It would not have been difficult for Colonel Hubert to have given an answer. While they were taking coffee together half an hour before they set off, Frederick Stephenson told his friend that his fate would that night be decided, for he had made up his mind to propose to Miss Willoughby. Colonel Hubert started.... "Of course, Frederick, you do not decide upon this without being pretty certain what the answer will be," was the reply of Colonel Hubert. "You know the definition Silvius gives of love," returned Frederick. "It is to be all made of faith and service ... and so am I for Agnes.... Wherefore, as my service is, and shall be perfect, so also shall be my faith, nor will I ever submit myself to the misery of doubting.... Either she is mine at once, or I fly where I can never see her more." After this, Colonel Hubert very naturally preferred looking on from a distance, to making any approach that might disturb the declared purpose of his friend. "By-standers see most," ... is an old proverb, and all such speak truly. Frederick, notwithstanding his "perfect service," was not by many a degree so near discovering the true state of Miss Willoughby's feelings as his friend: not, indeed, that Colonel Hubert discovered anything relating to himself, but he saw weariness and distaste in the movement of Agnes's head, and the mournful expression of her face, even before the decisive manoeuvre by which she escaped from him, who was only waiting for an opportunity of confessing himself "to be all made of adoration, duty, and observance." An indescribable sensation of pleasure tingled through the veins of Colonel Hubert as he observed this, but the next moment his heart reproached him with a bitter pang. "Am I then a traitor to him who has so frankly trusted me?" thought he. "No, by Heaven!... Poor Frederick!... Angel as she is, he well deserves her, for from the very first he has thought of her, and her only; ... while I ... the study of her aunt's absurdities I deemed the more attractive speculation of the two.... Agnes, you are avenged!" The good-humoured Frederick, mean time, though foiled in his hope of engrossing her, quickly found consolation in listening to Miss Peters, who confided to him all her doubts and fears respecting the possibility of her friend's finding courage to sing before so large an audience. "For God's sake, do not plague her about it," said he. "Though, to be sure, such a voice as hers would be enough to embellish any concert in the world." "It is only on mamma's account," replied Mary, "that I am anxious for it; ... she has been so disappointed about Miss Roberts!... I wish, after Lucy's next duet with James, while Elizabeth is accompanying the violoncello, that you would contrive to get near her, where she is trying to keep out of the way, poor thing!... and tell her that my mother wishes to speak to her."