The greeting between the two friends was very warm, and while it took place, Lady Anne's eyes were fixed upon Charles Marston's countenance with a keen and scrutinizing glance. As the secrets of all hearts are, of course, in the bosom of him who writes their history, I may very well aver that Lady Anne was anxious to discover whether Charles Marston was really as unconscious of the identity of Colonel Middleton and Henry Hayley as he appeared to be; but there was nothing in any part of his demeanour which could induce her to suppose that he entertained even a suspicion of the truth. "These men are strange beings!" she said to herself as she gazed. "Here are two girls who discover a fact at once, and an old woman who becomes very much puzzled, and very doubtful, evidently--for beloved aunt Fleetwood is clearly on thorns at this very moment with doubt and curiosity; and yet, quick, too rapid Charles Marston jumps over the truth, and lights a hundred yards beyond. Upon my life, I think women are creatures of instinct more than anything else!--although I do not know that it is a compliment to their understanding to suppose they share a gift peculiarly characteristic of beasts." The welcome was succeeded by general conversation; and, general conversation being the most tedious thing upon the face of the earth to all but the persons engaged in it, and very often to them likewise, there can be no necessity for repeating it here. Though the sweetest tempered woman in the world, Lady Fleetwood was in a mood for fretting herself; and, to say the truth, circumstances wonderfully assisted her. In the first place, she was evidently one too many. The party divided itself, naturally, into a quadrille without her; but it divided itself not according to her taste. Had Charles Marston attached himself to the side of his cousin, and his friend Colonel Middleton devoted all his attention to Lady Anne, she would have borne the awkward fact of her own superfluity with the utmost meekness and patience; but, very perversely, they chose to do quite the reverse of all this. Charles, in the window, carried on with Lady Anne Mellent what seemed to his good aunt a regular flirtation, while Maria was left entirely to the attentions of Colonel Middleton. Still, as the reader may suppose, no four persons could have been more perfectly contented with their position than these four, could Lady Fleetwood have been contented to let them alone, and not tried to arrange matters better; but she first joined in the conversation of one party, and then interrupted that of another, taking care to choose the exact moment when something of importance was to be said, or some word of affection to be spoken, which was most willing to hide itself from listening ears.