--and she has not said it yet. Is
she going to say it? Yes. She is going to get, by a roundabout way, to
the object in view. She has another inquiry of the affectionate sort
to make. May she be permitted to resume the subject of Lord and Lady
Holchester's travels? They have been at Rome. Can they confirm the
shocking intelligence which has reached her of the "apostasy" of Mrs.
Glenarm?

Lady Holchester can confirm it, by personal experience. Mrs. Glenarm
has renounced the world, and has taken refuge in the bosom of the Holy
Catholic Church. Lady Holchester has seen her in a convent at Rome. She
is passing through the period of her probation; and she is resolved to
take the veil. Lady Lundie, as a good Protestant, lifts her hands in
horror--declares the topic to be too painful to dwell on--and, by way of
varying it, goes straight to the point at last. Has Lady I Holchester,
in the course of her continental experience, happened to meet with, or
to hear of--Mrs. Arnold Brinkworth?

"I have ceased, as you know, to hold any communication with my
relatives," Lady Lundie explains. "The course they took at the time of
our family trial--the sympathy they felt with a Person whom I can not
even now trust myself to name more particularly--alienated us from each
other. I may be grieved, dear Lady Holchester; but I bear no malice. And
I shall always feel a motherly interest in hearing of Blanche's welfare.
I have been told that she and her husband were traveling, at the time
when you and Lord Holchester were traveling. Did you meet with them?"

Julius and his wife looked at each other. Lord Holchester is dumb. Lady
Holchester replies:

"We saw Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Brinkworth at Florence, and afterward
at Naples, Lady Lundie. They returned to England a week since, in
anticipation of a certain happy event, which will possibly increase the
members of your family circle. They are now in London. Indeed, I may
tell you that we expect them here to lunch to-day."

Having made this plain statement, Lady Holchester looks at Lady Lundie.
(If _that_ doesn't hasten her departure, nothing will!)

Quite useless! Lady Lundie holds her ground. Having heard absolutely
nothing of her relatives for the last six months, she is burning with
curiosity to hear more. There is a name she has not mentioned yet. She
places a certain constraint upon herself, and mentions it now.

"And Sir Patrick?" says her ladyship, subsiding into a gentle
melancholy, su