Florence, as she went home in the fly with her mother after the party at which Harry had spoken to her so openly, did not find the little journey very happy.  Mrs. Mountjoy was a woman endowed with a strong power of wishing rather than of willing, of desiring rather than of contriving; but she was one who could make herself very unpleasant when she was thwarted.  Her daughter was now at last fully determined that if she ever married anybody, that person should be Harry Annesley.  Having once pressed his arm in token of assent, she had as it were given herself away to him, so that no reasoning, no expostulations could, she thought, change her purpose; and she had much more power of bringing about her purposed design than had her mother.  But her mother could be obstinate and self-willed, and would for the time make herself disagreeable.  Florence had assured her lover that everything should be told her mother that night before she went to bed.  But Mrs. Mountjoy did not wait to be simply told.  No sooner were they seated in the fly together than she began to make her inquiries.  “What has that man been saying to you?” she demanded.

Florence was at once offended by hearing her lover so spoken of, and could not simply tell the story of Harry’s successful courtship, as she had intended.  “Mamma,” she said “why do you speak of him like that?”

“Because he is a scamp.”

“No, he is no scamp.  It is very unkind of you to speak in such terms of one whom you know is very dear to me.”

“I do not know it.  He ought not to be dear to you at all.  You have been for years intended for another purpose.”  This was intolerable to Florence,—­this idea that she should have been considered as capable of being intended for the purposes of other people!  And a resolution at once was formed in her mind that she would let her mother know that such intentions were futile.  But for the moment she sat silent.  A journey home at twelve o’clock at night in a fly was not the time for the expression of her resolution.  “I say he is a scamp,” said Mrs. Mountjoy.  “During all these inquiries that have been made after your cousin he has known all about it.”

“He has not known all about it,” said Florence.

“You contradict me in a very impertinent manner, and cannot be acquainted with the circumstances.  The last person who saw your cousin in London was Mr. Henry Annesley, and yet he has not said a word about it, while search was being made on all sides.  And he saw him under circumstances most suspicious in their nature; so suspicious as to have made the police arrest him if they were aware of them.  He had at that moment grossly insulted Captain Scarborough.”

“No, mamma; no, it was not so.”

“How do you know? how can you tell?”

“I do know; and I can tell.  The ill-usage had come from the other side.”