In the smaller, or back drawing-room, the owner of this residence sat on a sofa trying to decipher the letters of the last novel in the gloaming, which the lamp in the outer room could not illumine. When light quite failed, she rose and entered the boudoir we have just described, and sitting down on an ottoman between the two windows, passed her fingers along the chords of the harp, and then bent again over the volume she perused. In appearance this lady was about twenty-two, though perhaps she looked older than she really was. From time to time Juana Ferraras--for she it was--looked off her book, and raised her dark eye to the miniature on the right of the mirror, the counterpart of Lord Wentworth, whilst the other represented the Earl's fair donna. From the picture she glanced hurriedly at the door, as if she expected some visitor. When Lord Wentworth, tired of Juana, determined not to do so mean a thing as to cast penniless on the cold world one who had sacrificed so much for him--he gave her a liberal, nay, a handsome yearly allowance, besides the residence in which she now lived, on condition she was never to trouble, or ask after him again. In the Earl's very faults there was mingled the high honour that would never desert a helpless woman, and he readily parted with a large annual sum in order to leave her happy as he thought. But gold cannot purchase happiness, and this Juana found. She was endowed with strong passions, and had really loved the Earl, and keenly felt his growing coldness. She was sensible she had lived a life of duplicity; but she was not without glimpses of a better nature, not without desire of living a different life, and now the last chances seemed gone! Her very affluence depended on her never troubling the Earl more, and this made her very sad.