down, with his hands in his pockets,
frowning a little and looking at the floor. What did it prove--for
it certainly proved something--this lively disposition to be "off"
somewhere with Madame Munster, away from all the rest of them? Such a
vision, certainly, seemed a refined implication of matrimony, after the
Baroness should have formally got rid of her informal husband. At
any rate, Acton, with his characteristic discretion, forbore to give
expression to whatever else it might imply, and the narrator of these
incidents is not obliged to be more definite.

He returned home rapidly, and, arriving in the afternoon, lost as little
time as possible in joining the familiar circle at Mr. Wentworth's. On
reaching the house, however, he found the piazzas empty. The doors and
windows were open, and their emptiness was made clear by the shafts of
lamp-light from the parlors. Entering the house, he found Mr. Wentworth
sitting alone in one of these apartments, engaged in the perusal of
the "North American Review." After they had exchanged greetings and his
cousin had made discreet inquiry about his journey, Acton asked what had
become of Mr. Wentworth's companions.

"They are scattered about, amusing themselves as usual," said the old
man. "I saw Charlotte, a short time since, seated, with Mr. Brand,
upon the piazza. They were conversing with their customary animation.
I suppose they have joined her sister, who, for the hundredth time, was
doing the honors of the garden to her foreign cousin."

"I suppose you mean Felix," said Acton. And on Mr. Wentworth's
assenting, he said, "And the others?"

"Your sister has not come this evening. You must have seen her at home,"
said Mr. Wentworth.

"Yes. I proposed to her to come. She declined."

"Lizzie, I suppose, was expecting a visitor," said the old man, with a
kind of solemn slyness.

"If she was expecting Clifford, he had not turned up."

Mr. Wentworth, at this intelligence, closed the "North American Review"
and remarked that he had understood Clifford to say that he was going to
see his cousin. Privately, he reflected that if Lizzie Acton had had no
news of his son, Clifford must have gone to Boston for the evening: an
unnatural course of a summer night, especially when accompanied with
disingenuous representations.

"You must remember that he has two cousins," said Acton, laughing. And
then, coming to the point, "If Lizzie is not here," he added, "neither
apparently is t