The former was nearest to the door by which Charles entered. She received him with every appearance of affection, returned his embrace warmly, and expressed, with no lack of tenderness, the pleasure she felt at seeing him again; but not the slightest change of colour in the cheek betrayed any deeper emotion: no quivering of the lip, no trembling of the frame, showed the agitation inseparable from love. Not so Lady Anne Mellent: she sat still as stone while Charles was welcomed by his cousin; but a ray of joyful light, bright, and pure, and radiant, poured forth from her eyes, while her cheek became very pale, and her lips parted with a sigh that would not be suppressed. She was evidently a great deal agitated; but, with a degree of command over herself, which circumstances rendered more habitual with her than people generally believed, she overcame the emotion in a moment; and by the time the greeting of Maria was over, she was quite prepared to resume the gay and sparkling levity with which she often covered deeper feelings. "Do not come near me, Charles Marston," she said, as the young traveller approached; "I am determined not to speak to you. I cast you off--I abandon you! If I were a rich grandfather, I would cut you off with a shilling;" but at the same time she held out her hand to him, and it trembled as he took it. "Did you not promise to write to me continually," she asked, "and to tell me all your adventures? for I was quite sure you would get into all sorts of scrapes, and be delightfully near losing your life a hundred times. And now tell me, sir, have you written me a single word for six months?" "I wrote you two long letters--the last not three months ago," replied Charles Marston; "and you never condescended to answer either." "Because I never received them," replied Lady Anne; "but you will lay it all upon postmasters, of course." "You shall see the record and the dates in my journal, little infidel!" said Charles Marston in a low tone, and then added aloud, "but I did even more than all this. I was impudent enough to write to your merry old guardian, Sir Thomas Wickham, to ask him for your address." "And what did he say? what did he say?" exclaimed Lady Anne, laughing: "something very funny, I am sure." "He told me that he was not an astronomer," replied Charles Marston, "and could not at all calculate the transit of Venus; adding, in less figurative language, that he could not tell where you might happen to be, as he had never known for two hours consecutively in his life; but that, if he might venture a supposition, your ladyship was probably looking for me somewhere in Palestine or Crim Tartary." "My ladyship was doing nothing of the kind," answered Lady Anne. "But there is Colonel Middleton, exceedingly anxious to say civil things to you, while I should say nothing but what is uncivil--at least, till you have done penance; so go and speak to him."