“Have you?  I am indeed gratified to learn this.”

“Flora has set her heart on gaining Fanny’s consent, and will leave no influence untried.”

“Still, Fanny’s promise to go is withheld?”

“Yes; but I have observed her looking over her drawers, and showing more interest in certain articles therein than she has evinced for a long, long time.”

“If she goes, she will require a new dress,” said Mr. Markland.

“I think not.  Such preparation would be too formal at present.  But, we can make that all right.”

“Oh! it will give me so much pleasure!  Do not leave any influence untried.”

“You may be sure that we will not,” answered Mrs. Markland; “and, what is more, you have little to fear touching our success.”

CHAPTER XXXIX.

THE efforts of Flora Willet were successful; and Fanny Markland made one of the company that assembled at her brother’s house.  Through an almost unconquerable reluctance to come forth into the eye of the world, so to speak, she had broken; and, as one after another of the guests entered the parlours, she could hardly repress an impulse to steal away and hide herself from the crowd of human faces thickly closing around her.  Undesired, she found herself an object of attention; and, in some cases, of clearly-expressed sympathy, that was doubly unpleasant.

The evening was drawing to a close, and Fanny had left the company and was standing alone in one of the porticos, when a young man, whose eyes she had several times observed earnestly fixed upon her, passed near, walked a few paces beyond, and then turning, came up and said, in a low voice—­“Pardon this slight breach of etiquette, Miss Markland.  I failed to get a formal introduction.  But, as I have a few words to say that must be said, I am forced to a seeming rudeness.”

Both the manner and words of the stranger so startled Fanny, that her heart began to throb wildly and her limbs to tremble.  Seeing her clasp the pillar by which she stood, he said, as he offered an arm—­

“Walk with me, for a few minutes at the other end of the portico.  We will be less observed, and freer from interruption.”

But Fanny only shrunk closer to the pillar.

“If you have any thing to say to me, let it be said here,” she replied.  Her trembling voice betrayed her agitation.

“What I have to say, concerns you deeply,” returned the young man, “and you ought to hear it in a calmer mood.  Let us remove a little farther from observation, and be less in danger of interruption.”

“Speak, or retire!” said Fanny, with assumed firmness, waving her hand as she spoke.

But the stranger only bent nearer.

“I have a word for you from Mr. Lyon,” said he, in a low, distinct whisper.

It was some moments before Fanny made answer.  There was a wild strife in her spirit.  But the tempest was of brief duration.  Scarcely a perceptible tremor was in her voice, as she answered,