"My lady's compliments," said a tall voice on a level with Vincent's eyebrows: "will you please to step over and speak to her ladyship?" The startled Nonconformist raised his eyes. The big footman, whose happy privilege it was to wait upon that lady of his dreams, stood respectful by his side, and from the carriage opposite the fairest face in the world was beaming, the prettiest of hands waving to him. Vincent believed afterwards that he crossed the entire breadth of George Street in a single stride. "I am so glad to see you, Mr. Vincent," said Lady Western, giving him her hand; "I did so want to see you after the other night. Oh, how could you be _so_ clever and wicked--so wicked to your friends! Indeed, I shall never be pleased till you recant, and confess how wrong you were. I must tell you why I went that night. I could not tell what on earth to do with my brother, and I took him to amuse him; or else, you know, I never could have gone to hear the poor dear old Church attacked. And how violent you were too! Indeed I must not say how clever I thought it, or I should feel I was an enemy to the Church. Now I want you to dine with me, and I shall have somebody to come who will be a match for you. I am very fond of clever society, though there is so little of it in Carlingford. Tell me, will you come to-morrow? I am disengaged. Oh, pray, do! and Mr. Wentworth shall come too, and you shall fight." Lady Western clapped her pretty hands together with the greatest animation. As for Vincent, all the superior thoughts in which he would probably have indulged--the contrast he would have drawn between the desperate brother and this butterfly creature, fluttering on the edge of mysteries so dark and evil, had she been anybody else--deserted him totally in the present crisis. She was not anybody else--she was herself. The words that fell from those sweetest lips were of a half-divine simplicity to the bewildered young man. He would have gone off straightway to the end of the world if she had chosen to command him. All unwarned by his previous failure, paradise opened again to his delighted eyes. "And I want to consult you about our friend," said Lady Western; "it will be so kind of you to come. I am so pleased you have no engagement. I am sure you thought us very stupid last time; and I am stupid, I confess," added the beauty, turning those sweet eyes, which were more eloquent than genius, upon the slave who was reconquered by a glance; "but I like clever people dearly. Good-bye till to-morrow. I shall quite reckon upon to-morrow. Oh, there is Mr. Wentworth! John, call Mr. Wentworth to speak to me. Good morning--remember, half-past six--now, you must not forget."