Theodora had
nothing but Pam's gray satin for her bridal trousseau."

So Theo was left to herself, and having no confidant but the pink and
gold journal, gradually began to trust to its page some very troubled
reflections. It had not occurred to her that she could possibly be
guilty in admiring Mr. Denis Oglethorpe so much as she did, and in
feeling so glad when he came, and so sorry when he went away. She had
not thought that it was because he was sitting near her, and talking to
her between the acts; that Il Trovatore and Faust had been so
thrillingly beautiful and tender. And this was quite true, even though
she had not begun to comprehend it as yet.

She had no right to feel anxious about him; and yet, when, after having
committed himself in the rash manner chronicled, he did not make his
appearance for nearly two weeks, she was troubled in no slight degree.
Indeed, though the thought was scarcely defined, she had some
unsophisticated misgivings as to whether Miss Priscilla Gower might not
have been aroused to a sense of the wrongs done her through the medium
of Il Trovatore, and so have laid an interdict upon his visits; but it
was only Sir Dugald who had suggested this to her fancy.

But by the end of the two weeks, she grew tired of waiting, and the days
were so very long, that at length, not without some slight compunction,
she made up her mind to go and pay a guileless visit to Miss Priscilla
Gower herself.

"I am going to see Miss Gower, aunt," she ventured to say one morning,
at the breakfast table.

Sir Dugald looked up from his huge slice of broiled venison, clumsily
jocose after his customary agreeable manner.

"What's that, Leonora?" he said. "Going to see the stern vestal, are
you? Priscilla, eh?"

Lady Throckmorton shrugged her shoulders in an indifferent sarcasm. She
was often both sarcastic and indifferent in her manner toward Sir
Dugald.

"Theo's in-goings and out-goings are scarcely our business, so long as
she enjoys herself," she said. "Present my regards to the Miss Gowers,
my dear, and say I regret that my health does not permit me to accompany
you."

A polite fiction by the way, as my lady was looking her best. It was
only upon state occasions, and solely on Denis' account, that she ever
submitted to Broome street, albeit the fat, gray horses, and fat gray
coachman did occasionally recognize the existence of that remote
locality.

It so happened that, as they drew up before Miss G