hem to the recollection of other people.

One glance of the eye was enough for Lady Chatterton. She saw the traces
of tears on the cheeks and in the eyes of Grace, and the dowager was
satisfied; she knew his friends would not object; and as Grace attended
her to her dressing-room, she cried on entering it, "Well, child, when is
the wedding to be? You will wear me out with so much gaiety."

Grace was shocked, but did not as formerly weep over her mother's
interference in agony and dread. John had opened his whole soul to her,
observing the greatest delicacy towards her mother, and she now felt her
happiness placed in the keeping of a man whose honor she believed much
exceeded that of any other human being.

Chapter XXXII.

The seniors of the party at Benfield Lodge were all assembled one morning
in a parlor, when its master and the baronet were occupied in the perusal
of the London papers. Clara had persuaded her sisters to accompany her and
Francis in an excursion as far as the village.

Jane yet continued reserved and distant to most of her friends; while
Emily's conduct would have escaped unnoticed, did not her blanched cheek
and wandering looks at times speak a language not to be misunderstood.
With all her relatives she maintained the affectionate intercourse she had
always supported; though not even to her aunt did the name of Denbigh pass
her lips. But in her most private and humble petitions to God, she never
forgot to mingle with her requests for spiritual blessings on herself,
fervent prayers for the conversion of the preserver of her life.

Mrs. Wilson, as she sat by the side of her sister at their needles, first
discovered an unusual uneasiness in their venerable host, while he turned
his paper over and over, as if unwilling or unable to comprehend some part
of its contents, until he rang the bell violently, and bid the servant to
send Johnson to him without a moment's delay.

"Peter," said Mr. Benfield doubtingly, "read that--your eyes are young,
Peter; read that."

Peter took the paper, and after having adjusted his spectacles to his
satisfaction, he proceeded to obey his master's injunctions; but the same
defect of vision as suddenly seized the steward as it had affected his
master. He turned the paper sideways, and appeared to be spelling the
matter of the paragraph to himself. Peter would have given his three
hundred a year to have had the impatient John Moseley a hand, to relieve
him f