of the opposite sex until she is well assured that he is
beginning, at least, to like her better than all the world beside; but I
could not deny to myself that I was rather anxious to know more about Lord
Ilbury than I actually did know.

There was a 'Peerage,' in its bright scarlet and gold uniform, corpulent
and tempting, upon the little marble table in the drawing-room. I had many
opportunities of consulting it, but I never could find courage to do so.

For an inexperienced person it would have been a matter of several minutes,
and during those minutes what awful risk of surprise and detection. One
day, all being quiet, I did venture, and actually, with a beating heart,
got so far as to find out the letter 'Il,' when I heard a step outside the
door, which opened a little bit, and I heard Lady Knollys, luckily arrested
at the entrance, talk some sentences outside, her hand still upon the
door-handle. I shut the book, as Mrs. Bluebeard might the door of the
chamber of horrors at the sound of her husband's step, and skipped to a
remote part of the room, where Cousin Knollys found me in a mysterious
state of agitation.

On any other subject I would have questioned Cousin Monica unhesitatingly;
upon this, somehow, I was dumb. I distrusted myself, and dreaded my odious
habit of blushing, and knew that I should look so horribly guilty, and
become so agitated and odd, that she would have reasonably concluded that I
had quite lost my heart to him.

After the lesson I had received, and my narrow escape of detection in the
very act, you may be sure I never trusted myself in the vicinity of that
fat and cruel 'Peerage,' which possessed the secret, but would not disclose
without compromising me.

In this state of tantalizing darkness and conjecture I should have
departed, had not Cousin Monica quite spontaneously relieved me.

The night before our departure she sat with us in our room, chatting a
little farewell gossip.

'And what do you think of Ilbury?' she asked.

'I think him clever and accomplished, and amusing; but he sometimes appears
to me very melancholy--that is, for a few minutes together--and then, I
fancy, with an effort, re-engages in our conversation.'

'Yes, poor Ilbury! He lost his brother only about five months since, and
is only beginning to recover his spirits a little. They were very much
attached, and people thought that he would have succeeded to the title,
had he lived, because Ilbury is _difficil