Agnes looked on at first with wonder, which a little reflection converted into great misery. She knew absolutely nothing as to the amount of her aunt's fortune; but there was a wild heedlessness of expense in her present manner of proceeding that, despite her ignorance, made her tremble for the result. The idea that she might by persevering industry render herself fit to become a governess, was that which most tended to console her; but Agnes's estimate of what was required for this was a very high one; and greatly did she rejoice to find that her aunt permitted her to be wholly mistress of her time, seldom inviting her to go out, and receiving her apologies for declining to do so with a degree of complacency which plainly enough shewed they were not unwelcome. Lady Elizabeth Norris's party was five days after the ball; and before it arrived Mrs. Barnaby had persuaded herself into the firmest possible conviction of Lord Mucklebury's devoted attachment and honourable intentions. Had his lordship not been one of the invited guests, Mrs. Barnaby would unquestionably have given up the engagement, though but a few short days before it had appeared to her very like a permission to enter the gates of paradise; but her estimate of all things was changed; she was already a viscountess in all her reasonings, and perhaps the only person who held an unchanged value was the poor Agnes, whose helpless dependance could not place her in a position of less consideration than it had done before. "Pray, Miss Agnes, is it your pleasure to go to Lady Elizabeth Norris's this evening?" said Mrs. Barnaby, while watching her new maid's assiduous preparations for her own toilet. "Oh! yes, aunt, if you have no objection.... I should like to go very much indeed." "Nay, child, you may go if you wish it.... I imagine it will prove but a humdrum sort of thing.... Wear the same dress that you did at the ball.... My maid shall arrange your hair for you." Yet notwithstanding all this increase of dignity, Agnes never for a moment guessed what was going on; she had never seen Lord Mucklebury excepting at the ball, and her imagination had not suggested to her the possibility that so casual an acquaintance could be the cause of all she saw and heard. Had Agnes been as light-hearted as when she used to sit upon her travelling trunk in her closet at Clifton, listening to the lively gossip of her friend Mary, the party at Lady Elizabeth's would have been pregnant with amusement. But as it was, she sat very sadly alone in a corner; for during the first portion of the evening Sir Edward Stephenson and his lady were not present, having dined out, where they were detained much beyond the hour at which the majority of Lady Elizabeth's guests assembled.