Poor Agnes!... she could have no confident in this new sorrow. Her aunt Compton and her friend Mary had both spoken of him as too old to be a lover; and did she breathe to either a fear that his affection had already grown cold, might they not tell her that it was but natural?... Such words she thought would break her heart, for every hour he became dearer to her than before, as she saw he was unhappy; and, thinking more of him than of herself, mourned more for his sorrow, of which she knew nothing, than for her own, though it was rapidly undermining her health and destroying her bloom. CHAPTER XIV. RETURNS TO MRS. BARNABY, AND RELATES SOME OF THE MOST INTERESTING AND INSTRUCTIVE SCENES OF HER LIFE, TOGETHER WITH SEVERAL CIRCUMSTANCES RELATIVE TO ONE DEARER TO HER THAN HERSELF. The real heroine of this love story has been left too long, and it is necessary we should return to see in what way her generous friendship for Mr. O'Donagough was likely to end. Having kept her promise, and paid the debt for which he had been detained, as well as comforted him by the farther loan of 2_l._ 10_s._ 4_d._, she stated to him her intention of remaining for a month longer at her lodgings in Half Moon-street, adding, with a degree of _naïveté_ that O'Donagough felt to be extremely touching-- "Let this be a month of probation, my dear friend, for us both. We met under circumstances too much calculated to soften the heart for either of us, perhaps, to be able fairly to judge how we may feel when those circumstances are past. Let me see as much of you as your occupations will permit.... I shall dine at five o'clock, because the evenings are drawing in, and I don't love candle-light before dinner.... You will always find a steak or a chop, and a little brandy and water, or something of that sort.... And now adieu!... This is a disagreeable place to pay or receive visits in, and I flatter myself that I now leave it for ever." Let the most glowing gratitude that heart can feel be set forth in words of fluent eloquence such as befit the class to which Mr. O'Donagough belonged, and the answer which he gave to this speech will be the product. Nevertheless, Mr. O'Donagough knew what it meant perfectly well. It meant that the Widow Barnaby, although she had made up her mind to give herself and whatever she might happen to possess to a husband, and although she was exceedingly well inclined to let that husband be Mr. Patrick O'Donagough, she did not intend to go thus far in manifesting her favour towards him, without knowing a little more than she did at present respecting the state of his affairs. In a word, he perceived, as he repeated to himself, with an approving smile-- That though on _marriage_ she was bent, She had a prudent mind.