Already having met and been welcomed by my host and his daughters, my first glances round the room were in search of Lady Estelle and her mother. About eighteen persons were present, mostly gentlemen, and I instinctively made my way to where she I sought was seated, idling over a book of prints. Two or three gentlemen were exclusively in conversation with her; Sir Madoc, who was now in evening costume, for one. "Come, Harry," said he, "here is a fair friend to whom I wish to present you." "You forget, Sir Madoc, that I said we had met before; Mr. Hardinge and I are almost old friends--the friends of a season, at least," said Lady Estelle, presenting her hand to me with a bright but calm and decidedly conventional smile, and with the most perfect self-possession. "It makes me so very happy to meet you again," said I in a low voice, the tone of which she could not mistake. "Mamma, too, will be _so_ delighted--you were quite a favourite with her." I bowed, as if accepting for fact a sentiment of which I was extremely doubtful, and then after a little pause she added,-- "Mamma always preferred your escort, you remember." Of that I was aware, when she wished to leave some more eligible _parti_--old Lord Pottersleigh, for instance--to take charge of her daughter. "I am so pleased that we are to see a little more of you, ere you depart for the East; whence, I hear, you are bound," said she after a little pause. Simple though the words, they made my heart beat happily, and I dreaded that some sharp observer might read in my eyes the expression which I knew could not be concealed from her; and now I turned to look for some assistance from Winifred Lloyd; but, though observing us, she was apparently busy with Caradoc; luckily for me, perhaps, as there was something of awkwardness in my position with her. I had flirted rather too much at one time with Winny--been almost tender--but nothing more. Now I loved Lady Estelle, and that love was indeed destitute of all ambition, though the known difficulties attendant on the winning of such a hand as hers, added zest and keenness to its course.