"Oh, if you mean to allude to Lady Adeline Seymour, I had understood that it was only that sort of engagement which might be dissolved or not, as the parties chose when they came to years of discretion; and as I had heard it whispered that Lady Adeline was attached to a young man who was much at Dunmelraise, and a _protégé_ of her mother's, a certain Mr. George Foley, who turned all the women's heads about two years ago in London (Lady Hamlet Vernon's among the rest, by the way), I could not suppose, seeing you very quietly here, that your heart was much engaged; and I thought I knew you too well to believe that you would ever marry (however much I hope you will make a prudent alliance) where love and esteem do not constitute a part of the compact." "My dear Glenmore, I see your kind intention, through this apparent carelessness of my feelings; but allow me to assure you, you are misinformed--a purer, truer, or more innocent creature does not exist than Lady Adeline Seymour; and though I have been separated lately from her, yet from my correspondence with herself, and from the invariable accounts I have received from others, I feel assured that the ingenuousness of her character would never allow her to have a thought concealed from her mother or myself in the momentous question between us. Oh no; when I look back to her every letter, the recollection brings conviction along with it of her heart being unchanged." Lord Albert spoke with an inward agitation which corresponded little with the confidence which his words expressed. His outward appearance, however, was calm; and Lord Glenmore, supposing he had been led into a very pardonable error, and wholly innocent of intentionally wounding his friend's feelings, proceeded-- "Well, if it is thus, D'Esterre, you are already a married man, I conceive; but be it so, that does not prevent your dining with me to-day--pray come." Lord Albert declined, saying gravely, "no! that cannot be; for I am in hourly expectation of Lady Adeline's arrival with her mother, who, I am sorry to add, comes to town on account of her health." A momentary pause ensued in the conversation; and Lord Albert, seemingly little inclined to renew the last topic or enter upon any new one, seized the opportunity of bidding his companion farewell, and they separated.