a
step or two towards them,--then, as if checking himself, turned on his
heel, and left the room. A few minutes afterwards, and when certain
satirical nods and winks were circulating among the assembly, a waiter
slid a piece of paper into Mrs. Jones's hand, who, on looking at the
contents, seemed about to leave the room.

"Jones--Jones!" exclaimed Lady Penelope, in surprise and displeasure.

"Only the key of the tea-caddie, your ladyship," answered Jones; "I will
be back in an instant."

"Jones--Jones!" again exclaimed her mistress, "here is enough"--of tea,
she would have said; but Lord Etherington was so near her, that she was
ashamed to complete the sentence, and had only hope in Jones's quickness
of apprehension, and the prospect that she would be unable to find the
key which she went in search of.

Jones, meanwhile, tripped off to a sort of housekeeper's apartment, of
which she was _locum tenens_ for the evening, for the more ready supply
of whatever might be wanted on Lady Penelope's night, as it was called.
Here she found Mr. Mowbray of St. Ronan's, whom she instantly began to
assail with, "La! now, Mr. Mowbray, you are such another gentleman!--I
am sure you will make me lose my place--I'll swear you will--what can
you have to say, that you could not as well put off for an hour?"

"I want to know, Jones," answered Mowbray, in a different tone, perhaps,
from what the damsel expected, "what your lady was just now saying about
my family."

"Pshaw!--was that all?" answered Mrs. Jones. "What should she be
saying?--nonsense--Who minds what she says?--I am sure I never do, for
one."

"Nay, but, my dear Jones," said Mowbray, "I insist upon knowing--I must
know, and I _will_ know."

"La! Mr. Mowbray, why should I make mischief?--As I live, I hear some
one coming! and if you were found speaking with me here--indeed, indeed,
some one is coming!"

"The devil may come, if he will!" said Mowbray, "but we do not part,
pretty mistress, till you tell me what I wish to know."

"Lord, sir, you frighten me!" answered Jones; "but all the room heard it
as well as I--it was about Miss Mowbray--and that my lady would be shy
of her company hereafter--for that she was--she was"----

"For that my sister was _what_?" said Mowbray, fiercely, seizing her
arm.

"Lord, sir, you terrify me!" said Jones, beginning to cry; "at any rate,
it was not I that said it--it was Lady Penelope."

"And what was it the old, adder-tongued madw