If Lord Delaford had been originally attracted by the unruffled placidity of her expression, he was infinitely more so by finding that his presence had the power of disturbing that placidity. Though he could not doubt that he possessed many qualities which might make him an object of preference to young ladies, and every adventitious qualification to make him approved of by the old; though he must have known he had been sighed for by daughters, and sought by mammas; still he was not one of those men who are piqued by coldness, and inflamed by the difficulty of winning the object. On the contrary, there was a natural diffidence about him which made him vulnerable to the attentions of women, and easily daunted by any appearance of disinclination. Fanny was too amiable and too humble ever to have felt jealous of her cousin, but she was not insensible to the pleasure of finding herself suddenly preferred by the one person whose favour all were desirous to gain. Every thing seemed to prosper to the utmost of her or her parents’ wishes. Lord Delaford became every day more serious in his attentions, and there appeared to be no reason why Fanny should not yield to the engrossing fascinations of a passion which, if felt for the first time at the age of twenty, combines with the freshness of a first love the depth and strength of which the more formed character is susceptible. In the mean time Isabella no longer found the same gratification in the insipid crowd of common-place admirers, whose suffrages had before elated her. She felt, truly enough, of how much more value were the sincere esteem and affection of one true heart, than all the frivolous admiration of people she did not care for; all her former conquests lost their value in her eyes; she, for the first time, felt herself the forgotten and neglected one. Vanity, like ambition, only becomes the more insatiable by being fed, and, as the single Mordecai, who refused to bow before the pomp of Haman, embittered all the glories of his triumph, so the one person who was proof against her charms outweighed, in her estimation, the herd who acknowledged their power. She had too much tact, too much knowledge of the world, too much spirit, to allow these feelings to be visible to the eyes of common observers. Lord Delaford and Fanny were so completely occupied with each other that they could not remark any thing about Isabella; but Lady Elmsley, with maternal quick-sightedness, perceived her mortification, and with pride, which may perhaps be pardoned in a mother, could not help being pleased that, at length, her daughter’s merits should be valued, as they deserved, above those of Isabella. Occasionally Isabella caught a glance of triumph which escaped from the eyes of Lady Elmsley, and she resolved to let slip no opportunity of gaining the attention of Lord Delaford.