Agnes, sick at heart, and trembling for the future, repaired to the house of Lady Elizabeth. Lady Stephenson was at the pianoforte, and the old lady reading near a window; but as soon as her young guest was announced, she closed her volume, and said, "You are late, little girl ... we have been expecting you this hour, and this is the last evening we shall have quietly to ourselves; for Colonel Hubert writes us word that he is coming to-morrow, and he is a much more stay-at-home person than Sir Edward." Colonel Hubert coming to Cheltenham the very day she was to leave it!... These were not tidings to cheer her spirits, already agitated and depressed, and when she attempted to speak, she burst into tears. Lady Stephenson was at her side in a moment. "Agnes!..." she said, "what ails you?... You are as white as a ghost.... Had you heard any agitating news before you came here?" Struck by the accent with which this was spoken, and perceiving in a moment that Lady Stephenson thought the mention of Colonel Hubert's arrival had caused her emotion, she hastened to reply, and did so perhaps with more frankness than she might have shewn had she not been particularly anxious to prove that there were other and very sufficient reasons for her discomposure. "News most painful and most sad to me, Lady Stephenson," she said.... "I believe you have heard my aunt Barnaby's foolish flirtation with Lord Mucklebury spoken of.... Lady Elizabeth was laughing about it the other day." "And who was not, my dear?... The saucy Viscount has made her, they say, the subject of a ballad.... But is it for this you weep?... Or is it because he is gone away, and that there's an end of it?" "Alas! Lady Elizabeth, there is not an end of it, and it is for that I weep ... though indeed I ought to beg your pardon for bringing such useless sorrow here; ... but I find that my aunt fancies she has a claim upon him--a legal claim, and that she is going to London to-morrow to bring an action against him." "Is it possible?" exclaimed the old lady, looking at poor Agnes with very genuine compassion.... "God knows you may well weep, my poor child.... I shall begin to think I gave but sorry advice, Agnes, when I told you to stay with her. It may, after all, be better to run some risk in leaving her, than brave certain disgrace and ridicule by remaining to reside in her family." "Is she going to take you to town with her, Agnes?" inquired Lady Stephenson with a look of deep concern. "Yes, Lady Stephenson, I am to go with her." There was a very painful silence of a minute or two. Both the admiring friends of Agnes would have done much to save her from being a sharer in such an enterprize; but to interfere with the indisputable authority of such a woman as Mrs. Barnaby in her arrangements concerning a niece, who had no dependence but on her, was out of the question, and the conviction that it was so kept them silent.