y respectable persons, unfit to advise me in this particular matter.
Besides," she added with increasing tremor and hesitation, "to deal with,
and if possible foil, the individual by whom I am persecuted, requires an
agent of keener sagacity than either of those gentlemen can boast of;
sharper, more resolute men; more--you understand what I mean?"

"Perfectly, madam; and allow me to suggest that it is probable our
interview may be a somewhat prolonged one--your ladyship's carriage,
which may attract attention, should be at once dismissed. The office of
the family solicitors is, you are aware, not far off; and as we could not
explain to them the reason which induces your ladyship to honor us with
your confidence, it will be as well to avoid any chance of inquiry."

Lady Seyton acquiesced in my suggestion: the carriage was ordered home,
and Mr. Flint entering just at the time, we both listened with
earnestness and anxiety to her communication. It is needless to repeat
verbatim the somewhat prolix, exclamative narration of the countess; the
essential facts were as follows:--

The Countess of Seyton, previous to her first marriage, was Miss Clara
Hayley, second daughter of the Reverend John Hayley, the rector of a
parish in Devonshire. She married, when only nineteen years of age, a
Captain Gosford. Her husband was ten years older than herself, and, as
she discovered after marriage, was cursed with a morose and churlish
temper and disposition. Previous to her acquaintance with Gosford, she
had been intimate with, almost betrothed to, Mr. Arthur Kingston, a young
gentleman connected with the peerage, and at that time heir-apparent to
the great expectancies and actual poverty of his father, Sir Arthur
Kingston. The haughty baronet, the instant he was made aware of the
nature of his son's intimacy with the rector's daughter, packed the young
man off to the continent on his travels. The Reverend John Hayley and his
beautiful Clara were as proud as the baronet, and extremely indignant
that it should be thought either of them wished to entrap or delude
Arthur Kingston into an unequal or ineligible marriage. This feeling of
pride and resentment aided the success of Mr. Gosford's suit, and Clara
Hayley, like many other rash, high-notioned young ladies, doomed herself
to misery, in order to show the world, and Mr. Arthur Kingston and his
proud father especially, that she had a spirit. The union was a most
unhappy one. One child onl