"It is nothing," she said, with a strong but ineffectual effort to resume her usual calmness; "it is nothing, indeed, Colonel Alsager; a little silly woman's weakness--nothing more. I am over-tired, I think; we have been up later the last few nights, you know, and I am so totally unused to dissipation even of the mildest kind." "You will be better when you return to London, perhaps," said Laurence; "I have a strong notion that the marsh on this great Redmoor is anything but a sanitary adjunct to the property. I should really advise your getting back to town as soon as possible, now Parliament has met; and soon everybody will be there." In London, Laurence thought, Mrs. Hammond will at all events be out of the house, and in other gaiety there might be a chance of Mitford's getting rid of his infatuation. "Oh, I'm frightened at the very thought of returning to town; and yet, down here, there are--I mean--it's--how very silly of me!--you must excuse me, Colonel Alsager, I am anything but strong;" and poor Georgie's tears began to flow again. "So I see," said Laurence, in a very gentle tone. She had seated herself in one corner of a low brown morocco-leather couch that stood across the window. Hitherto he had been standing, but he now placed himself at the other end of the sofa. "I think," said he, bending forward, and speaking in the same low earnest voice,--"I think, dear Lady Mitford, that you will be disposed to give me credit for taking a deep and friendly interest in you." She looked at him through the tears that still stood in her splendid eyes--a frank, trusting, honest glance; and as he hesitated, she said, "I know it--I have proved it." "Then, though your sex is taught to believe that mine is thoroughly selfish and heartless,--never moving without some end for its own benefit in view,--you still believe that what I am about to say to you is dictated simply by the hope to serve you, the desire to see you happy?" She bowed her head, but did not speak this time. Her tears were gone, but there was a painful look of anxiety in her eyes, and the spasmodic motion of the muscles of the mouth betrayed her agitation.