life-sized Gainsborough of a lady with a straw hat, reclining on a bank of flowers, was conspicuous over one fire-place.  There were cavaliers with long, curled hair, gentlemen of a later date in pig-tails; but the most modern of all was a portrait of a boy playing with a large dog.  On this one her eye lingered longest.  Whom could it be?  It was not in the least like Harry, and yet she fancied something about it familiar to her.  There was a look of Lord Bromley, certainly—­perhaps it was a portrait of him in childhood.

Mabel and Adela, meantime, were performing an elaborate duet.  It was one of her most irksome duties instructing these children in music, who would never attain to more than mechanical excellence.  When they had arrived at the final crash, with not more than half a bar between them, Bluebell was summoned to sing.  The gentlemen came in from the dining-room at the last verse, and, after a slight pause, she began another unasked.  Mrs. Barrington thought this rather forward, but there was a suppressed murmur of applause when she had finished.

One of the ladies addressed a few words to her, and then Kate carelessly brought up a gentleman who had been tormenting her for an introduction.

Bluebell had hoped that Lord Bromley would have spoken to her, after their encounter in the morning.  But he did not, though sometimes she felt sure he was looking at her.

The undercurrent of excitement gave a feverish vivacity to her manner, which Sir Robert Lowther imputed to gratified vanity at his attentions and he continued complacently by her side, till Mrs. Barrington said,—­“I think, Miss Leigh, the children should go to bed,” and Bluebell understood she was expected to accompany them.

It was very mortifying.  Apparently she had been too much at her ease, and perhaps the empressement with which Sir Robert had rushed to open the door might exclude her from coming down for the future.  Then she reflected, with a little pardonable spite, that, if things turned out according to her hopes, Mrs. Barrington might, perhaps, repent having marched her off with the children like a nursery-maid.

The following morning, at the same hour, Bluebell circulated the spring woods with her pupils, and, had he been a young lover approaching, her heart could not have beat higher than on again perceiving the bent form of Lord Bromley.

Would he pass them with a courteous lifting of the hat to her?  Of course; what else would he do?  Her fervent aspiration had apparently a magnetic effect; or was it her face that was so tell-tale a mirror?  Lord Bromley stopped, spoke a few words, and actually turned back with them!

Bluebell was in the seventh heaven.  She had not yet learnt how little even personal liking weighs against ambition when the object of it is unsupported by the merit of being well placed in the world.  If well-tochered Lady Geraldine, pale and plain, had married the heir, every door in Bromley Towers would have been hospitably thrown open to her while the loveliest Peri, whose face was her fortune, might have stood knocking at the portal-gate unnoticed.