"He is so glad to have finished the Greek Loan," said Lady Catherine, smiling with a half malicious twinkle of the eye. Just at this instant another door opened, and Lady Jane appeared. Luckily for me, the increased mirth of the party, as Lord Callonby informed them of my blunder, prevented their paying any attention to me, for as I half sprung forward toward her, my agitation would have revealed to any observer, the whole state of my feelings. I took her hand which she extended to me, without speaking, and bowing deeply over it, raised my head and looked into her eyes, as if to read at one glance, my fate, and when I let fall her hand, I would not have exchanged my fortune for a kingdom. "You have heard, Jane, how our friend opened his campaign in Munich last night." "Oh, I hope, Mr. Lorrequer, they are only quizzing. You surely could not--" "Could not. What he could not--what he would not do, is beyond my calculation to make out," said Kilkee, laughing, "anything in life, from breaking an axletree to hoaxing a king;" I turned, as may be imagined, a deaf ear to this allusion, which really frightened me, not knowing how far Kilkee's information might lead, nor how he might feel disposed to use it. Lady Jane turned a half reproachful glance at me, as if rebuking my folly; but in the interest she thus took in me, I should not have bartered it for the smile of the proudest queen in Christendom. Breakfast over, Lord Callonby undertook to explain to the Court the blunder, by which I had unwittingly been betrayed into personating the newly arrived minister, and as the mistake was more of their causing than my own, my excuses were accepted, and when his lordship returned to the hotel, he brought with him an invitation for me to dine at Court in my own unaccredited character. By this time I had been carrying on the siege as briskly as circumstances permitted; Lady Callonby being deeply interested in her newly arrived purchases, and Lady Catherine being good-natured enough to pretend to be so also, left me, at intervals, many opportunities of speaking to Lady Jane. As I feared that such occasions would not often present themselves, I determined on making the best use of my time, and at once led the conversation towards the goal I aimed at, by asking, "if Lady Jane had completely forgotten the wild cliffs and rocky coast of Clare, amid the tall mountains and glaciered peaks of the Tyrol?" "Far from it," she replied. "I have a most clear remembrance of bold Mogher and the rolling swell of the blue Atlantic, and long to feel its spray once more upon my cheek; but then, I knew it in childhood--your acquaintance with it was of a later date, and connected with fewer happy associations." "Fewer happy associations--how can you say so? Was it not there the brightest hours of my whole life were passed, was it not there I first met--" "Kilkee tells me," said Lady Jane, interrupting me shortly, "that Miss Bingham is extremely pretty."