"Is he handsome?" asked Clara, with infinite _naïveté_, looking up earnestly at the doctor as she spoke. "As the Achilles of the ancients," replied the doctor. "Dear me, how I should like to see him!" said the little beauty, with the utmost simplicity:--"Should not you, Mr. Seymour?" "I cannot say I have any curiosity," returned Henry Seymour, having infinite difficulty to help laughing. "Dear me, how very odd!" said Clara, looking at him earnestly; "I do believe the doctor was only quizzing us, and that he's very ugly and disagreeable. Is he, Mr. Seymour?" The air and manner with which she put this question, quite destroyed the small remains of gravity Henry Seymour had till now with so much difficulty preserved; and, bursting into a violent fit of laughter, he rushed out of the room. Every body looked astonished, and Dr. Coleman embarrassed. After a short pause, however, he seemed to recover himself. "It is very strange the duke does not come," said he, pulling out his watch. "The council must be chosen before this; and they seldom stay to deliberate long at a first sitting." "I am miserable," cried Elvira. "If he should be ill!" "Shall I seek him?" asked Dr. Coleman; and, reading her assent in her countenance, he quitted the room. "The doctor is very obliging," said Sir Ambrose; "but he never did like Rosabella. He hated her father, and when Duke Edgar--but, I forget! his history is a secret which must rest for ever in my own breast." "Do tell _me_, uncle!" cried Clara coaxingly; "I should so like to hear it, and every body says you know all about him." "And what can his history have to do with such a little chit as you?" "I don't know," said Clara with the utmost innocence; "but I am sure I should like to hear it." "Why?" again asked Sir Ambrose. "Because every body says it is a secret," replied Clara, clinging round him, and fondly stroking his face;--"so do tell me, my dear uncle, pray do?" "You are a little coaxing witch," said Sir Ambrose, patting her long silky hair; "I would tell you any thing in reason, but the history of the father of Rosabella--" "Rosabella!" cried the duke, bursting into the apartment with the fury of a maniac--"Rosabella! who speaks of Rosabella? She is a wretch, a vile, insidious wretch! She has destroyed me--she has conspired to destroy my child!"