With regard to that simple-minded and rather benighted young lady, who was entirely ignorant of the great moral truth that over-indulgence is equally prejudicial to the grown-up among mankind as it is to children of a smaller growth, she scarcely knew how to make enough, (after the knowledge of what she considered his ill-usage,) of Arthur Vavasour. The way that she petted and coaxed, and yielded to, and made much of this not particularly humble-minded young gentleman, was, as the Yankees say, a caution. It was very nice, of course, and sweet, and flattering, and the object of all this worship ought, by rights, to have demonstrated unbounded gratitude, and have shown himself to be more deeply and ardently in love than ever; but for some reason or other--human nature is so thoroughly inscrutable that we can by no means account for this unsatisfactory result--Arthur’s affection for his unsuspecting and devoted _fiancée_ began to decrease in an inverse ratio to that which she so evidently entertained for him. Of this melancholy decadence he was himself, for a while, happily unconscious; indeed, it required the awakening within him of another love to arouse this _infidèle malgré lui_ to a proper sense of his position. The conviction that he is bound to marry one woman while his feelings, passions--call them what you will--are wrapped up in another, can never be agreeable to any man. Arthur Vavasour was no practised dissembler, and it was fully as much as he found himself able to effect to prevent Sophia Duberly, during a stay of four-and-twenty hours, from discovering the truth--namely, that though he was with her in the body, his thoughts--alas, for her!--were far away. CHAPTER XX. SOMETHING ABOUT “MILADY.” On the 23d of July, in the year 186--, the day remarkable as that on which Arthur Vavasour reached his twenty-first birthday, crowds of people of every degree, and all, as it seemed, on pleasure bent, were assembled in the park, and along the roads that led towards the beautiful “seat” known as belonging to the Earl of Guernsey. It was a pretty place--not “princely,” like Fairleigh, or frowning proudly in baronial grandeur, after the fashion of noble and time-honoured Gillingham; but, though inferior in magnificence to its more imposing neighbours, Danescourt was, after all, a mansion and estate not wholly unworthy the rank of its owners. Lady Guernsey, who was country born and bred (albeit one of the most popular women in England, and perfectly “at home” everywhere), was greatly attached to Danescourt. She was never so happy--so said those who knew her best, for Lady Guernsey was a person who talked very little about herself--as when, the London season being over, she could devote herself at “dear” Danescourt to her garden, her children, and her poor.