the end of the next month, business
became a convenient excuse. When three months had passed, Mrs. Vane
became unhappy. She thought he too must feel the separation. She offered
to come to him. He answered uncandidly. He urged the length, the fatigue
of the journey. She was silenced; but some time later she began to take
a new view of his objections. "He is so self-denying," said she. "Dear
Ernest, he longs for me; but he thinks it selfish to let me travel so
far alone to see him."

Full of this idea, she yielded to her love. She made her preparations,
and wrote to him, that, if he did not forbid her peremptorily, he must
expect to see her at his breakfast-table in a very few days.

Mr. Vane concluded this was a jest, and did not answer this letter at
all.

Mrs. Vane started. She traveled with all speed; but, coming to a halt
at ----, she wrote to her husband that she counted on being with him at
four of the clock on Thursday.

This letter preceded her arrival by a few hours. It was put into his
hand at the same time with a note from Mrs. Woffington, telling him she
should be at a rehearsal at Covent Garden. Thinking his wife's letter
would keep, he threw it on one side into a sort of a tray; and, after a
hurried breakfast, went out of his house to the theater. He returned, as
we are aware, with Mrs. Woffington; and also, at her request, with Mr.
Cibber, for whom they had called on their way. He had forgotten his
wife's letter, and was entirely occupied with his guests.

Sir Charles Pomander joined them, and found Mr. Colander, the head
domestic of the London establishment, cutting with a pair of scissors
every flower Mrs. Woffington fancied, that lady having a passion for
flowers.

Colander, during his temporary absence from the interior, had appointed
James Burdock to keep the house, and receive the two remaining guests,
should they arrive.

This James Burdock was a faithful old country servant, who had come up
with Mr. Vane, but left his heart at Willoughby. James Burdock had for
some time been ruminating, and his conclusion was, that his mistress,
Miss Mabel (as by force of habit he called her), was not treated as she
deserved.

Burdock had been imported into Mr. Vane's family by Mabel; he had
carried her in his arms when she was a child; he had held her upon a
donkey when she was a little girl; and when she became a woman, it was
he who taught her to stand close to her horse, and give him her foot and
sp