About a year after Isabella’s arrival at Elmsley Priory, the society of that neighbourhood received a very animating addition in the young Lord Delaford, who, soon after his return from his travels, established himself at his beautiful Castle of Fordborough. He joined to the most prepossessing appearance and manners, an excellent character, considerable talents, and extensive possessions. He paid a visit to Sir Edward Elmsley, and of course Isabella counted upon him as her devoted slave, and thought such a conquest was not to be neglected. She was rather surprised that he handed the quiet Fanny to dinner, but she satisfactorily accounted for this circumstance by supposing he considered it a courtesy to which the young lady of the house was entitled. But when, in the course of the evening, he voluntarily seated himself by Fanny, and appeared interested by her conversation, she certainly was very much astonished, and not much pleased. To Lord Delaford, who had lately come into the country, wearied and disgusted with the dissipation of Paris, and the turmoil of London, the style, the vivacity, and even the beauty of Isabella, were too much what he had been in the habit of seeing every day, to possess any peculiar attractions for him; while the calm brow, the placid air, the perfect innocence and unconsciousness of Fanny’s manner, appeared to him as soothing and refreshing as the green trees and verdant meadows after the glare and confusion of the streets. In conversation he found her modest and well-informed, and he sought her society the next day and the next. By degrees his manner assumed a tone of admiration which, to a person accustomed as she was to be placed in the shade, had more than the usual effect attributed to admiration, that of enhancing the charms by which it was first excited. Those who imagine they do not please, often neglect the means by which they might do so; whereas, if they once become aware that all they say and do finds favour in the sight of others, they are no longer ashamed of being charming, or afraid to be agreeable. People in general were astonished at the wonderful improvement in Fanny, but her mother remarked that, when Lord Delaford entered the room, her soft brown eyes shone with a lustrous consciousness, that if he addressed her, the colour mounted in her pale and delicate complexion, and she understood full well the cause of this improvement.