"Disagreeable people!" cried Miss Egerton, pettishly; "I wish some friendly whirlwind would take your lord and son out of the world together." "Sophia!" retorted her ladyship, with a grave air. "Rebuke me, Lady Tinemouth, if you like; I confess I am no Serena, and these trials of temper don't agree with my constitution. There," cried she, throwing a silver medal on the table, and laughing in spite of herself: "there is our passport; but I will send it back, and so break poor Coleman's heart." "Fie! Sophia," answered her ladyship, patting her half-angry cheeks; "would you owe to your petulance what was denied to your good humor?" "Then your ladyship will go!" exclaimed she, exultingly. "You have yielded; these sullens were a part of my stratagem, and I won't let you secede." Lady Tinemouth thought this would be a fair opportunity to show one of the theatres to her young friend, without involving him in expense or obligation, and accordingly she gave her consent. "Do you intend to favor us with your company, Lady Sara?" asked the countess, with a hope that she might refuse. Lady Sara, who had been standing silently at the window, rather proudly answered-- "Yes, madam, if you will honor me with your protection." Lady Tinemouth was the only one present who understood the resentment which these words conveyed; and, almost believing that she had gone too far, by implying suspicion, she approached her with a pleading anxiety of countenance. "Then, Lady Sara, perhaps you will dine with me? I mean to call on Miss Dorothy Somerset, and would invite her to be of the party." Lady Sara curtseyed her acceptance of the invitation, and, smiling, appeared to think no more of the matter. But she neither forgot it nor found herself able to forgive Lady Tinemouth for having betrayed her into a confidence which her own turbulent passions had made but too easy. She had listened unwillingly to the reasonable declaration of the countess, that her only way to retreat from an error which threatened criminality was to avoid the object. "When a married woman," observed her ladyship, in that confidential conference, "is so unhappy as to love any man besides her husband, her only safety rests in the resolution to quit his society, and to banish his image whenever it obtrudes." Lady Sara believed herself incapable of this exertion, and hated the woman who thought it necessary. By letter and conversation Lady Tinemouth tried to display in every possible light the enormity of giving encouragement to such an attachment, and ended with the unanswerable climax--the consideration of her duty to Heaven.