The Countess patted her shoulder.  ‘Safe, dear,’ she said aloud, as one who would not make much of it.  And in a whisper, ‘You look superb.’

I must charge it to Caroline’s beauty under the ducal radiance, that a stream of sweet feelings entering into the Countess made her forget to tell her sister that George Uplift was by.  Caroline had not been abroad, and her skin was not olive-hued; she was a beauty, and a majestic figure, little altered since the day when the wooden marine marched her out of Lymport.

The Countess stepped from the carriage to go and cherish Juliana’s petulant distress; for that unhealthy little body was stamping with impatience to have the story told to her, to burst into fits of pathos; and while Seymour and Harry assisted Evan to descend, trying to laugh off the pain he endured, Caroline stood by, soothing him with words and tender looks.

Lady Jocelyn passed him, and took his hand, saying, ’Not killed this time!’

‘At your ladyship’s service to-morrow,’ he replied, and his hand was kindly squeezed.

‘My darling Evan, you will not ride again?’ Caroline cried, kissing him on the steps; and the Duke watched the operation, and the Countess observed the Duke.

That Providence should select her sweetest moments to deal her wounds, was cruel; but the Countess just then distinctly heard Mr. George Uplift ask Miss Carrington.

‘Is that lady a Harrington?’

‘You perceive a likeness?’ was the answer.

Mr. George went ‘Whew!—­tit-tit-tit!’ with the profound expression of a very slow mind.

The scene was quickly over.  There was barely an hour for the ladies to dress for dinner.  Leaving Evan in the doctor’s hand, and telling Caroline to dress in her room, the Countess met Rose, and gratified her vindictiveness, while she furthered her projects, by saying: 

’Not till my brother is quite convalescent will it be adviseable that you should visit him.  I am compelled to think of him entirely now.  In his present state he is not fit to be, played with.’

Rose, stedfastly eyeing her, seemed to swallow down something in her throat, and said: 

‘I will obey you, Countess.  I hoped you would allow me to nurse him.’

‘Quiet above all things, Rose Jocelyn!’ returned the Countess, with the suavity of a governess, who must be civil in her sourness.  ’If you would not complete this morning’s achievement—­stay away.’

The Countess declined to see that Rose’s lip quivered.  She saw an unpleasantness in the bottom of her eyes; and now that her brother’s decease was not even remotely to be apprehended, she herself determined to punish the cold, unimpressionable coquette of a girl.  Before returning to Caroline, she had five minutes’ conversation with.  Juliana, which fully determined her to continue the campaign at Beckley Court, commence decisive movements, and not to retreat, though fifty George Uplofts menaced her.  Consequently, having dismissed Conning on a message to Harry Jocelyn, to ask him for a list of the names of the new people they were to meet that day at dinner, she said to Caroline: