"Ah! Frances!" cried Lady Anne, in a deprecating tone, with a gesture of supplication and anguish in her eyes, "do let me rest!"

"Never, till I have the letter."

With the energy of anger and despair Lady Anne made an effort to reach the bell-cord--but it missed--the cord swung--Petcalf ran to catch it, and stumbled over a stool--English Clay stood still and laughed--French Clay exclaimed, "_Ah! mon Dieu! Cupidon!_"

Count Altenberg saved Cupid from falling, and rang the bell.

"Sir," said Lady Anne to the footman, "I had a letter--some time this morning, in my hand."

"Yes, my lady."

"I want it."

"Yes, my lady."

"Pray, sir, tell somebody to tell Pritchard, to tell Flora, to go up stairs to my dressing-room, sir, to look every where for't; and let it be brought to my sister, Lady Frances, if you please, sir."

"No, no, sir, don't do any thing about the matter, if you please--I will go myself," said Lady Frances.

Away the lady ran up stairs, and down again, with the letter in her hand.

"Yes! exactly as I thought," cried she; "my aunt does say, that Mrs.

Hungerford is to be down to-day--I thought so."

"Very likely," said Lady Anne; "I never thought about it."

"But, Anne, you must think about it, for my aunt desires we should go and see her directly."

"I can't go," said Lady Anne--"I've a cold--your going will do."

"Mrs. Falconer, my dear Mrs. Falconer, will you go with me to-morrow to Hungerford Castle?" cried Lady Frances, eagerly.

"Impossible! my dear Lady Frances, unfortunately quite impossible. The Hungerfords and we have no connexion--there was an old family quarrel--"

"Oh! never mind family quarrels and connexions--you can go, and I am sure it will be taken very well--and you know you only go with me. Oh!

positively you must--now there's my good dear Mrs. Falconer--yes, and order the carriage this minute for to-morrow early," said Lady Frances, in a coaxing yet impatient tone.

Mrs. Falconer adhered to its being absolutely impossible.

"Then, Anne, you must go."

No--Anne was impenetrable.

"Then I'll go by myself," cried Lady Frances, pettishly--"I'll take Pritchard with me, in our own carriage, and I'll speak about it directly--for go I must and will."

"Now, Frances, what new fancy is this for Mrs. Hungerford? I am sure you used not to care about her," said Lady Anne.

"And I dare say I should not care about her now," replied Lady Frances, "but that I am dying to see an old pair of shoes she has."

"An old pair of shoes!" repeated Lady Anne, with a look of unutterable disdain.

"An old pair of shoes!" cried Mrs. Falconer, laughing.

"Yes, a pair of blue damask shoes as old as Edward the Fourth's time--with chains from the toe to the knee, you know--or do you know, Count Altenberg? Miss Percy was describing them--she saw Colonel Hungerford put them on--Oh! he must put them on for me--I'll make him put them on, chains and all, to-morrow."

"Colonel Hungerford is on his way to India by this time," said Georgiana Falconer, drily.

"May I ask," said Count Altenberg, taking advantage of the first pause in the conversation--"may I ask if I understood rightly, that Mrs.

Hungerford, mother of Colonel Hungerford, lives in this neighbourhood, and is coming into the country to-morrow?"

"Yes--just so," said Lady Frances.

What concern can it be of his? thought Miss Georgiana Falconer, fixing her eyes upon the Count with alarmed curiosity.

"I knew Colonel Hungerford abroad," continued the Count, "and have a great regard for him."

Lady Kew, Lady Trant, and Miss Georgiana Falconer, exchanged looks.

"I am sorry that he is gone to India," said Mrs. Falconer, in a sentimental tone; "it would have been so pleasant to you to have renewed an acquaintance with him in England."

Count Altenberg regretted the absence of his friend, the colonel; but, turning to Lady Frances, he congratulated himself upon having an opportunity of presenting his letters of introduction, and paying his respects to Mrs. Hungerford, of whom he had heard much from foreigners who had visited England, and who had been charmed with her, and with her daughter, Mrs. Mortimer--his letters of introduction had been addressed to her town residence, but she was not in London when he was there.

"No, she was at Pembroke," said Lady Kew.

I'm sure I wish she were there still, thought Miss Georgiana.

"But, after all, Lady Frances, is the d.u.c.h.ess sure that Mrs. Hungerford is actually come to the country?--May be, she is still in town."

"I shall have the honour of letting your ladyship know; for, if Lord Oldborough will permit, I shall certainly go, very soon, to pay my respects at Hungerford Castle," said Count Altenberg.

The prescient jealousy of Miss Georgiana Falconer boded ill of this visit to Hungerford Castle. A few days afterwards a note was received from Count Altenberg, returning many thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Falconer for the civilities he had received from them, paying all proper compliments to Zara, announcing his intention of accepting an invitation to stay some time at Mrs. Hungerford's, and taking a polite leave of the Falconer family.

Here was a death-blow to all Georgiana's hopes! But we shall not stay to describe her disappointment, or the art of her mother in concealing it; nor shall we accompany Mrs. Falconer to town, to see how her designs upon the Clays or Petcalf prospered. We must follow Count Altenberg to Hungerford Castle.

CHAPTER XXIX.

"Who would prize the tainted posies, Which on ev'ry breast are worn?

Who could pluck the spotless roses From their never touched thorn?"

The feeling expressed in these lines will be acknowledged by every man of sense and delicacy. "No such man ever prized a heart much hackneyed in the ways of love." It was with exquisite pain that Count Altenberg had heard all that had been said of Caroline--he did not give credit to half the insinuations--he despised those who made them: he knew that some of the ladies spoke from envy, others from the mere love of scandal; but still, altogether, an impression unfavourable to Caroline, or rather unfavourable to his pa.s.sion for Caroline, was left on his mind. The idea that she had been suspected, the certainty that she had been talked of, that she had even been named as one who had coquetted with many admirers--the notion that she had been in love--pa.s.sionately in love--all this took from the freshness, the virgin modesty, the dignity, the charm, with which she had appeared to his imagination, and without which she could not have touched his heart--a heart not to be easily won.

In his own country, at the court where he resided, in the different parts of the continent which he had visited, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, France, he had seen women celebrated for beauty and for wit, many of the most polished manners, many of the highest accomplishments, some of exquisite sensibility, a few with genuine simplicity of character, but in all there had been something which had prevented his wishing to make any one of them the companion of his life.

In some there was a want of good temper--in others of good sense; there was some false taste for admiration or for notoriety--some love of pleasure, or some love of sway, inconsistent with his idea of the perfection of the female character, incompatible with his plans of life, and with his notions of love and happiness.

In England, where education, inst.i.tutions, opinion, manners, the habits of society, and of domestic life, happily combine to give the just proportion of all that is attractive, useful, ornamental, and amiable to the female character--in England, Count Altenberg had hopes of finding a woman who, to the n.o.ble simplicity of character that was once the charm of Switzerland, joined the polish, the elegance, that was once the pride of France; a woman possessing an enlarged, cultivated, embellished understanding, capable of comprehending all his views as a politician and a statesman; yet without any wish for power, or love of political intrigue. Graced with knowledge and taste for literature and science, capable of being extended to the highest point of excellence, yet free from all pedantry, or pretension--with wit, conversational talents, and love of good society, without that desire of exhibition, that devouring diseased appet.i.te for admiration, which preys upon the mind insatiably, to its torture--to its destruction; without that undefineable, untranslateable French love of _succes de societe_, which subst.i.tutes a precarious; fact.i.tious, intoxicated existence in public, for the safe self-approbation, the sober, the permanent happiness of domestic life.