It now became necessary for him to dress, as he well knew that a lady whose fondness for the good things of this life was so admitted as Mrs. Darlington's world not brook the spoiling of her dinner; and accordingly he rang, and was shown to his room. His toilet, indeed, was not very long; and a few minutes after six, the hour named, found him entering the drawing-room. There were four persons already assembled, of whom Mrs. Darlington herself was one. The face of the young lady who sat by her on the sofa was, he thought, familiar to him; but it cost him more than one glance, ere he recognized in the beautiful girl he now beheld, and who was certainly as lovely a thing as ever the female part of creation produced--it is saying a great deal, but it is true, nevertheless--it required more than one glance, I say, before he recognized in her the lady he had seen hanging upon the arm of Captain Delaware on the preceding day. Burrel, however, never looked surprised; and his claim upon Miss Delaware's acquaintance was immediately admitted with a degree of frank and smiling kindness, which arose partly, perhaps, from the high character her brother had drawn of his stage-coach companion, but more still, in all probability, from feeling that her father's reserve might have given pain and offense. While he was still speaking with Mrs. Darlington and Miss Delaware, and was just at one of these before-dinner pauses in which the conversation flags, some one laid his hand upon Burrel's arm, and turning round, he confronted a thin, but hale elderly man, dressed in black, on whose fine gentlemanly countenance was playing a smile, which had as much archness in its composition as habitual gravity of expression would allow. "My dear Henry," said the clergyman--for no one could look in his face for a moment and doubt that he was a clergyman--"my dear Henry, what have you been doing with yourself this many a day?" The first look had shown Burrel an old and dear friend, and he shook his hand heartily as Dr. Wilton. "I am still, I believe, acting as one of what Tillotson calls '_fools at large_,'" replied the young stranger, "and wandering about the world doing nothing." "Nay, nay, Henry!" replied the other, "your report of yourself was always less favorable than you deserved. You are not one to wander about the world doing nothing--but speak to me a moment," and he drew his younger companion gently toward the hollow of the bay window, where they conversed for a few moments in a low tone, while one or two of the neighboring gentlemen and ladies were announced, and entered the room.