In the present case, Lord Albert's disappointment brought back a livelier sense of the attachment he really felt for Lady Adeline, and awoke all those tender fears and reminiscences which cherish love, but which a too great security of possession had for the present blunted, or at least laid in abeyance. He now wondered how he could have suffered so much time to elapse without writing to her. He wondered, too, that he had not heard from her; she had not then missed the blank in his part of the correspondence; and it was evident some other interest had supplied that one in her heart.--He looked at her picture, as if he could read in that image an answer to these various surmises; but it was placid, and serene--it smiled as was her wont, and he felt displeased at the senseless portrait, for an expression which he could not have borne her to wear, had she really known what his fears and feelings were. He shut the case and pushed it from him;--he felt angry--and then ashamed--for conscience goaded him with its sting, and in turn questioned him, as to his right of indulging one such sensation against _her_, whom in fact he knew he had neglected: but all this process of mental analization was salutary, and as he came by degrees to know himself better, he was enabled to form a truer estimation, not only of the amiable person to whom he was bound by every tie of honour, but of the true nature of real worth. At length, on the fourth morning from that on which he met Lord Glenmore, he found in North Audley Street a note from Lady Adeline. "A note only!" he said, hastily breaking the seal. It was written from an inn on the road; it informed him that Lady Dunmelraise had borne the journey very ill, which had occasioned them to stop frequently; but that they would reach town she hoped on the following evening. Lord Albert turned quickly to the date, and found that it was of the preceding day, so that he might expect their arrival that very evening. A gleam of delightful anticipation now shed joy over his heart. We easily gloss over our own faults; and Lord Albert found all his self-reproaches for neglect and temporary coldness merged in the fondness he actually felt at that moment, and his present determination to abide by, and act upon this feeling, silenced all self-accusation. With a beating pulse, and an emotion he did not wish to quell, he determined on not leaving the house till he should once more have seen _his_ Adeline.