d greet every fresh departure with a gaiety
more forced and a smile more and more hopeless.

Well, _my_ London season too was drawing to its close, and I confess I
had enjoyed it very much. What with my morning gallops and afternoon
saunters (for John had returned to his allegiance, and came to take me
out regularly, although he always joined Miss Molasses' party when he
got into the Park); what with Aunt Deborah's tiresome cold, which
obliged me to go about a good deal by myself, and the agreeable
society of Frank Lovell, who never missed an opportunity of being with
us, I had been very happy, and I was quite sorry to think it was all
so soon to come to an end. John was already talking of a fishing
excursion to Norway, and actually proposed that I should accompany
him; an arrangement which Aunt Deborah declared "was totally
impracticable," and which I confess I do not myself think would have
been a very good plan. I had made several pleasant acquaintances,
amongst whom I may number Lady Scapegrace--that much-maligned dame
having taken a great fancy to me ever after the affair of the bull,
and proving, when I came to know her better, a very different person
from what the world gave her credit for being. With all her
faults--the chief of which were an uncontrollable temper and much too
strong feelings for the nineteenth century--she had a warm,
affectionate heart, and was altogether an energetic, straightforward
woman, very much in earnest, whether for good or evil. But there was
one thing that vexed me considerably amongst all my regrets for past
pleasures and castles in the air for the future, and this was the
conduct of Captain Lovell. What did he mean? I couldn't make him out
at all. One day calling on my aunt at eleven in the morning, and
staying to luncheon, and making himself so agreeable to _her_, and
bringing bouquets of the loveliest flowers (which I know came from
Harding's or else direct from Covent Garden) to _me_; and then going
away as if he had fifty more things to say, and lingering over his
farewell as if he was on the eve of departure for China instead of
Mayfair, and joining me again in the Park, and asking me if I was
going to the Opera, and finding out all my engagements and intentions,
as if he couldn't possibly live five minutes out of my sight; and
then, perhaps, never coming near us for days together, till even my
aunt "wondered what had become of that pleasant Captain Lovell;" and
when he met