On the next morning after breakfast her aunt sent for her to come up-stairs.  Such a thing had never happened to her before.  She could not recollect that, on any of those annual visits which she had made to Mistletoe for more years than she now liked to think of, she had ever had five minutes’ conversation alone with her aunt.  It had always seemed that she was to be allowed to come and go by reason of her relationship, but that she was to receive no special mark of confidence or affection.  The message was whispered into her ear by her aunt’s own woman as she was listening with great attention to Lady Drummond’s troubles in regard to her nursery arrangements.  She nodded her head, heard a few more words from Lady Drummond, and then, with a pretty apology and a statement made so that all should hear her, that her aunt wanted her, followed the maid up-stairs.  “My dear,” said her aunt, when the door was closed, “I want to ask you whether you would like me to ask Mr. Morton to come here while you are with us?” A thunderbolt at her feet could hardly have surprised or annoyed her more.  If there was one thing that she wanted less than another it was the presence of the Paragon at Mistletoe.  It would utterly subvert everything and rob her of every chance.  With a great effort she restrained all emotion and simply shook her head.  She did it very well, and betrayed nothing.  “I ask,” said the Duchess, “because I have been very glad to hear that you are engaged to marry him.  Lord Drummond tells me that he is a most respectable young man.”

“Mr. Morton will be so much obliged to Lord Drummond.”

“And I thought that if it were so, you would be glad that he should meet you here.  I could manage it very well, as the Drummonds are here, and Lord Drummond would be glad to meet him.”

They had not been above a minute or two together, and Arabella had been called upon to expend her energy in suppressing any expression of her horror; but still, by the time that she was called on to speak, she had fabricated her story.  “Thanks, aunt; it is so good of you; and if everything was going straight, there would be nothing of course that I should like so much.”

“You are engaged to him?”

“Well; I was going to tell you.  I dare say it is not his fault; but papa and mamma and the lawyers think that he is not behaving well about money;—­settlements and all that.  I suppose it will all come right; but in the meantime perhaps I had better not meet him.”

“But you were engaged to him?”

This had to be answered without pause.  “Yes,” said Arabella; “I was engaged to him.”

“And he is going out almost immediately?”

“He is going, I know.”

“I suppose you will go with him?”

This was very hard.  She could not say that she certainly was not going with him.  And yet she had to remember that her coming campaign with Lord Rufford must be carried on in part beneath her aunt’s eyes.  When she had come to Mistletoe she had fondly hoped that none of the family there would know anything about Mr. Morton.  And now she was called upon to answer these horrid questions without a moment’s notice!  “I don’t think I shall go with him, aunt; though I am unable to say anything certain just at present.  If he behaves badly of course the engagement must be off.”