"It will be a hot day," and then she laughed at herself for talking so wide of her thoughts; and gazing into Maria's lovely eyes with a faint smile, she added, "Henry cannot be here till the day is at the hottest." Maria smiled in return, but it was a faint, fluttering smile, in which fear and hope were blended; for she was very, very anxious about him she loved. His confident and hopeful manner had not communicated courage to her woman's heart, and many an uneasy and apprehensive hour had she passed when thinking of the difficulties of his situation. Oh! how we love that which excites our anxiety! How the chasing hopes and fears, the cares, the watchfulness, bind the object of them to our heart!--and all these, during the last few days of her short existence, had Maria felt intensely for Henry Hayley. Whenever he was absent from her for any time, she was full of apprehensions for him: she expected to hear that he had been arrested, that the struggle which she dreaded had commenced, that the game of life or death was staked; and though she might preserve the external appearance of calmness, yet was the poor girl sadly moved within. Maria would not reply to her friend's words, for she feared her own self-possession; but nevertheless she was apparently calmer during that morning than Lady Anne herself. Her manner was composed; she spoke, she answered quietly; and it was only by an anxious look or a slight start, when she thought she heard the sound of carriage wheels, that she betrayed how much she felt at heart. Lady Anne, on the contrary, though her usual April mood was still present, was assuredly more inclined to be on the showery side of the sweet month than on the sunshiny. Sometimes she would talk wildly and laugh gaily; but at others she would sink into profound fits of thought, gaze forth into the vacant air, and answer questions quite astray. Even Lady Fleetwood seemed in a degree to feel the irritating effects of expectation. Once, in the middle of breakfast, without a word having been uttered regarding travels or travellers, she suddenly lifted her head and said, "I wonder at what hour they will arrive;" and some time afterwards, when walking for a moment on the terrace with Maria, she observed, in the same abrupt manner, "They will have a fine day for their arrival, at all events."