speak,
Though she looked into my face,
Till my heart was like to break.--Auld Robin Gray.

"It is rather singular," said Lady Westborough to her daughter as they
sat alone one afternoon in the music-room at Westborough Park,--"it is
rather singular that Lord Ulswater should not have come yet. He said he
should certainly be here before three o'clock."

"You know, Mamma, that he has some military duties to detain him
at W----," answered Lady Flora, bending over a drawing in which she
appeared to be earnestly engaged.

"True, my dear, and it was very kind in Lord ---- to quarter the troop
he commands in his native county; and very fortunate that W----, being
his head-quarters, should also be so near us. But I cannot conceive that
any duty can be sufficiently strong to detain him from you," added
Lady Westborough, who had been accustomed all her life to a devotion
unparalleled in this age. "You seem very indulgent, Flora."

"Alas! she should rather say very indifferent," thought Lady Flora: but
she did not give her thought utterance; she only looked up at her mother
for a moment, and smiled faintly.

Whether there was something in that smile or in the pale cheek of her
daughter that touched her we know not, but Lady Westborough was touched:
she threw her arms round Lady Flora's neck, kissed her fondly, and said,
"You do not seem well to-day, my love, are you?"

"Oh!--very--very well," answered Lady Flora, returning her mother's
caress, and hiding her eyes, to which the tears had started.

"My child," said Lady Westborough, "you know that both myself and your
father are very desirous to see you married to Lord Ulswater,--of high
and ancient birth, of great wealth, young, unexceptionable in person and
character, and warmly attached to you, it would be impossible even for
the sanguine heart of a parent to ask for you a more eligible match. But
if the thought really does make you wretched,--and yet,--how can it?"

"I have consented," said Flora, gently; "all I ask is, do not speak to
me more of the--the event than you can avoid."

Lady Westborough pressed her hand, sighed, and replied not.

The door opened, and the marquis, who had within the last year become
a cripple, with the great man's malady, dire podagra, was wheeled in on
his easy-chair; close behind him followed Lord Ulswater.

"I have brought you," said the marquis, who piqued himself on a vein of
dry humour,--"I have brought you, young lady, a consol