us answer. She would have blamed
it as unfeeling in another; but all that Harley did was right in her
eyes.

"Cannot I go with Miss Digby?" said she, "and my mother will go too. We
both know Mrs. Fairfield. We shall be so pleased to see her again."

"So be it," said Harley; "I will wait here with your father till you
come back. Oh, as to my mother, she will excuse the--excuse Madame
Riccabocca, and you too. See how charmed she is with your father. I must
stay to watch over the conjugal interests of mine."

But Mrs. Riccabocca had too much good old country breeding to leave the
countess; and Harley was forced himself to appeal to Lady Lansmere. When
he had explained the case in point, the countess rose and said,

"But I will call myself, with Miss Digby."

"No," said Harley, gravely, but in a whisper. "No; I would rather not. I
will explain later."

"Then," said the countess aloud, after a glance of surprise at her son,
"I must insist on your performing this visit, my dear madam, and you,
Signorina. In truth, I have something to say confidentially to--"

"To me," interrupted Riccabocca. "Ah, Madame la Comtesse, you restore me
to five-and-twenty. Go, quick, O jealous and injured wife; go, both of
you, quick; and you, too, Harley."

"Nay," said Lady Lansmere, in the same tone, "Harley must stay, for my
design is not at present upon destroying your matrimonial happiness,
whatever it may be later. It is a design so innocent that my son will be
a partner in it."

Here the countess put her lips to Harley's ear, and whispered. He
received her communication in attentive silence; but when she had done,
pressed her hand, and bowed his head, as if in assent to a proposal.

In a few minutes the three ladies and Leonard were on their road to the
neighbouring cottage.

Violante, with her usual delicate intuition, thought that Leonard and
Helen must have much to say to each other; and (ignorant, as Leonard
himself was, of Helen's engagement to Harley) began already, in the
romance natural to her age, to predict for them happy and united days in
the future. So she took her stepmother's arm, and left Helen and Leonard
to follow.

"I wonder," she said musingly, "how Miss Digby became Lord L'Estrange's
ward. I hope she is not very rich, nor very high-born."

"La, my love," said the good Jemima, "that is not like you; you are not
envious of her, poor girl?"

"Envious! Dear mamma, what a word! But don't you think Leonard and