“Never, till your ladyship gives the drawing.” “There! there! let me go--audacious!” “Good morning to you, Mrs. Percy--Good bye, Caroline--Be at Lady Jane’s to-night, for I’m to be there.” Her ladyship ran off, and met Mrs. Crabstock on the stairs, with whom we leave her to make her peace as she pleases. “My dear Temple, I believe you are out of your senses,” said Alfred: “I never saw any man so importunate about a drawing that is not worth a straw--trembling with eagerness, and kneeling!--Caroline, what do you think Rosamond would have thought of all this?” “If she knew the whole, she would have thought I acted admirably,” said Mr. Temple. “But come, I have business.” Alfred took him into his study, and there the whole affair was explained. Mr. Temple had brought with him the specimen of the forgery to show to Alfred, and, upon comparing it with the handwriting on the cover of the letter on which the caricature was drawn, the similarity appeared to be strikingly exact. The cover, which had been stolen, as Lady Frances Arlington said, from Lady Trant’s _reticule_, was directed to Captain Nuttall. He was one of the persons to whom forged letters had been written, as appeared by the list which Lord Oldborough had left with Mr. Temple. The secretary was almost certain that his lordship had never written with his own hand to any Captain Nuttall; but this he could ask the moment he should see Lord Oldborough again. It seemed as if this paper had never been actually used as the cover of a letter, for it had no post-mark, seal, or wafer. Upon farther inspection, it was perceived that a _t_ had been left out in the name of _Nuttall_; and it appeared probable that the cover had been thrown aside, and a new one written, in consequence of this omission. But Alfred did not think it possible that Lady Trant could be the forger of these letters, because he had seen some of her ladyship’s notes of invitation to Caroline, and they were written in a wretched cramped hand. “But that cramped hand might be feigned to conceal the powers of penmanship,” said Mr. Temple. “Well! granting her ladyship’s talents were equal to the mere execution,” Alfred persisted in thinking she had not abilities sufficient to invent or combine all the parts of such a scheme. “She might be an accomplice, but she must have had a principal--and who could that principal be?” The same suspicion, the same person, came at the same moment into the heads of both gentlemen, as they sat looking at each other. “There is an intimacy between them,” said Alfred. “Recollect all the pains Lady Trant took for Mrs. Falconer about English Clay--they--” “Mrs. Falconer! But how could she possibly get at Lord Oldborough’s private seal--a seal that is always locked up--a seal never used to any common letter, never to any but those written by his own hand to some private friend, and on some very particular occasion? Since I have been with him I have not seen him use that seal three times.”