He could do this! he was convinced that he had only to speak, and Mr. Barham would most gladly close with his offer; and as to Dora, he thought too lightly of her affections to suppose them invariable. Opposition he might meet with at first, but this would not daunt him; the support of her father he might rely on, and time and perseverance would do the rest. He did not doubt of ultimate success! As to the result to himself, the securing a wife whom he neither loved nor esteemed, he did not stop to calculate that; he saw nothing in his mental visions but the feelings of others; he considered nothing but the suffering he was preparing for those who had offended him. By a strange misappreciation of the character of the woman whom he had loved so long, and ought to have known so well, he even fancied that an ambitious desire to see her brother united to the daughter of the rich Mr. Barham, had influence with her: that she who had been unmoved by the temptation of wealth and station for herself, had yet been open to covetous desires for her brother’s advancement in life; and that regret and mortification for the loss of the heiress, would help to embitter the grief which a lover’s affection must occasion. His plans determined on, his mind made up, and his spirits calmed by resolution and despair, he returned to Eaton-place to dine with the Barhams; and for the first time since the commencement of his long intimacy with the family, he made a most marked difference in his treatment of the two sisters. His manners to Dora were expressive of a desire to please, such as he had never betrayed before, and such as excited some surprise and disappointment in Isabel’s mind, which required both spirit and good breeding to conceal. How Dora herself received this change of manner might be gathered from Isabel’s speech to her as they stood in the drawing-room afterward. “Well, Dora, I really think you are the greatest and most relentless flirt I ever saw.” “Am I?” said the younger sister, languidly throwing herself on a sofa, and turning away her face; “what have I been doing now?” “Flirting to a degree beyond good manners with Mr. Huyton,” said Miss Barham, looking at her own deepening carnation in a pier-glass opposite to her. “I was only paying him in kind,” replied Dora, undauntedly; “if he meant nothing, nor did I; if he was in earnest, I have no objection.” “You don’t mean to say that if Charles Huyton were to propose to you, you would accept him?” said Isabel, turning full on her sister. “Would not you, Isabel?” was Dora’s reply. “Our tastes are not usually so similar that that should be any answer,” said Isabel. “Well,” said Dora, starting up, “I mean what I say; I was not flirting with Mr. Huyton more than he was with me.” “And if he were to ask you to marry him, you know you would say no, as you did to Lord Dunsmore!”