lance with his lordship, she began to draw on her gloves.
Whilst buttoning one she said--

"Have you seen him?"

"No," he replied; "but, in any case, I think he would have avoided me
to-day."

"Why?"

"From motives of delicacy. Henry Marshire is a man of the nicest
feeling. He is never guilty of the least mistake."

Sara smiled, and so disguised a blush.

"I did not mean Marshire," she said. "I was thinking then of Robert
Orange."

"Robert Orange," exclaimed Lord Garrow in astonishment.

"Yes, dear papa. Is he not sometimes at the Carlton with Lord Wight? He
seems to me a coming man; and so good-looking. We must really ask him to
dinner."

Some minutes elapsed before the Earl could utter any comment on a
suggestion so surprising, and at that particular moment so
inconsequent. Was his daughter not weighing--with prayer, he hoped, and
certainly with all her senses--the prospect of an alliance with the Duke
of Marshire? How, then, could she pause in a meditation of such vital
interest to make capricious remarks about a mere acquaintance?

"Does Marshire know him?" he asked at last.

"I hope so. He is a remarkable person. But the party is blind."

"My dear, the English are an aristocratic people. They do not forgive
mysterious blood and ungentle origins. While we have our Howards, our
Talbots, and our Poulets--to say nothing of the De Courcys and
Cliftons--it would surely seem excessively absurd to endure the
intrusion of French _emigres_ into our midst."

"How I hate the great world!" exclaimed Sara, with vehemence; "how I
dislike the class which ambition, wealth, and pride separate from the
rest of humanity! My only happiness now is found in solitude."

"Your mother, dear Sara, had--or fancied so--this same desire to shun
companionship and be alone. Her delicate health after our marriage made
her fear society."

"There are days when it seems an arena of wild beasts!"

"Nevertheless, my darling, at your age you must learn to live among your
fellow creatures."

"How can I live where I should be afraid to die?"

"Ought you to give way to these moods? Is it not mistaking the
imagination for the soul? Young people do this, and you are very
young--but two-and-twenty."

"I am double-hearted," said Sara; "and when one is double-hearted the
tongue must utter contradictions. I like my advantages while I despise
them. I wish to be thought exclusive, yet I condemn the pettiness of my
ambition. And so on."