?

He opened the letter. Julius had to announce that Fortune was favoring
them already. He had heard news of Mrs. Glenarm, as soon as he reached
home. She had called on his wife, during his absence in London--she
had been inv ited to the house--and she had promised to accept the
invitation early in the week. "Early in the week," Julius wrote, "may
mean to-morrow. Make your apologies to Lady Lundie; and take care not
to offend her. Say that family reasons, which you hope soon to have
the pleasure of confiding to her, oblige you to appeal once more to her
indulgence--and come to-morrow, and help us to receive Mrs. Glenarm."

Even Geoffrey was startled, when he found himself met by a sudden
necessity for acting on his own decision. Anne knew where his brother
lived. Suppose Anne (not knowing where else to find him) appeared at
his brother's house, and claimed him in the presence of Mrs. Glenarm? He
gave orders to have the messenger kept waiting, and said he would send
back a written reply.

"From Craig Fernie?" asked Arnold, pointing to the letter in his
friend's hand.

Geoffrey looked up with a frown. He had just opened his lips to answer
that ill-timed reference to Anne, in no very friendly terms, when a
voice, calling to Arnold from the lawn outside, announced the appearance
of a third person in the library, and warned the two gentlemen that
their private interview was at an end.

CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH.

NEARER STILL.

BLANCHE stepped lightly into the room, through one of the open French
windows.

"What are you doing here?" she said to Arnold.

"Nothing. I was just going to look for you in the garden."

"The garden is insufferable, this morning." Saying those words, she
fanned herself with her handkerchief, and noticed Geoffrey's presence
in the room with a look of very thinly-concealed annoyance at the
discovery. "Wait till I am married!" she thought. "Mr. Delamayn will be
cleverer than I take him to be, if he gets much of his friend's company
_then!_"

"A trifle too hot--eh?" said Geoffrey, seeing her eyes fixed on him, and
supposing that he was expected to say something.

Having performed that duty he walked away without waiting for a reply;
and seated himself with his letter, at one of the writing-tables in the
library.

"Sir Patrick is quite right about the young men of the present day,"
said Blanche, turning to Arnold. "Here is this one asks me a question,
and doesn't wait for an answer. There