"This is something quite new, Emily," replied the old lady. "It is the first time, I believe, that you ever condescended to take any interest in my menagerie.... Far be it from me, my dear, to check so happy a symptom of an improving intellect.... I have already asked the expansive widow and her delicate shadow for Wednesday; and if your fever for cementing a friendship with the latter should happen to continue, yield to it by all means.... You know, Emily, I never wish to control anybody's set of favourites, provided always that nobody interferes with my own." The only pleasure which the rest of the evening afforded Agnes arose from studying the features, and still more the countenance, of Lady Stephenson, whenever she was fortunate enough to be within sight of her. No one asked her to dance, and no word was uttered within her hearing that gave her the least amusement. One single circumstance cheered the tedious hours during which she was doomed to sit, with her aunt Barnaby before her eyes, in a terror which increased every moment lest she should draw the eyes of every one else in the room upon her. This single circumstance was, that the sister of Colonel Hubert, when standing at three feet of distance from her, turned her head and said, with a smile of strong family affinity to his own,-- "I find that I am to have the pleasure of seeing you on Wednesday at my aunt's, Miss Willoughby ... I am very glad of it.... Good night!"... and soon afterwards the party left the room. Far different was the fate of Mrs. Barnaby. The evening began for her very gloriously, for she had been spoken to by a Lady Elizabeth; but it ended in rapture, ... for, before its close, Lord Mucklebury made his appearance, stared at her again with the most marked impertinence, inquired and learned her name from Mr. Pringle, by whom he was at his express desire presented, and finally he placed himself beside her on the sofa, where he remained for at least twenty minutes, talking to her in a style that might be said without the slightest exaggeration to have thrown her into a state of temporary delirium. Nor had it failed to produce some emotion in the noble lord; nay, it is probable it might have lasted longer, had it amused him less; for when he look his leave of the widow, expressing his hope that he should be happy enough to meet her again, he moved with a step rather quicker than ordinary to ensconce himself among a knot of men who were amusing themselves by communicating to each other the most ludicrous remarks on the company, in a distant corner of the room. "Have you really torn yourself away from that magnificent specimen of womanhood, Mucklebury?" said one of the group as he approached them.... "She is evidently magnetic, by the manner in which you have been revolving round her for some time; and if magnetic, and the power at all proportioned to the volume, it is a miracle that you ever left her side again."