When Fanny, in return, inquired into the manner which Isabella had passed her time abroad, preparing her mind for a picture of conjugal bliss, and resolving to rejoice in the happiness of two people for whom she felt so sincere a friendship, her feelings were put to a very different trial from that which she anticipated. All Isabella’s descriptions were of the gay parties at Florence; the delightful riding parties from Rome; the agreeable Dukes, and Princes, and Cardinals, and Monsignores, they had met with: the brilliant fancy balls, the entertaining masquerades, the gorgeous fêtes, the select soirées, the exclusive _petits soupers_, and Fanny wondered that Lord Delaford should be grown so fond of dissipation. Yet she remarked than when he spoke of foreign scenes, he seldom dwelt on those which alone had formed the subject of Isabella’s descriptions. He frequently spoke of home and of rural occupations as delightful, and conversed with Sir Edward on the state of the agricultural interest, and that of the poor. On such occasions Isabella would laughingly interrupt him, and beg the gentlemen to be more gallant, and not to discuss subjects which could be of no possible interest to them. Fanny, who had been accustomed to consider attention to the humbler classes as one of the duties of the rich, could not help one day saying to her, when the gentlemen left the room, “But don’t you think, Isabella, it is rather interesting to us, who live in the country, to learn how one may do good, and not run the risk of doing mischief, when one wishes to be useful to one’s fellow creatures?” “But, my dear, you don’t imagine I am going to be buried in the country all my life, enacting the part of a Lady Bountiful at Fordborough Castle. I have no objection to supplying the money, but, as to staying to distribute it, I leave that to the clergyman’s wife, whose business it is to attend to that kind of thing.” “But Lord Delaford is so fond of the country, and he always talks of what he means to do at his own place. Depend upon it he means to live in the country a great part of the year; I have heard him say he thought it right.” “Oh, yes! You know it is never worth while to argue a point—I hold it out of the question for a man and wife to dispute; but I have not the least idea of letting him put these golden-age romantic notions in practice. Not that I have the least objection to the country at Christmas, or at Easter, or occasionally in the autumn, in a reasonable way; but, as for taking up my abode at Fordborough Castle, I shall not do it.” “But every thing is prepared for you now. He has had the drawing-room and saloon new furnished, and your own boudoir is made lovely!” “Oh, you know it could not be left as it was in my good mother-in-law’s time, with straight-backed chairs, and pembroke-tables; but I shan’t live there, you will see if I do.” “But, Isabella, I am convinced Lord Delaford wishes it.”