This was the first time Beauclerc had spoken in his friendly, cordial, natural manner, to her, since their incomprehensible misunderstanding. She was heartily glad it was over, and that he was come to himself again. And now they conversed very happily together for some time; though what they said might not be particularly worth recording. Lady Katrine was at Helen’s elbow before she perceived her “looking for her sac;” and Lady Castlefort came for her third volume, and gliding off, wished to all--“_Felice, felicissima notte_.” Neither of these sisters had ever liked Helen; she was too true for the one, and too good-natured for the other. Lady Katrine had always, even when she was quite a child, been jealous of Lady Cecilia’s affection for Helen; and now her indignation and disappointment were great at finding her established at Clarendon Park--to live with the Clarendons, to _go out_ with Lady Cecilia. Now, it had been the plan of both sisters, that Lady Katrine’s present visit should be eternal. How they would ever have managed to fasten her ladyship upon the General, even if Helen had been out of the question, need not now be considered. Their disappointment and dislike to Helen were as great as if she had been the only obstacle to the fulfilment of their scheme. These two sisters had never agreed-- --“Doom’d by Fate To live in all the elegance of hate;” and since Lady Castlefort’s marriage, the younger, the beautiful being now the successful lady of the ascendant, the elder writhed in all the combined miseries of jealousy and dependance, and an everyday lessening chance of bettering her condition. Lord Castlefort, too, for good reasons of his own, well remembered, detested Lady Katrine, and longed to shake her off. In this wish, at least, husband and wife united; but Lady Castlefort had no decent excuse for her ardent impatience to get rid of her sister. She had magnificent houses in town and country, ample room everywhere--but in her heart. She had the smallest heart conceivable, and the coldest; but had it been ever so large, or ever so warm, Lady Katrine was surely not the person to get into it, or into any heart, male or female: there was the despair. “If Katrine was but married--Mr. Churchill, suppose?” Faint was the _suppose_ in Lady Castlefort’s imagination. Not so the hope which rose in Lady Katrine’s mind the moment she saw him here. “How fortunate!” Her ladyship had now come to that no particular age, when a remarkable metaphysical phenomenon occurs; on one particular subject hope increases as all probability of success decreases. This aberration of intellect is usually observed to be greatest in very clever women; while Mr. Churchill, the flattered object of her present hope, knew how to manage with great innocence and modesty, and draw her on to overt acts of what is called flirtation.