Lady Delacour got up, and went down to breakfast, in much uncertainty what to think of Miss Portman; but ashamed to let her into her mind, and still more afraid that Lord Delacour should suspect her of doing him the honour to be jealous, Belinda had not the least guess of what was really passing in her ladyship’s heart; she implicitly believed her expressions of complete indifference to her lord; and jealousy was the last feeling which Miss Portman would have attributed to Lady Delacour, because she unfortunately was not sufficiently aware that jealousy can exist without love. The idea of Lord Delacour as an object of attachment, or of a coronet as an object of ambition, or of her friend’s death as an object of joy, were so foreign to Belinda’s innocent mind, that it was scarcely possible she could decipher Lady Delacour’s thoughts. Her ladyship affected to be in “remarkable good spirits this morning,” declared that she had never felt so well since her illness, ordered her carriage as soon as breakfast was over, and said she would take Helena to Maillardet’s, to see the wonders of his little conjuror and his singing-bird. “Nothing equal to Maillardet’s singing-bird has ever been seen or heard of, my dear Helena, since the days of Aboulcasem’s peacock in the Persian Tales. Since Lady Anne Percival has not shown you these charming things, I must.” “But I hope you won’t tire yourself, mamma,” said the little girl. “I’m afraid you will,” said Belinda. “And you know, my dear,” added Lord Delacour, “that Miss Portman, who is so very obliging and good-natured, _could_ go just as well with Helena; and I am sure, _would_, rather than that you should tire yourself, or give yourself an unnecessary trouble.” “Miss Portman is very good,” answered Lady Delacour, hastily; “but I think it no unnecessary trouble to give my daughter any pleasure in my power. As to its tiring me, I am neither dead, nor dying, _yet_; for the rest, Miss Portman, who understands what is proper, blushes for you, as you see, my lord, when you propose that she, who is not _yet_ a married woman, should _chaperon_ a young lady. It is quite out of rule; and Mrs. Stanhope would be shocked if her niece could, or would, do such a thing to oblige any body.”