“And when shall we go to Fordborough Castle, Isabella?” “Heavens, Lord Delaford! London is just beginning to be agreeable. All the bores are gone, or going, and society is becoming really select, and every thing on an easy, sensible, pleasant footing. The sight we see opposite, gives one a delightful promise of what London will be! Don’t you hear that sound?” as the three carriages were set in motion, and rumbled heavily along the street. “Society will be as light and elastic when cleared of such heavy component parts, as the air after a thunder-storm!” “And have you not had enough of society yet? I am almost sick of my fellow-creatures’ faces, and yet I am no misanthrope! Do you not long to see green fields and trees and flowers, and to smell the sweet smells of the country?” “That is just the reason why I like water-parties, and excursions into the country, and Mrs. Clairville’s breakfasts, so much! How lovely the evening was as we rowed down the river from Richmond! and as for flowers, where can you see any half so beautiful as at Lady P——’s enchanting villa? You can have no taste, no refinement, if you do not doubly enjoy all the beauties of nature in the society of the most polished, the most gifted, in short, of the master spirits of the age! to say nothing of all the prettiest women.” “I do not wish to see all the pretty women;” and he added with some bitterness, “I only wish to see one woman, who, if she was as perfect in mind as she is in person, would be all-sufficient for my happiness; though,” and his tone changed to one of deep mortification, “I see how little I am so to hers,” and he left the room. Isabella was somewhat startled. Fanny looked at her with a beseeching face of woe, and eyes full of tears. “You are playing a dangerous game, Isabella. Heaven grant you may not repent it! You have nearly destroyed the happiness of one of the most perfect of human beings. Heaven grant you may not alter his nature too! Heaven grant that may remain unchanged! To see his kindly temper soured, his manly character degraded into the mere obsequious husband of a London fine lady,—I beg your pardon, Isabella, but it would indeed be a melancholy sight!” “You seem to take a very lively interest in his welfare,” answered Isabella, a little frightened at the effect she had produced on her husband, and consequently half inclined to be pettish. Fanny rejoined with warmth,— “Who can see one woman wilfully cast from her a fate which would be the summit of happiness to almost every other, and not feel warmly?” “Why, Fanny, I never saw you so animated; I believe you have fallen in love with him yourself, and are envying me this same fate of mine.” Fanny’s face became suddenly crimson. She had been carried away by her feelings—she had forgotten her own secret, she was so moved at seeing him mortified, and wounded, that she thought only of him.