She would sit for hours in dreamy abstraction--sometimes she would weep unbidden tears--weep she could not tell why--would feel depressed, lonely, sad, without, attempting to assign a cause. Often would her cheek flush, and her bosom heave, while deep sighs burst from her breast; and she would look distastefully round her, rise, and with impatient manner, wander to some other spot, only to repeat her emotions and then return home, perhaps to seek her chamber and there relieve her surcharged heart by weeping. Suffering this strange soul-disturbance, she knew not wherefore. One day it was announced, to the discomfiture of Colonel Mires, that the Honorable Mr. Lester Vane had arrived, and craved the honour of paying his respects to Mr. Wilton and his daughter. The old man exhibited considerable pleasure at this arrival, and warmly welcomed his new guest. Flora’s reception of him, under the strong injunctions of her father, had rather too much display to please the Colonel, who could not help looking upon Vane with jealous misgivings. He met him with a cold and haughty reserve, which Vane perceived and returned with interest. At first, Lester Vane declared that he had arrived with the purpose only of paying a flying visit, but he suffered himself to be persuaded by Wilton into making a longer stay, and he very quickly gave Colonel Mires an opportunity of discovering that he was passionately smitten by Flora’s charms, and that he intended to win her, if he could. Colonel Mires grew deadly sick at heart, as the conviction--without the consolation of one poor doubt--forced itself upon him. The Honorable Lester Vane was a formidable rival. He was many years his junior; he was tall, well-formed, and possessed a handsome face; he was the son of a nobleman, and, some day, would be himself a lord. He could thus not only present a hand some person to the consideration of a young girl who had been for many years placed in a humble sphere, but could offer to her the prospect of becoming a titled lady--an inducement almost always of weight in feminine consideration. The Colonel, therefore, found that he had much, very much, to do to even maintain the ground he fancied he had gained, and very much more to oust a rival who had, as he believed, every advantage in his favour, and superior claims to his own in the struggle for Flora’s hand. Lester Vane had conceived a passionate attachment for the person of Flora--a burning, feverish attachment, with which pure love had little to do. Her beauty had taken his soul by storm, and absence from her had inflamed his imagination to an intensity he found it impossible to endure. Hence, in spite of certain other designs he had formed, and was determined upon accomplishing, he had felt himself compelled, on finding Wilton had left London, to follow him down to the country. He detected the position of Colonel Mires in an instant.