“Do the Dowager and the young ladies accompany Chatterton?” asked Sir Edward, as he turned to John, who was eating his fruit in silence.

“Yes, sir—­I hope—­that is, I believe she will,” was the answer.

“She!  Who is she, my son?”

“Grace Chatterton,” said John, starting from his meditations.  “Did you not ask me about Grace, Sir Edward?”

“Not particularly, I believe,” said the baronet, dryly.

Denbigh again smiled:  it was a smile different from any Mrs. Wilson had ever seen on his countenance, and gave an entirely novel expression to his face; it was full of meaning it was knowing—­spoke more of the man of the world than anything she had before noticed in him, and left on her mind one of those vague impressions she was often troubled with, that there was something about Denbigh in character or condition, or both, that was mysterious.

The spirit of Jane was too great to leave her a pining or pensive maiden; yet her feelings had sustained a shock that time alone could cure.  She appeared again amongst her friends; but the consciousness of her expectations with respect to the colonel being known to them, threw around her a hauteur and distance very foreign to her natural manner.  Emily alone, whose every movement sprang from the spontaneous feelings of her heart, and whose words and actions were influenced by the finest and most affectionate delicacy, such as she was not conscious of possessing herself, won upon the better feelings of her sister so far, as to restore between them the usual exchange of kindness and sympathy.  But Jane admitted no confidence; she found nothing consoling, nothing solid, to justify her attachment to Egerton; nothing indeed, excepting such external advantages as she was now ashamed to admit had ever the power over her they in reality had possessed.  The marriage of the fugitives in Scotland had been announced; and as the impression that Egerton was to be connected with the Moseleys was destroyed of course, their every-day acquaintances, feeling the restraints removed that such an opinion had once imposed, were free in their comments on his character.  Sir Edward and Lady Moseley were astonished to find how many things to his disadvantage were generally known; that he gambled—­intrigued—­and was in debt—­were no secrets apparently to anybody, but to those who were most interested in knowing the truth; while Mrs. Wilson saw in these facts additional reasons for examining and judging for ourselves; the world uniformly concealing from the party and his friends their honest opinions of his character.  Some of these insinuations reached the ears of Jane:  her aunt having rightly judged, that the surest way to destroy Egerton’s power over the imagination of her niece was to strip him of his fictitious qualities, suggested this expedient to Lady Moseley; and some of their visitors had though as the colonel had certainly been attentive to Miss Moseley, it would give her pleasure to know that her rival had not made the most eligible match in the kingdom.  The project of Mrs. Wilson succeeded in a great measure; but although Egerton fell, Jane did not find she rose in Her own estimation; and her friends wisely concluded that time was the only remedy that could restore her former serenity.