There was a certain degree of agitation upon Eda's beautiful face, when the party from the library entered the room where she sat; but that agitation did not take one particle from the grace of her demeanour; and in a few minutes all were seated round the table. As usual, where there is a great deal of vanity, there was a certain portion of spite in Lord Kingsland's nature; and on the present occasion it did not sleep. Ho was mortified at losing the hand of the heiress of Brandon, and he took care to make the person who was likely to cause that loss feel all that was painful in his position to the utmost. Not, indeed, that he ever dreamed that Eda would give, or that Sir Arthur would suffer her to give, her hand to one who had been a convict; that was a thing quite out of the question, in his opinion. It might be supposed, therefore, that he would not easily be led to give up the pursuit in which he had engaged, as a marriage with the heiress had always been looked upon by him merely as a matter of convenience; but in every man's mind there is some peculiar prejudice of that sort commonly called crotchet, generally proceeding from vanity, and in his case decidedly so. He thought Eda Brandon exceedingly beautiful; but still he had not husbanded the fine feelings of the heart so carefully as to be capable of love. Nevertheless, Lord Kingsland would on no account have married a woman who had loved another. He did not like that any man on earth should be able to say of his wife, "She was once engaged to me;" and how much less would he have liked it to be said that Lady Kingsland had been in love with a _convict!_ As that could not be, the only consolation he could find under his little disappointment was to make Eda and Dudley feel that the latter had been a convict, and would ever by his fellow-men be regarded as a convict. He became exceedingly curious, on a sudden, about Van Dieman's Land, asked innumerable questions in regard to Hobart Town, and even ventured upon Norfolk Island. Convict discipline became a matter of great interest to him; and to hear him speak upon the subject, of which he knew nothing, one would have thought that he was a great philanthropical legislator. Dudley answered his questions with calm gravity; but yet he could not help feeling, with painful acuteness, that the world, the bitter, slanderous world, had got its fangs in his flesh, with a hold that nothing could shake off; that a stain had been placed upon his name most unjustly, which, though it might be erased, would still leave a trace behind.