At length the decisive moment came. Lord Delaford made his proposals to Isabella, and was accepted. Isabella herself, in all the flush and agitation of the event which decided her fate for life, came to Fanny’s room and told her what had happened,—not to triumph over her. No: she had of late been so completely occupied by her own feelings, that she had almost forgotten those she had suspected in Fanny, and she came simply in the fulness of her heart, to give vent to all the mingled emotions which every woman must experience on such an occasion. Fanny had for some time prepared herself for this termination to all her hopes and fears. Yet when the fact was certain, when she heard it with her own ears, it came upon her like a thunderbolt. She turned deadly pale; she thought that she was going to faint; but the recollection that she should be committed, not only to her successful rival, but through her to Lord Delaford himself, again restored her self-possession, and after a momentary struggle, which, thanks to the dim light of the embers over which they were sitting, and to the engrossing nature of Isabella’s own thoughts, escaped observation, she was able to say, “God grant you may both be as happy, as from the bottom of my heart I wish you both to be!” She spoke with earnestness and solemnity; and Isabella gazed on her for a moment with surprise. The tone was not exactly that in which young ladies usually converse upon such subjects, and Isabella’s former suspicions flashed across her mind. But she looked at Fanny’s tearless eyes, and satisfied herself that it was “only Fanny’s way. Her cousin always had a more serious turn of mind than most girls.” Perhaps she was as willing not to see, as Fanny was anxious to conceal, the true state of the case; for though her thirst of admiration might lead her to do that which was most painful to another, she was not more unfeeling than a coquette must necessarily be. Moreover, prosperous love opens and softens the heart, and for the time at least produces an amiable disposition of mind. Though consideration for Fanny could not have prevented her attempting to gain Lord Delaford, yet now that she had succeeded in her object, it would have been exceedingly distressing to her to know the pangs under which her gentle cousin was at this moment writhing. The half-hour bell rang. Isabella hurried away, and Fanny was left alone with her dreary, desolate, mortified, crushed, hopeless heart.