You have seen how her spirit rebelled against the slight which she imagined was the assertion of rank and fortune over lowly birth. Her whole nature seemed to have undergone a change--a change in which pride took such full possession of her heart, that there was no more room left for love. She who had sat and simpered over Tennyson like a love-sick, romantic girl, dreaming of Cophetua, and Camelot, and A. H. H., now thought of nothing but schemes of revenge and ambition. If she were only in Phœbe Tallant’s place, what would she not do to assert the rights of lowly birth and beauty! She envied her friend at the moment with a hot and a bitter envy, and hated her own more lowly origin. It was the morning after her return from London. She sat at her bedroom window at the farm, commanding a long reach of the carriage-drive to Barton Hall. The park trees were standing in golden circles of leaves; the great elms were shaking down their last autumnal tributes to mother earth; the old roots were wrapped in soft carpet-like coverings of red and brown and gold; the long carriage-drive was fringed with the same remnants of the dying year, and anon a gust of wind would sweep along the road and carry the leaves high up into the air, like flocks of birds sporting in the sunshine. But Amy saw only desolation in the scene; she saw all her best and holiest aspirations tossed about the world like the fallen leaves. Whilst she sat there musing and fretting by the window, there entered the drive a carriage drawn by four horses; as it gradually approached, she saw that there were footmen behind, and that the equipage was splendid. “As there are no fairies and magicians in these days,” she said to herself, “that is not Cinderella’s coach, and I am not Cinderella. Why, it must be Earl Verner’s carriage: _his_ brother is going to call at Barton Hall. I will go there too.” And as she said so, the carriage swept along, with the leaves flying about the horses’ heads and sporting round the carriage wheels. Amy was right. This was Earl Verner’s carriage, and his lordship was on his way to pay Mr. Tallant a personal visit. Once, and only once, previously had he honoured Barton Hall with his presence. He was of a quiet, retiring nature; a luxurious and learned nobleman, who cared more for rare books and works of art and old pottery than for anything else.