily said or did. "Your niece will one day be a Duchess, Mrs. Wilson," whispered Lady Laura, as Derwent and Emily were running over a new poem one morning, in the lodgings of Sir Edward; the former reading a fine extract aloud so strikingly in the air and voice of Denbigh, as to call all the animation of the unconscious Emily into her expressive face. Mrs. Wilson sighed, as she reflected on the strength of those feelings which even principles and testimony had not been able wholly to subdue, as she answered-- "Not of Derwent, I believe. But how wonderfully the Duke resembles your husband at times," she added, entirely thrown off her guard. Lady Laura was evidently surprised. "Yes, at times he does; they are brothers' children, you know: the voice in all that connexion is remarkable. Pendennyss, though a degree further off in blood, possesses it; and Lady Harriet, you perceive, has the same characteristic; there has been some syren in the family, in days past."