"Hush! hush! This is not my only object. If I have wronged your stepmother, or neglected your father, the whole country shall see that a Carset knows how to make reparation. Lady Hope, too, shall be presented to my friends as an honored guest. This entertainment will be my last, but they shall find that the old countess knows how to receive her guests."
"Grandmother, you are an—an—. You are just the sweetest old lady that ever drew breath! If you were to live a thousand years, I should love you better and better every day! To see you and Lady Hope together will be splendid! And they are to stay at Houghton a month. By that time you will love each other dearly."
Clara took up her work again, but the needle flashed like a thread of lightning in her unsteady fingers. She could not work after this glorious news.
The old lady smiled blandly, and sank down among her cushions, exhausted.
"Go out and take a walk in the park," she said, observing that Clara was fluttering over her embroidery like a bird in its cage. "It will do you good, and I will try to sleep a little."
CHAPTER XXIV.
DOWN BY THE BROOK AMONG THE FERNS.
Clara put on her hat and wandered off into the park, as happy as a bird.
She had found the dearest old fairy godmother. She saw a glorious light breaking in upon the life of her stepmother, and out of all this generous conduct in the old countess sprang a vague hope that she might yet be won to sanction her marriage with the man of her choice.
She took no heed of the way, but wandered on, treading the earth like a sylph, and breaking into little snatches of song whenever the birds in the branches put her in mind of it. She was descending into a little, ferny hollow, with a brook creeping along the bottom, along which a narrow footpath ran, when the crackle of a broken branch, and the quick tread of a foot, made her pause and look at the opposite bank, down which a young man was coming, with more swiftness than he seemed to desire, for he only saved himself from a plunge in the brook by leaping over it, with a bound that brought him to Clara's side. It was Lord Hilton.