A second spring arrived. To London they went again. The brilliancy of Lady Blanche's complexion was gone; her step had lost its elasticity, her figure something of its roundness. The last month or two had been to her a period of much uneasiness, much mortification. She had calculated that the intelligence of her marriage having been broken off, must have reached De Molton, and by this time she might have received from him a passionate expression of his joy and his devotion. Day after day elapsed and no letter arrived. It is impossible to say whether, suffering the pangs of (as she imagined) unrequited affection, she might not have found a remedy, as it were, in the very excess of the disease, had not a circumstance occurred which again excited hope. Even in woman, love can seldom exist if completely deprived of aliment, though it thrives upon the very smallest portion of sustenance imaginable. Blanche frequently met Lady Cumberworth and her daughters in society: the very sight of De Molton's mother caused a tremor and an agitation which roused her from the state of apathy into which she had fallen. Moreover, she often perceived Lady Cumberworth's eyes fixed upon her with a kind and motherly expression; and she even fancied she looked as if she longed to speak to her, although they had never been regularly introduced. Lady Falkingham watched with a jealous eye every symptom of intercourse with Lady Cumberworth; and if they found themselves within speaking distance of De Molton's mother, never failed to move to the other side of the room. One morning Lady Falkingham complained of a cold, and promulgated at breakfast that she should not go to Mrs. Baltimore's party that evening. Now Mrs. Baltimore was a relation and a particular friend of Lady Cumberworth's. Blanche quickly replied, "Oh, do not run any risk on my account, dear mamma! You know Lady Westhope can chaperon me." "Bless me, Blanche!" exclaimed her father; "you, wishing to go out, and your mother to stay at home! I am delighted to find young and old are resuming their natural characteristics." "Really, Blanche," said Lady Falkingham, "I think you are the most perverse girl I ever knew. Every evening I am obliged to urge you to go and dress, to drive you by force to the best parties in London; and the one only night I would rather stay at home, you are seized with such a fury of dissipation, that you wish to send all over the town to find a chaperon! Nothing I dislike so much as that a girl should be hawked about, one night with one person, and the next night with another!" "But surely, mamma, sending to Lady Westhope is not sending all over the town; and I was so long with her at Paris, that it is not like going out with a stranger." "Don't talk to me of Paris, Blanche, if you wish me to be able to eat any breakfast; the sample she gave of her chaperonage there, is not calculated to make me anxious to entrust you to her again!"