“Before the captain proposed for her! How odd! dear! Suppose he should never propose for her, what a way she will be in after affronting my brother and all! And only think! she gives up the title, and the great Wigram estate, and every thing. Why, my brother says, uncle Wigram can’t live three months; and Lord Puckeridge’s title, too, will come to my brother, you know; and Amelia might have been Lady Puckeridge. Only think! did you ever know any thing so foolish?” “Never!” said Mrs. Beaumont; “but you know, my dear, so few girls have the sense you show in taking advice: they all will judge for themselves. But I’m most hurt by Amelia’s want of gratitude and delicacy towards _me_,” continued Mrs. Beaumont; “only conceive the difficulty and distress in which she has left me about your poor brother. Such a shock as the disappointment will be to him! And he may--though Heaven knows how little I deserve it--he may suspect--for men, when they are vexed and angry, will, you know, suspect even their best friends; he might, I say, suspect me of not being warm in his cause.” “Dear, no! I have always told him how kind you were, and how much you wished the thing; and of all people in the world he can’t blame you, dearest Mrs. Beaumont.” At this instant Mrs. Beaumont saw a glimpse of somebody in a bye-path of the shrubbery near them. “Hush! Take care! Who is that lurking there? Some listener! Who can it be?” Miss Hunter applied her glass to her eye, but could not make out who it was. “It is Lightbody, I declare,” said Mrs. Beaumont. “Softly,--let us not pretend to see him, and watch what he will do. It is of the greatest consequence to me to know whether he is a listener or not; so much as he is about the house.” An irresistible fit of giggling, which seized Miss Hunter at the odd way in which Lightbody walked, prevented Mrs. Beaumont’s trial of his curiosity. At the noise which the young lady made, Mr. Lightbody turned his head, and immediately advancing, with his accustomed mixture of effrontery and servility, said, that “he had executed Mrs. Beaumont’s commands, and that he had returned in hopes of getting a moment to say a word to her when she was at leisure, about something he had just learned from Mr. Palmer’s man Crichton, which it was of consequence she should know without delay.” “Oh, thank you, you best of creatures; but I know all that already.” “You know that Mr. Palmer does not go to-morrow?” “Yes; and am so rejoiced at it! Do, my dear Lightbody, go to Amelia and my son from me, and tell them that charming news. And after that, pray have the compassion to inquire if the post is not come in yet, and run over the papers, to see if you can find any thing about Walsingham’s prize.” Mr. Lightbody obeyed, but not with his usual alacrity. Mrs. Beaumont mused for a moment, and then said, “I do believe he was listening. What could he be doing there?”