mortification of the repetition, forbore to allude to the confidential speech in which he had explained to _a friend_ his motives for marrying; she hoped that he would soon console himself with some richer heiress, and she rejoiced to be disencumbered of him, and even of his coronet; for in this moment coronets seemed to her but paltry things--so much does the appearance of objects vary according to the medium through which they are viewed! Better satisfied with herself after this refusal of the earl, and in better spirits than she had been for some months, she flattered herself with the hopes that Frederick would call upon her again before he left Cheltenham; he would then know that Lord Bradstone was no longer her lover. She fell asleep full of these imaginations--dreamed of Frederick and Elmour Grove--but this was only a dream. The next day--and the next--and the next--passed without her seeing or hearing any thing of Frederick; and the fourth day, as she rode by the house where the Elmours had lodged, she saw put up in the parlour window an advertisement of “_Lodgings to be let_.” She was now convinced that Frederick had left Cheltenham--left it without thinking of her or of Lord Bradstone. The young Lady Bradstones observed that she scarcely spoke a word during the remainder of her morning’s ride. At night she was attacked with a feverish complaint: the image of the beautiful person whom she had seen in the coach that passed while she was walking with Frederick, was now continually before her eyes. She had made all the inquiries she could, to find out who that young lady might be; but this point could not be ascertained, because, though she described the lady accurately, she was not equally exact about the description of the carriage. The arms and livery had totally escaped her observation. The different conjectures that had been made by the various people to whom she had applied, and the voices in which their answers were given, ran in her head all this feverish night.