Touched to hear the word happiness once again, even though with such sadness, pronounced by Gabriella; yet alarmed at a discourse that might lead, inadvertently, to some secret history, Juliet was returning, to stop any further detail; when, upon Sir Jaspar's answering, 'Sweet couple! Lord Denmeath, who ought at least, if I understand right,--to take care of one of you will surely make it his business that you should coo together in the same cage?'--she again retreated, anxious to learn what this meant, and hoping that he would become more explicit. 'Lord Denmeath?' repeated Gabriella, 'If you know Lord Denmeath you may be better informed upon this subject than I am myself. Was it at Brighthelmstone that you met with his lordship?' 'It was at Brighthelmstone that I heard of him; and heard that, though wary of speech, he has been incautious in manner, and left little doubt upon the minds of his observers, that this fair flower springs from the same stock as some part of his own family; though she may be one of those sweet, but hapless buds, whose innocence pays for the guilt of its planter.--' 'No, Sir, no!' Gabriella precipitately interrupted him; 'the birth of my friend is unstained, though unequal; the marriage of her parents was legal, though secret. Her mother came not, indeed, from an ancient race; but she was a pattern of virtue, as well as a model of beauty. Could it, indeed, be believed, that a young nobleman of such expectations, in every way, as those of the Earl of Melbury's only son, Lord Granville, would have given his hand to the orphan and destitute daughter of an insolvent man of business, had she not possessed every advantage, nay, every perfection to which human nature can rise?' Affrighted by this so open relation, drawn forth involuntarily from the nobly ingenuous Gabriella, in the persuasion that Sir Jaspar was already a confidential, and might become a useful friend; Juliet, in the first moment, was advancing to stop it; but her heart, yet more than her ear, was so fascinated by the generous eulogy of her virtuous, though lowly mother, from the offspring of a house whose height, and natal prejudices, might have palliated, upon this subject, the language even of disdain; that she could not prevail with herself to break into what she considered as sacred praise. ''Tis even so, then!' cried Sir Jaspar, with smiling delight; 'this forlorn, but most beautiful Wanderer,--this so long concealed, and mysterious, but most lovely _incognita_, is the daughter of the late Lord Granville, and the grand-daughter of the late Earl of Melbury!' Utterly confounded, to hear the secret history of her birth and family thus casually, yet irretrievably discovered, Juliet, trembling, again shrunk back; yet would not, now, and unavailingly, check the ardent zeal of her high-minded friend, since without any added danger, it might procure some useful intelligence.