James was hurt to find Isabel so much delighted to go, but resolved that she should not be deprived of the pleasure, and petulantly denied the offers, which became even entreaties, that she might wait till he could accompany her.  He arranged, therefore, that he should follow her in a fortnight’s time, the Miss Faithfulls undertaking the charge of their small namesakes; and Lady Conway wrote to fix a day when Delaford should come to take care of Isabel on her journey.

James and Isabel laughed at this measure.  Mrs. James Frost was certainly not in circumstances to carry such a hero of the buttery in her suite; and Lady Conway herself had more sense than to have proposed it, but for Delaford’s own representations.  In fact, there was a pretty face at Dynevor Terrace, and he had been piqued enough by the return of his letters to be resolved on re-establixhing his influence.  Therefore did he demonstrate to my Lady that the only appropriate trains would bring him to Northwold at seven in the evening, and take him and Mrs. James Frost Dynevor away at eleven next morning; and therefore did Isabel look up in a sudden fit of recollection, as the breakfast was being removed, and say, ’Charlotte, Delaford is coming on Tuesday to fetch me to Estminster, and will sleep here that night.’

Isabel little guessed that in the days when she viewed the fantastic Viscount as her greatest enemy, the announcement of his approach would have been far less appalling to her.

‘The wretch! the traitor! the vile deceiver!’ thought Charlotte, not chary of her epithets, and almost ready to wreak her vengeance on the silver spoons.  ’He has gone and broken poor Marianne’s heart, and now he wants to treat me the same, and make me faithless to poor Tom, that is up in the mountain-tops and trusts to me!  O me, what shall I do?  Mrs. Beckett is gone, and there’s no one to give me an advice!  If I speak to him or scorn him, he’ll take his advantage all alike—­ and his words are so fine and so soft, that do what I will to hate him when I’m away, he is sure to wind round me when he’s there; and I can’t get away, and I’m a poor, lonely, fatherless and motherless orphan, and a vain girl, that has listened already to his treacherous suit more than poor Tom would think for.’

Charlotte worked on in much grief and perplexity for some minutes, revolving the vanity that had led to her follies, and humbling herself in her own eyes.  Suddenly, a flash of thought crossed her, and woke a smile upon her face, almost a look of mischief.  She tied on a clean apron, and running upstairs, opened the drawing-room door, and said, ’If you please, ma’am, might I ask Miss Faithfull’s Martha to tea on Tuesday night?’

‘Oh yes, if you like,’ said Isabel, never raising her eyes from the rebuilding of the ruined chapel in the valley.

Away skipped Charlotte, and in two minutes was at the back door of the House Beautiful.  Mrs. Martha had been grimly kind to her ever since she had been afflicted with the cook for a fellow-servant, and received her only with a reproof for coming gadding out, when she ought to be hard at work; but when she heard the invitation, she became wrathful—­she had rather go ten miles out of her way than even look at ‘that there Ford.’