ngham." An exclamation of pleasure
passed through the giddy crowd, but there was an expression in the
countenance of the Duchess, who had also entered from a drive, which, to
Caroline's quickly awakened fancy, appeared contrary to the general
emotion. "He is engaged as Sir Walter Courtenay's guest, so I cannot
claim him as mine," the Duke continued; "but that does not much signify.
Sir Walter is here every day, and Alphingham will of course accompany
him. He is the best fellow I know."

"And this is the man papa, for no reason whatever, save from Percy's
ill-natured opinion, has desired me to slight, to behave in a manner
that, contrasted with former notice, must be madness itself; cruelty to
him, after what has passed between us, and misery to me. Surely, in such
a case as this I am not compelled to obey. When the general voice
proclaims him other than they believe, am I to regard what is in itself
a mystery? If Percy had good reasons for writing against him to papa,
for I am sure he must have done so, why did he not explain them, instead
of treating me thus like a child, and standing forward as his accuser,
when the whole world extols him? Why are the dearest wishes of my heart
to be destroyed merely by caprice? Percy ever tried, even in childhood,
to bid me to look up to him, and acknowledge his power, and thus he
would prove it; but he will find himself mistaken. When papa permits his
judgment to be blinded by the insinuations of a mere boy, I no longer
consider myself bound to obey him."

Such was the tenor of Caroline's thoughts when alone, in the short
interval, ere she descended to dinner--there was no ray of happiness;
her heart had that day received a wound, nor could she derive comfort
even from the knowledge that Lord Alphingham was expected. She would not
permit herself to think on Lord Henry's conversation. What was it to her
if St. Eval married Louisa Manvers? then studiously she thought only on
the Viscount, and the situation with regard to him in which she was
placed, till her head ached with the intensity of its reflections.

On entering the drawing-room she found, as she had anticipated, Lord
Alphingham the centre of a brilliant coterie, and for the space of a
minute her heart throbbed and her cheek flushed. He bowed respectfully
as she appeared, but with distant courtesy; yet she fancied the flow of
his eloquence was for a moment arrested, and his glance, subdued yet so
mournfully beseeching, spoke