no ear. He was
thinking for whom could Foker be purchasing those trinkets which he was
carrying away from the jeweller's? Why did Harry seem anxious to avoid
him? Could he be still faithful to the attachment which had agitated him
so much, and sent him abroad eighteen months back? Psha! The bracelets
and presents were for some of Harry's old friends of the Opera or the
French theatre. Rumours from Naples and Paris, rumours such as are
borne to Club smoking-rooms, had announced that the young man had found
distractions; or, precluded from his virtuous attachment, the
poor fellow had flung himself back upon his old companions and
amusements--not the only man or woman whom society forces into evil, or
debars from good; not the only victim of the world's selfish and wicked
laws.

As a good thing when it is to be done cannot be done too quickly, Laura
was anxious that Pen's marriage intentions should be put into execution
as speedily as possible, and pressed on his arrangements with rather a
feverish anxiety. Why could she not wait? Pen could afford to do so with
perfect equanimity, but Laura would hear of no delay. She wrote to Pen:
she implored Pen: she used every means to urge expedition. It seemed as
if she could have no rest until Arthur's happiness was complete.

She offered herself to dearest Blanche to come and stay at Tunbridge
with her, when Lady Rockminster should go on her intended visit to the
reigning house of Rockminster; and although the old dowager scolded, and
ordered, and commanded, Laura was deaf and disobedient: she must go to
Tunbridge, she would go to Tunbridge: she who ordinarily had no will of
her own, and complied smilingly with anybody's whim and caprices, showed
the most selfish and obstinate determination in this instance. The
dowager lady must nurse herself in her rheumatism, she must read herself
to sleep, if she would not hear her maid, whose voice croaked, and who
made sad work of the sentimental passages in the novels--Laura must
go,--and be with her new sister. In another week, she proposed, with
many loves and regards to dear Lady Clavering, to pass some time with
dearest Blanche.

Dearest Blanche wrote instantly in reply to dearest Laura's No. 1,
to say with what extreme delight she should welcome her sister: how
charming it would be to practise their old duets together, to wander
o'er the grassy sward, and amidst the yellowing woods of Penshurst and
Southborough! Blanche counted the