The evening would have been very happy, had not Lord Ormersfield looked imperturbably grave and inaccessible to his sister-in-law’s blandishments.  She did not use the most likely means of disarming him when she spoke of making a tour in the summer.  It had been a long promise that Isabel and Virginia should go to see their old governess at Paris; but if France still were in too disturbed a state, they might enjoy themselves in Belgium, and perhaps her dear Fitzjocelyn would accompany them as their escort.

His eyes had glittered at the proposal before he recollected the sorrow that threatened his father, and began to decline, protesting that he should be the worst escort in the world, since he always attracted accidents and adventures.  But his aunt, discovering that he had never been abroad, became doubly urgent, and even appealed to his father.

’As far as I am concerned, Fitzjocelyn may freely consult his own inclinations,’ said the Earl, so gravely, that Lady Conway could only turn aside the subject by a laugh, and assurance that she did not mean to give him up.  She began to talk of James Frost, and her wishes to secure him a second time as Walter’s tutor in the holidays.

‘You had better take him with you,’ said Louis; ’he would really be of use to you, and how he would enjoy the sight of foreign parts!’

Isabel raised her head with a look of approbation, such as encouraged him to come a little nearer, and apeak of the pleasure that her kindness had given to Clara.

’There is a high spirit and originality about Clara, which make her a most amusing companion.’

Isabel replied, ’I am very glad of an hour with her, especially now that I am without my sisters.’

’She must be such a riddle to her respectable school-fellows, that intercourse beyond them must be doubly valuable.’

‘Poor child!  Is there no hope for her but going out as a governess?’

’Unluckily, we have no Church patronage for her brother; the only likely escape—­unless, indeed, the uncle in Peru, whom I begin to regard as rather mythical, should send an unavoidable shower of gold on them.’

‘I hope not,’ said Isabel, ’I could almost call their noble poverty a sacred thing.  I never saw anything so beautiful as the reverent affection shown to Mrs. Dynevor on Walter’s birthday, when she was the Queen of the Night, and looked it, and her old pupils vied with each other in doing her honour.  I have remembered the scene so often in looking at our faded dowagers here.’

‘I would defy Midas to make my Aunt Catharine a faded dowager,’ said Louis.

’No; but he could have robbed their homage of half—­nay, all its grace.’