Mrs. Barnaby did not hear the words, but she saw the mission as plainly as my Lord Mucklebury saw her, and her heart thereupon began to beat so violently, that she had no breath left to demand the sympathy of her friend under circumstances so pregnant with interest. But though she hardly knew where she was, nor what she did, she still retained sufficient presence of mind to mark how the obedient envoy addressed himself (and, alas! in vain) first to one lounger, and then to another, who all replied by a shake of the head, which said with terrible distinctness, "I don't know." "Gracious heaven, how provoking!" murmured Mrs. Barnaby, as she pressed her delicately-gloved hand upon her heart to still its beating.... "He will leave the room without finding out my name!"... Had she been only a few hours longer acquainted with Mr. Patterson, it is highly probable she would have desired him, if asked by the little gentleman in black, so actively making his way through the crowd, what her name was, just to have the kindness to mention that it was Barnaby. But though very civil, Mr. Patterson was rather ceremonious; and the unsuccessful messenger had returned to his lord, and delivered all the shakes of the head which he had received condensed into one, before she could resolve on so frank a mode of proceeding. For a few moments longer, however, the amused nobleman continued his fascinating gaze; and then, giving a signal with his eye to Singleton that it was his pleasure to move, that active personage cleared the way before him; and the fat viscount, with his hands in his waistcoat-pockets, stalked out of the room, but not without turning his head, and giving one bold, final, open-eyed, steady look at the agitated widow. "That man is my fate!" she softly whispered to her soul, as the last frog on the hinder part of his coat has passed from her eye; ... and then, like the tender convolvolus when the sunbeam that reached it has passed away, she drooped and faded till she looked more like a sleeping picture of Mrs. Barnaby than Mrs. Barnaby herself. "Do you not find the room very close, Miss Morrison?" said she, after enduring for a minute or two the sort of vacuum that seemed to weigh upon her senses. "_Poing do too_," replied Miss Morrison, speaking through her nose, which was one method by which she was wont to convey the true Parisian accent, when she desired that it should be particularly perfect.... "_Poing do too_, Mrs. Barnaby, ... however, I am quite ready to go if you like it, for I don't think I shall buy anything this morning, and I don't see many acquaintance here." Mrs. Barnaby immediately rose; the two civil gentlemen made way for them, and the widow, followed by her friend, walked out a more pensive, though not, perhaps, a less happy woman, than when she walked in. CHAPTER XIV. A CHELTENHAM BALL.--AN INTRODUCTION.--A CONQUEST.