"She has succeeded, then, admirably," replied Edward, laughing, "for the little rogue has not much shyness in him now. Herbert and Mary have got that corner all to themselves; I should like to go slily behind them, and find out what they are talking about." "Try and remember what you used to talk about to your partners in this very room, some twenty years back, and perhaps recollection will satisfy your curiosity," said Lady St. Eval, smiling, but faintly, however; the names Herbert and Mary had recalled a time when those names had often been joined before, and the silent prayer arose that their fates might not resemble those whose names they bore, that they might be spared a longer time to bless those who loved them. "Twenty years back, Caroline, what an undertaking. Allan is more like the madcap I was then, so I can better enter into his feelings of pleasure. By-the-bye, why are not Mrs. Cameron's family here to-night? I half expected to meet them here yesterday." "They spend this season with Sir Walter and Lady Cameron in Scotland," replied Lady St. Eval. "Florence declared she would take no excuse; the Marquis and Marchioness of Malvern, with Emily and Louis, are there also, and Lady Alford is to join them in a week or two." "You were there last summer, were you not?" "We were. They are one of the happiest couples I know, and their estate is most beautiful. Florence declares that, were Sir Walter Scott still living, she intended to have made him take her for a heroine, her husband for a hero, and transport them some centuries back, to figure on that same romantic estate in some very exciting scenes." "Had he killed Cameron's first love and rendered him desperate, and made Florence some consoling spirit, to remove his despair, instead of making him so unromantically enabled to conquer his passion, because unreturned. Why I could make as good a story as Sir Walter himself; if she will reward me liberally, I will set about it." "It will never do, Lord Delmont, it is much too common-place," said Mrs. Percy Hamilton, smiling. "It is a very improper question, I allow, but who was Sir Walter's first love?" "Do you not know? A certain friend of yours whom I torment, by declaring she is invulnerable to the little god's arrows," he answered, joyously. "She may be invulnerable to Cupid, but certainly not to any other kind of love," remarked Lady St. Eval, as she smilingly pointed out to Mrs. Percy's notice Miss Fortescue, surrounded by a group of children, and bearing on her expressive countenance unanswerable evidences of her interest in the happiness of all around her. "And is it possible, after loving _her_ he could love another?" she exclaimed, in unfeigned astonishment. "Disagreeably unromantic, Louisa, is it not?" said Lord Delmont, laughing heartily; "but what was the poor man to do? Ellen was inexorable, and refused to bestow on him anything but her friendship."