"Forgiven!" repeated Agnes, looking up at him, and before her glance fell again it was dimmed by a tear. "I can never forget your kindness!" she added, but so nearly in a whisper, that he instantly became aware that her friends had not been made acquainted with the adventure, and that it was not her wish they should be. He therefore said no more on the subject; but, led by some impulse that seemed not, certainly, to proceed from either unkindness or contempt, he continued to converse with her for several minutes, and long enough indeed to make her very nearly forget the party of friends whose heads continued to be congregated round the librarian's register of the Clifton beau monde. Frederick Stephenson meanwhile was very ably prosecuting the object he had in view, namely, to establish himself decidedly as an acquaintance of Mrs. Peters; and so perfectly _comme il faut_ in all respects was the tone of herself and her daughters, that he was rapidly forgetting such a being as Mrs. Barnaby existed, and solacing his spirit by the persuasion that the only girl he had ever seen whom he could _really_ love was surrounded by connexions as elegant and agreeable as his _exigeante_ family could possibly require. Nor, to say truth, was his friend greatly behind-hand in the degree of oblivion which he permitted to fall upon his faculties respecting this object of his horror and detestation. It was not very easy, indeed, to remember Mrs. Barnaby, while Agnes, awakened by a question as to what part of England it was in which she had enjoyed the rural liberty of which he had heard her speak, poured forth all her ardent praise on the tranquil beauty of Empton. "It is not," said she, beguiled, by the attention with which he listened to her, into forgetfulness of the awe he had hitherto inspired,--"it is not so majestic in its beauty as Clifton; we have no mighty rocks at Empton--no winding river that, quietly as it flows, seems to have cut its own path amongst them; but the parsonage is the very perfection of a soft, tranquil, flowery retreat, where neither sorrow nor sin have any business whatever." "And was Empton parsonage your home, Miss Willoughby?" "Yes ... for five dear happy years," replied Agnes, in an accent from which all gaiety had fled. "You were not born at Empton, then?" "No; I was only educated there; but it was there at least that my heart and mind were born, and I do not believe that I shall ever feel quite at home anywhere else." "It is rather early for you to say that, is it not?" said Colonel Hubert with a smile more calculated to increase her confidence than to renew her awe.... "May I ask how old you are?" "I shall be seventeen in August," replied Agnes, blushing at being obliged to confess herself so very young.