successor, was a person worthy of her chief confidence. At
two-and-twenty, the school-room was still the home of her affections,
and her ardent love was lavished on her little sisters and her brother
Walter.

Going out with Lady Conway was mere matter of duty and submission. She
had not such high animal spirits as to find enjoyment in her gaieties,
and her grave, pensive character only attained to walking through her
part; she had seen little but the more frivolous samples of society,
scorned and disliked all that was worldly and manoeuvring, and hung
back from levity and coquetry with utter distaste. Removed from her
natural home, where she would have found duties and seen various
aspects of life, she had little to interest or occupy her in her
unsettled wanderings; and to her the sap of life was in books, in
dreams, in the love of her brother and sisters, and in discussions with
Miss King; her favourite vision for the future, the going to live with
Walter at Thornton Conway when he should be of age. But Walter was
younger than Louisa, and it was a very distant prospect.

Her characteristic was a calm, serene indifference, in which her
stepmother acquiesced, as lovers of peace do in what they cannot help;
and the more willingly, that her tranquil dignity and pensive grace
exactly suited the style of her tall queenly figure, delicate features,
dark soft languid eyes, and clear olive complexion, just tinged with
rosebud pink.

What Louis said of her to his tutor on the Monday night of their
arrival was beyond the bounds of all reason; and it was even more
memorable that Jem was neither satirical nor disputatious, assented to
all, and if he sighed, it was after his door was shut.

A felicitous day ensued, spent by James in shooting, by Fitzjocelyn, in
the drawing-room; whither Mrs. Mansell had requested Isabel's presence,
as a favour to herself. The young lady sat at work, seldom raising her
eyes, but this was enough for him; his intense admiration and pleasure
in her presence so exhilarated him, that he rattled away to the utmost.
Louisa was at first the excuse. In no further doubt of his
good-nature, she spent an hour in the morning in giving him anagrams to
guess; and after she had repaired to the schoolroom, he went on
inventing fresh ones, and transposing the ivory letters, rambling on in
his usual style of pensive drollery. Happiness never set him off to
advantage, and either there was more froth than or