lent she
was, timid and sensitive to a degree, gentle, and considerate to all. Do
not cavil at her being thus praised--admire and love her whilst you may,
she is worthy of it now, in her innocent girlhood; the time will come
when such praise would be misplaced. Could the fate that was to overtake
his child have been foreseen by the earl, he would have struck her down
to death, in his love, as she stood before him, rather than suffer her
to enter upon it.

CHAPTER II.

THE BROKEN CROSS.

Lady Isabel's carriage continued its way, and deposited her at the
residence of Mrs. Levison. Mrs. Levison was nearly eighty years of age,
and very severe in speech and manner, or, as Mrs. Vane expressed it,
"crabbed." She looked the image of impatience when Isabel entered, with
her cap pushed all awry, and pulling at the black satin gown, for Mrs.
Vane had kept her waiting dinner, and Isabel was keeping her from her
tea; and that does not agree with the aged, with their health or with
their temper.

"I fear I am late," exclaimed Lady Isabel, as she advanced to Mrs.
Levison; "but a gentleman dined with papa to-day, and it made us rather
longer at table."

"You are twenty-five minutes behind your time," cried the old lady
sharply, "and I want my tea. Emma, order it in."

Mrs. Vane rang the bell, and did as she was bid. She was a little woman
of six-and-twenty, very plain in face, but elegant in figure, very
accomplished, and vain to her fingers' ends. Her mother, who was dead,
had been Mrs. Levison's daughter, and her husband, Raymond Vane, was
presumptive heir to the earldom of Mount Severn.

"Won't you take that tippet off, child?" asked Mrs. Levison, who knew
nothing of the new-fashioned names for such articles, mantles, burnous,
and all the string of them; and Isabel threw it off and sat down by her.

"The tea is not made, grandmamma!" exclaimed Mrs. Vane, in an accent of
astonishment, as the servant appeared with the tray and the silver urn.
"You surely do not have it made in the room."

"Where should I have it made?" inquired Mrs. Levison.

"It is much more convenient to have it brought in, ready made," said
Mrs. Vane. "I dislike the _embarass_ of making it."

"Indeed!" was the reply of the old lady; "and get it slopped over in the
saucers, and as cold as milk! You always were lazy, Emma--and given to
use those French words. I'd rather stick a printed label on my forehead,
for my part, 'I speak French,' and let the