"Then I must esteem myself fortunate to have caught even this glimpse of you." "Oh, but I hope we shall see you in the country." They were both thrown off their guard by the suddenness of the meeting, and their looks and their manner proclaimed the state of their feelings as much as it was possible for them to do so, in descending the last ten steps of the private box entrance. But he had handed her into the carriage--the door was closed--she was gone--before he had time to answer the sort of half invitation contained in Lady Blanche's last words. Blanche had much to tell her mother; all she had heard--all she had seen, but not all she had felt. Lady Falkingham was reserved with her children; she was above all weaknesses herself, and never seemed to contemplate the possibility that younger minds might not be so well regulated, younger feelings might not be so sober and temperate, as her own. The summer passed quietly; Blanche rode with her father, gardened with her mother, and tried to think no more of a person who felt nothing for her. Had she not most unguardedly, most imprudently, almost invited him to Temple Loseley? She forgot that, not being acquainted with her parents, it was absolutely impossible he could act upon such a hint. She only remembered that she had advanced a step which had not been met by him, and she recalled what she had heard and read a thousand times, that a lover can generally create an opportunity for seeing his beloved; how much easier, then, to improve one that presents itself! The only conclusion, therefore, to be drawn was, that she was an object of perfect indifference to him. In September a party was collected for shooting; and, among others, Lord Glenrith accepted with joy and eagerness an invitation to Temple Loseley. Lord and Lady Falkingham rejoiced to see so fair a prospect opening before Blanche. Lord Glenrith was particularly good-tempered; he was heir to a fine property; there was not an objection to him. Lady Falkingham, whose health was very delicate, was much relieved by the idea that she need never again pass from twelve till four in the morning, seated on the blue sofas at Almack's, her head nodding with sleep under the plumes which she thought it her duty to place upon it.