The next morning, when, before her father left his room, Fanny altered the disposition of the furniture, and removed the things which so forcibly reminded them of her for whom they mourned, she felt it almost a sacrilegious act to touch them. Time, however, rolled on, and Sir Edward became calm and resigned; but Fanny’s spirits did not rally. She had fervently loved her mother; she missed her in every occupation, in every duty, in every amusement. Strange to say, her thoughts, which during her mother’s illness had been so completely weaned from the subject of her own disappointment, in her present quiet and solitude would revert to former scenes. She did not recur to the happy days of delusion, when she believed herself the object of Lord Delaford’s preference; she felt that would have been a sin: but she fancied that by dwelling only on recollections, in which the images of Lord Delaford and of Isabella were blended together, she was accustoming herself to the idea of their union, and preparing her mind for seeing them, as man and wife, when, on their return from the Continent, they were to pay their promised visit to the Priory. She forgot that, “En songeant qu’il faut l’oublier, Elle s’en souvient.” As she wandered about her lonely flower-garden, she at one time remembered how Lord Delaford had gathered some of the beautiful double dahlias, and had called Isabella’s attention to the rich blending of their various hues; how Isabella had laughingly twisted them into her hair: and how surpassingly beautiful she had looked when bending over the marble basin (she had used it, as nymphs of old, for her looking-glass,) while the evening sun just tipped her dark brown curls with a golden hue, and tinged her downy mantling cheek with a more mellow bloom. Fanny could almost fancy she again saw the eyes of rapturous admiration with which he watched her graceful action. At another time, if she were training the straggling honeysuckles over the treillage, she recollected how her hopes had received their death-blow, when, on entering the drawing-room before dinner, she found Lord Delaford and Isabella in their morning dress, still occupied in reducing the unruly tendrils to obedience; and how Isabella blushed to find it so late, and Lord Delaford insisted it must be Fanny who had mistaken the hour. In recollecting these circumstances, she again experienced the same painful feelings of mortification and despondency; she did not thus acquire forgetfulness, or indifference. After an absence of about a year, Lord and Lady Delaford announced their return to England, and their intention of finding themselves very shortly at the Priory. Fanny believed herself rejoiced at the intelligence, and began setting every thing in order for their arrival.