Amongst Lady Laura's accomplishments was the polite art of driving. To-day she elected to drive a high phaeton with a pair of roans, and invited George Fairfax to take the seat beside her. Lady Geraldine had a headache, and had not appeared that morning; but had sent a message to her sister, to request that her indisposition, which was the merest trifle, might not prevent Mr. Fairfax going to the races. Mr. Fairfax at first seemed much inclined to remain at home, and perform garrison duty. "Geraldine will come downstairs presently, I daresay," he said to Lady Laura, "and we can have a quiet stroll in the gardens, while you are all away. I don't care a straw about the Mickleham races. Please leave me at home, Lady Laura." "But Geraldine begs that you will go. She'll keep her room all day, I've no doubt; she generally does, when she has one of her headaches. Every one is going, and I have set my heart on driving you. I want to hear what you think of the roans. Come, George, I really must insist upon it." She led him off to the phaeton triumphantly; while Frederick Armstrong was fain to find some vent for his admiration of his gifted wife's diplomacy in sundry winks and grins to the address of no one in particular, as he bustled to and fro between the terrace and the hall, arranging the mode and manner of the day's excursion--who was to be driven by whom, and so on. Clarissa found herself bestowed in a landau full of ladies, Barbara Fermor amongst them; and was very merry with these agreeable companions, who gave her no time to meditate upon that change in Mr. Fairfax's manner last night, which had troubled her a little in spite of her better sense. He was nothing to her, of course; an accidental acquaintance whom she might never see again after this visit; but he had known her brother, and he had been kind and sympathetic--so much so, that she would have been glad to think that he was really her friend. Perhaps, after all, there was very little cause that she should be perplexed or worried on account of his quiet avoidance of her that one evening; but then Clarissa Lovel was young and inexperienced, and thus apt to be hypersensitive, and easily disturbed about trifles. Having secured a comfortable _tete-a-tete_ with Mr. Fairfax, Lady Laura lost no time in improving the occasion. They were scarcely a mile from the Castle before she began to touch upon the subject of the intended marriage, lightly, and with an airy gaiety of manner which covered her real earnestness. "When is it to be, George?" she asked. "I really want to know something positive, on account of my own engagement and Fred's, which must all hinge more or less on this important business. There's no use in my talking to Geraldine, for she is really the most impracticable of beings, and I can never get her to say anything definite."