Isabel Barham little suspected the hidden emotions of the man to whom she was carefully studying to be agreeable. If she had at one time, for a short period, feared the influence of Hilary, such fears were entirely dissipated by the intelligence which had reached her, of her friend’s engagement. She little dreamed how often the Vicar’s daughter had refused the hand to which she was so willing to reach out her own; or that the affections she would so gladly have won, had long been passionately and hopelessly devoted to another. The heiress of the Abbey would not have deigned to stoop for a heart which her inferior rival had refused to accept; she would have scorned the acquisition had she really understood the position of affairs. Had she _loved_ Mr. Huyton, her feelings would have been different; but love had nothing to do with the matter; it was a desirable connection, that was all. She might be capable of loving, perhaps, if she had the temptation; but as yet it had never occurred, and Charles Huyton was not the man to captivate her nature. The vagaries of affections are incomprehensible, and unaccountable by any rule; but the effects of ambition, love of importance, and worldly position, are much more easy to calculate. By these, at the present moment, Miss Barham was governed. The dinner was over at last, and Hilary, released from the position _vis-à-vis_ to Mr. Huyton, rejoiced to devote her attention to her father, who was waiting for them in the drawing-room. The rest of the evening went by without emotion of any trying nature. Mr. Huyton had a good deal of conversation with Mr. Duncan, during which Hilary escaped to the other end of the room; she had no wish to throw herself in the way of the young man, although she was pleased that he should show attentive deference to her father. Isabel Barham was also carefully kind to the clergyman, and it was a pretty contrast to see her standing beside his chair, with her graceful figure, and queenly air, talking with elegant animation, reading in the best-modulated voice in the world short passages from some new book she was discussing, and raising her head occasionally, to put back the long, dark ringlets which swept her well-turned shoulders, and would fall over her cheeks, as she stooped to refer to the work before her.