Lady Glenmore's absence, it might almost be called alienation, from Lord and Lady Melcombe and the bosom of her own family, had been so gradual as scarcely to be perceptible. Had it been otherwise, she would have recoiled from the idea, and her excellent heart would have sufficed to guard her from so unnatural a fault; but the evil grew out of the circumstances in which she was placed, and increased without any appearance which could awaken a suspicion of its real tendency. She did not go to-day to Lady Melcombe, because Lady Tenderden, or Lady Tilney, or some other of her friends, had prevented her at the very moment she was stepping into her carriage; but she would go to-morrow: and when to-morrow came, fatigued with the ball or the assembly of the preceding evening, she did not rise till at so late an hour, that Lady Melcombe would be out, and it was in vain for her to go. When the evening in its turn came round, then some ceremonious diplomatic dinner, followed by the _soirées_ of the different members of her _coterie_, equally precluded her from fulfilling this duty. Thus one day passed on after another, and the rare and short visit to her parents, when it was paid, afforded no real communion of heart or thought. Yet all this happened not wilfully, not in positive indifference, or forgetfulness of natural affection, but arose, as it were, unavoidably, out of the life she led. Let it not excite surprise that this alienation had been productive of no alarm in the tender and affectionate hearts of Lord and Lady Melcombe. They, indeed, saw less of their daughter than they wished; but though they sometimes sighed over the "angel visits, few and far between," of their estranged child, still, in the indulgent fondness of their hearts, perhaps too in a mistaken pride, they found an excuse for her constantly living in a round of dissipation, partly from the pomp and circumstance attendant on the public situation which her husband held, and partly from thinking it natural that one so young, and gifted with external graces, should indulge in the pleasures that courted her on all sides. Another cause, too, existed, to render their separation an apparent consequence of her marriage. Lord and Lady Melcombe had not lived at any time on terms of intimacy with that circle which now exclusively formed their daughter's and Lord Glenmore's society; and a further barrier by this means stood between their meeting; but it was one which, if natural feelings had been allowed their proper influence, and had any advance been made to Lord and Lady Melcombe, on the part of those persons, towards their acquaintance, might easily have been removed.