"Yes," she replied, "I liked the attention they proved; but that was all. _I_ meant no harm; and though Lady Tenderden frequently knew of the circumstance, she never reproved me for receiving them." "Did Lady Tenderden," exclaimed Lord Glenmore with surprise, "never tell you you were in the wrong, or, at least, imprudent?" "No--no," Lady Glenmore answered with some hesitation, and as if endeavouring to recollect herself. "You hesitate, Georgina. Did Lady Tenderden, I ask you pointedly, never make any remark on Mr. Leslie Winyard's attentions to you?" "Yes, yes; once she did say something." "What was it?" asked Lord Glenmore, with breathless impatience. "She told me that I should not encourage Mr. Leslie Winyard _alone_; that it was bad taste to have but one cavalier; that he would grow tired of me if I did not divide my preference." "Gracious heaven!" exclaimed Lord Glenmore, striking his hands together; "and is it to this guardianship that I have intrusted you?--But the picture, Georgina, the picture! tell me, how came the picture of that man in your possession?" "His picture!" repeated Lady Glenmore with surprise. "Yes," rejoined Lord Glenmore sternly; and taking it from beneath the papers, pointed to it. "Oh! I remember now; I had totally forgotten it. But one day, when I was writing, he came up to me. We had been talking, the evening before, of remembering people and their features in absence, and I had declared my inability to recall any one, however intimate, to my memory, when I did not see them; and then he said he could not bear me to forget him, and he would put his portrait in my _porte-feuille_, which I conclude he did; but indeed, indeed I have never looked at it or thought of it since;"--and she raised her eloquent eyes, streaming with tears, full in Lord Glenmore's face. The latter, during the whole of what had passed, felt that his wife was only the victim of the system of that society in which she had been cast. He could not for a moment believe that the expression of that genuine feeling which had been displayed could have been assumed,--that the undisguised truth had not been elicited in every word that had fallen from Lady Glenmore's lips,--that she had been led away by the vanity of a designing man's attention, and during a season, _perhaps_, of neglect on his part. How could he then, if his honour and her heart were still unpolluted, deal harshly by her? Lord Glenmore's views, on all subjects, were clear and decided; and from what he had elicited from Lady Glenmore, his purpose was fixed, provided she answered him satisfactorily on two points, and with the same ingenuous spirit, and the same conviction. Turning to her, therefore, with much solemnity, he said,