Both the aunt and niece studied the manners of the earl closely, and found several shades of distinction between what he was and what he had been.  He was now the perfect man of the world, without having lost the frank sincerity which caused you to believe all he said.  Had Pendennyss once told Mrs. Wilson, with his natural air and manner, “I am innocent,” she would have believed him, and an earlier investigation would have saved them months of misery; but the consciousness of his deception had oppressed him with the curse of the wicked.

Pendennyss had lost that air of embarrassment and alarm which had so often startled the aunt, even in her hours of greatest confidence, and which had their original in the awkwardness of disguise.  But he retained his softness, his respect, his modest diffidence of his opinions, although somewhat corrected now by his acknowledged experience and acquaintance with man.

Mrs. Wilson thought these decided trifling alterations in manner were improvements; but it required some days and a few tender speeches to reconcile Emily to any change in the appearance of Denbigh.

Lady Marian had ordered her carriage early, as she had not anticipated the pleasure she found, and was engaged to accompany her cousin, Lady Laura, to a fashionable rout that evening.  Unwilling to be torn from ins newly found friends, the earl proposed that the three ladies should accompany his sister to Annerdale House, and then accept himself as an escort to their own residence.  To this Harriet assented, and leaving a message for Chatterton, they entered the coach of Marian, and Pendennyss, mounting the dickey, drove off.

Annerdale House was amongst the best edifices of London.  It had been erected in the preceding century, and Emily for a moment felt, as she went through its splendid apartments, that it threw a chill around her domestic affections; but the figure of Pendennyss by her side reconciled her to a magnificence she had been unused to, which looked the lord indeed; but with so much modesty and softness, and so much attention to herself, that before she left the house, Emily began to think it very possible to enjoy happiness even in the lap of splendor.

The names of Colonel Denbigh and Lady Laura were soon announced, and this formidable gentleman made his appearance, He resembled Pendennyss more than even the duke, and appeared about the same age.

Mrs. Wilson soon saw that she had no grounds for pitying Lady Laura.  The colonel was a polished, elegant man, of evident good sense and knowledge of the world, and apparently devoted to his wife.  He was called George frequently by all his relatives, and he, not unfrequently, used the same term himself in speaking to the earl.  Something was said of a much admired bust, and the doors of a large library were opened to view it.  Emily was running over the backs of a case of books, until her eye rested on one; and half smiling and blushing she turned to Pendennyss, who watched every movement, as she said, playfully,