"Lady Florence has indeed improved," said this new guest. "I could not have conceived that England boasted any one half so beautiful."
"She certainly is handsome, my dear Lumley,—the Lascelles cast of countenance," replied Lord Saxingham," and so gifted! She is positively learned—quite a /bas bleu/. I tremble to think of the crowd of poets and painters who will make a fortune out of her enthusiasm. /Entre nous/, Lumley, I could wish her married to a man of sober sense, like the Duke of ———; for sober sense is exactly what she wants. Do observe, she has been sitting just half an hour flirting with that odd-looking adventurer, a Signor Cesarini, merely because he writes sonnets and wears a dress like a stage-player!"
"It is the weakness of the sex, my dear lord," said Lumley; "they like to patronise, and they dote upon all oddities, from China monsters to cracked poets. But I fancy, by a restless glance cast every now and then around the room, that my beautiful cousin has in her something of the coquette."
"There you are quite right, Lumley," returned Lord Saxingham, laughing; "but I will not quarrel with her for breaking hearts and refusing hands, if she do but grow steady at last, and settle into the Duchess of ———."
"Duchess of ———!" repeated Lumley, absently; "well, I will go and present myself. I see she is growing tired of the signor. I will sound her as to the ducal impressions, my dear lord."
"Do—I dare not," replied the father; "she is an excellent girl, but heiresses are always contradictory. It was very foolish to deprive me of all control over her fortune. Come and see me again soon, Lumley. I suppose you are going abroad?"
"No, I shall settle in England; but of my prospects and plans more hereafter."
With this, Lumley quietly glided away to Florence. There was something in Ferrers that was remarkable from its very simplicity. His clear, sharp features, with the short hair and high brow—the absolute plainness of his dress, and the noiseless, easy, self-collected calm of all his motions, made a strong contrast to the showy Italian, by whose side he now stood. Florence looked up at him with some little surprise at his intrusion.
"Ah, you don't recollect me!" said Lumley, with his pleasant laugh.
"Faithless Imogen, after all your vows of constancy! Behold your
Alonzo!
'The worms they crept in and the worms they crept out.'