"Oh, why--why did not you tell me sooner?" she said, earnestly clasping her hands. "Tell you so? How could I venture, penniless as I am, without a home to offer you,--how could I have the insane presumption to ask you to share poverty--penury with me, when splendour, rank, wealth were courting your acceptance?" "Oh, I despise these things! I always did! I never could care for money in all my life, and now!"--She stopped; her engagement rushed across her mind. She felt guilty of perjury and infidelity. De Molton, in his turn, stood confounded; he had done everything he had especially resolved not to do, and, mingled with the delight he could not help experiencing at the avowal which had almost escaped Lady Blanche's lips, he felt humiliated by the base part he had acted towards the friend to whom he had meant to devote himself. He struck his forehead, and exclaimed, "Oh, Lady Blanche, I am a wretch not worthy of a moment's regard! Do not waste a thought on me; forget me, or at least only remember me to bestow a sigh of pity on one who has been betrayed, by his love for you, into an act of ingratitude for which he abhors himself. Glenrith is my best friend,--he is the soul of honour, he--he is worthy of you!" Lady Blanche was frightened at what she had said--frightened at what she had listened to. Voices were heard approaching,--the door opened,--Captain De Molton rushed into the adjoining library. Lady Blanche seized her mother's basket, and left the room before she had time to perceive who the intruders were. As she ran up stairs, she met Lady Westhope. "What is the matter, Blanche?" exclaimed Lady Westhope, as her friend darted past her. "Mamma wants me," she hastily answered, as she took refuge in her mother's room. "Mamma! mamma!" she exclaimed, throwing herself breathless into a chair; "I am wretched, guilty, and miserable! I am the most unfortunate creature in the world!" "What possesses you, child? what is the matter?" replied Lady Falkingham, as she put down the untasted piece of toast she held in her hand. "Mamma! he loves me after all!" "Who, my dear?--what! Lord Glenrith? To be sure he does. I never saw a man more attached in my life!" "Poor dear Lord Glenrith, so he is! Oh, how little I deserve that he should be so! when I--oh, mamma, what will you think of me? I have almost owned that my affections are--at least I implied--Oh, mamma! what shall I do?" And poor Blanche wept bitterly. "Certainly, my dear Blanche, I do not consider it modest and becoming in any young woman to allow a man to perceive that he has acquired too much power over her heart; yet, as you are on the point of marriage, I think you need not blame yourself so very much. There should always be a certain reserve of manner and expression; but anxious as I am that women should preserve their dignity, and that no daughter of mine should condescend----" "Oh, mamma! you do not understand me: I never told Lord Glenrith I loved him."