Fast as the four horses swept along, they hardly went quick enough for her impatience at last, when she remembered the grief and anxiety from which her brother was suffering at home. She tried to still herself, and be patient and quiet, knowing well that eagerness and impetuosity were not the qualities wanted on this occasion to carry her point. But, with all her efforts, every nerve was thrilling, and every pulse seemed beating through her frame, as they drove up to the Abbey; and engrossed in her own thoughts now, far away from recollections of herself, she was unconscious of her abstracted and very pensive air, and quite unaware of the glances cast on her, and the meaning looks interchanged by her companions. Charles and Victoria were very far indeed, from guessing what was the subject which occupied her mind; as far as Hilary herself was from supposing that they attributed her nervous and uneasy expression to pique at his manner, or jealousy of Miss Fielding. He left them in the hall, to go to Mr. Barham’s library, while the young ladies were shown into Isabel’s morning-room, where she and Lady Margaret were sitting together. Miss Barham’s reception was a very warm one; she was delighted to find Hilary was equal to the exertion, and for some minutes her delight prevented her taking any real notice of how unwell her friend appeared. The paleness of her cheeks, and anxiety of her manner, did at last strike Isabel; and Hilary, who had been nervously waiting for a pause, in which she might find time to inquire for Dora, was prevented from doing it at all by an exclamation―― “After all, you look very tired and exhausted, Hilary, dear; I shall forbid you mixing in conversation, and insist on quiet and repose for you. Suppose you were to go to Dora’s room. It would not excite you too much, and you do not look as if you would overwhelm her.”