‘Is my bath ready, Ellen?’ she inquired; ‘that is right. Well! you can go now and I will ring when I am ready to dress. Tell Brunell that I will have the Ralli cart at one.’ ‘Before luncheon, miss?’ said the maid. ‘At one o’clock, sharp! And don’t go out of the way; I shall want you in ten minutes.’ She turned the key of her door on the inside as the maid disappeared, and, sitting down before her writing-table, drew out pen and paper, and commenced to write a letter, which ran as follows:-- ‘DARLING,--There has been a row here this morning, and papa has forbidden me ever to speak to you again. What are we to do? I shall be at the Bouchers’ to-night, without fail. I must not dance with you, but, if you will be in the picture gallery after the fourth dance, I will contrive to speak to you. Oh, Fred, where is all this going to end? They shall never make me give you up, if you remain of the same mind, but open communication with you seems almost impossible. I can’t write any more, my head and my heart are both in a whirl. Ever your loving JENNY.’ She sealed this letter, and directed it to Frederick Walcheren, Esq., 308 Nevern Mansions, Earl’s Court, London, and placed it on one side. Her next concern was to see in what condition this unpleasant excitement had left her. But she found no reason to complain. The exercise of her temper had made her cheeks rosier, and lent an extra brightness to her eyes. She was glad of this--glad that she had not given way to the weakness of tears, and swelled up her eyelids and made her face look puffy. She might meet Frederick during her drive. He spent most of his spare time in wandering about Hampstead in the hopes of meeting her. But she seldom drove out until the afternoon. Still, there was just the chance of a _rencontre_ with her lover, and for that chance Jenny would have taken more trouble than this. When she came downstairs again, an hour later, dressed in a tailor-made suit of light fawn tweed, with her jaunty little felt hat on her head, and her hands in white doeskin driving-gloves, holding a handsome ivory-handled whip, few people would have guessed the state of excitement she was still in, she looked so fresh and lovely and smiling. In the hall she encountered her mother, who had heard the wheels of the Ralli cart draw up to the door. ‘Out so early, my darling?’ Mrs Crampton said, kindly; ‘where are you going to?’ ‘For a drive,’ answered the girl curtly. ‘But doesn’t it look a little like rain,’ continued her mother timidly, for she was half afraid of her idol, particularly when the idol was put out. ‘I don’t care if it does,’ replied Jenny, in the same tone; ‘I’m not made of sugar.’ ‘But take an umbrella, darling,’ said her mother, anxiously, ‘and let Brunell hold it over you, if it should be wet.’ But Miss Crampton rejected all her suggestions with scorn.