anding they
parted, each looking forward with pleasure to their next meeting.

CHAPTER V. LINTON'S MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE

"Gone! and in secret, too!"

Amid all the plans for pleasure which engaged the attention of the great
house, two subjects now divided the interest between them. One was the
expected arrival of the beautiful Miss Leicester,--"Mr. Cashel's babe in
the wood," as-Lady Janet called her,--the other, the reading of a little
one-act piece which Mr. Linton had written for the company. Although
both were, in their several ways, "events," the degree of interest they
excited was very disproportioned to their intrinsic consequence, and can
only be explained by dwelling on the various intrigues and schemes by
which that little world was agitated.

Lady Janet, whose natural spitefulness was a most catholic feeling,
began to fear that Lady Kilgoff had acquired such an influence over
Cashel that she could mould him to any course she pleased,--even a
marriage. She suspected, therefore, that this rustic beauty had been
selected by her Ladyship as one very unlikely to compete with herself
in Roland's regard, and that she was thus securing a lasting ascendancy
over him.

Mrs. Leicester White, who saw, or believed she saw, herself neglected by
Roland, took an indignant view of the matter, and threw out dubious and
shadowy suspicions about "who this young lady might be, who seemed so
opportunely to have sprung up in the neighborhood," and expressed, in
confidence, her great surprise "how Lady Kilgoff could lend herself to
such an arrangement."

Mrs. Kennyfeck was outraged at the entrance of a new competitor into the
field, where her daughter was no longer a "favorite." In fact, the new
visitor's arrival was heralded by no signs of welcome, save from the
young men of the party, who naturally were pleased to hear that a very
handsome and attractive girl was expected.

As for Aunt Fanny, her indignation knew no bounds; indeed, ever since
she had set foot in the house her state had been one little short of
insanity. In her own very graphic phrase, "She was fit to be tied at all
she saw." Now, when an elderly maiden lady thus comprehensively sums up
the cause of her anger, without descending to "a bill of particulars,"
the chances are that some personal wrong--real or imaginary--is more in
fault than anything reprehensible in the case she is so severe upon.
So was it here. Aunt Fanny literally saw nothin