Miss Turnbull cannot properly be called a female fortune-hunter; but, to coin a new name for our heroine, which may be useful to designate a numerous class of her contemporaries, she was decidedly a female _title-hunter_. She accepted of the invitation to dinner, and, accompanied by a proper supporter in Mrs. Ingoldsby, went to Mrs. Wynne’s, dressed in the utmost extravagance of the mode, blazing in all the glory of diamonds, in hopes of striking admiration even unto awe upon the hearts of all beholders. Though she had been expressly invited to a _family party_, she considered that only as an humble country phrase to excuse, beforehand, any deficiency of magnificence. She had no doubt that the finest entertainment, and the finest company, Mrs. Wynne could procure or collect, would be prepared for her reception. She was somewhat surprised, especially as she came fashionably late, to find in the drawing-room only old Mrs. Wynne, her nephew, and a lady, who, from her dress and modest appearance, was evidently _nobody_. Miss Turnbull swept by her, though she had a disagreeable recollection of having somewhere seen this figure in a former state of existence. Mrs. Wynne, good soul! did not believe in wilful blindness, and she therefore said, with provoking simplicity, “Miss Turnbull, this is your good friend, Mrs. Henry Elmour--poor thing! she is sadly altered in her looks since you saw her, a gay rosy lass at Elmour Grove! But though her looks are changed, her heart, I can answer for it, is just the same as ever; and she remembers you with all the affection you could desire. She would not be like any other of her name, indeed, if she did otherwise. The Elmours were all so fond of you!” The name of Elmour, instead of having that irresistible charm, which Mrs. Wynne expected, over Almeria’s heart, produced a directly contrary effect. It recalled many associations that were painful to her pride; she was vexed to perceive that obligations and intimacies which she had forgotten, or which she wished to forget, were remembered so obstinately by others. All this passed in her mind whilst Mrs. Wynne was speaking. With a look of ill-humoured surprise, Almeria half rose from her seat, and, as Mrs. Henry Elmour was presented to her, uttered some phrases in an unintelligible voice, and then sunk back again on the sofa. Mrs. Wynne made room for the widow between her and Miss Turnbull--Mr. Wynne kept aloof--a dead silence ensued--and Miss Turnbull, seeing that in her present position there was nothing else to be done, condescended to hope that all Mrs. Henry Elmour’s friends in Yorkshire were well when she left them. Mrs. Wynne’s countenance brightened up, and she now addressed her conversation to Mrs. Ingoldsby, in order to leave the pair, whom she had destined to be friends, at perfect liberty to talk over “old times.”