uch a hero of the buttery in
her suite; and Lady Conway herself had more sense than to have proposed
it, but for Delaford's own representations. In fact, there was a
pretty face at Dynevor Terrace, and he had been piqued enough by the
return of his letters to be resolved on re-establishing his influence.
Therefore did he demonstrate to my Lady that the only appropriate
trains would bring him to Northwold at seven in the evening, and take
him and Mrs. James Frost Dynevor away at eleven next morning; and
therefore did Isabel look up in a sudden fit of recollection, as the
breakfast was being removed, and say, 'Charlotte, Delaford is coming on
Tuesday to fetch me to Estminster, and will sleep here that night.'

Isabel little guessed that in the days when she viewed the fantastic
Viscount as her greatest enemy, the announcement of his approach would
have been far less appalling to her.

'The wretch! the traitor! the vile deceiver!' thought Charlotte, not
chary of her epithets, and almost ready to wreak her vengeance on the
silver spoons. 'He has gone and broken poor Marianne's heart, and now
he wants to treat me the same, and make me faithless to poor Tom, that
is up in the mountain-tops and trusts to me! O me, what shall I do?
Mrs. Beckett is gone, and there's no one to give me an advice! If I
speak to him or scorn him, he'll take his advantage all alike--and his
words are so fine and so soft, that do what I will to hate him when I'm
away, he is sure to wind round me when he's there; and I can't get
away, and I'm a poor, lonely, fatherless and motherless orphan, and a
vain girl, that has listened already to his treacherous suit more than
poor Tom would think for.'

Charlotte worked on in much grief and perplexity for some minutes,
revolving the vanity that had led to her follies, and humbling herself
in her own eyes. Suddenly, a flash of thought crossed her, and woke a
smile upon her face, almost a look of mischief. She tied on a clean
apron, and running upstairs, opened the drawing-room door, and said,
'If you please, ma'am, might I ask Miss Faithfull's Martha to tea on
Tuesday night?'

'Oh yes, if you like,' said Isabel, never raising her eyes from the
rebuilding of the ruined chapel in the valley.

Away skipped Charlotte, and in two minutes was at the back door of the
House Beautiful. Mrs. Martha had been grimly kind to her ever since
she had been afflicted with the cook for a fellow-servant, and received
he