made friends with last year."

"Why, so it is; what a delightful surprise!" exclaimed Elizabeth. "Dear Lady Portinscale, how glad I am to see you again! Do not say you have forgotten me, or I shall find it hard to forgive you!"

"No, indeed, Mrs. Darcy, I was coming to introduce myself, in fear that you might have forgotten me. How do you do, Mr. Darcy? Lady Catherine told me that she was expecting the whole party from Pemberley this week."

"Yes, we have come to put in our period of attendance, as you see," said Elizabeth, "but I never dreamed of anything so pleasant as meeting you again, after what you said last year."

"The truth is that my father has not been at all well, and as he felt himself obliged to come here for a short time, he begged us to join him for two or three weeks."

"Your husband is here this evening?"

"Yes, he is in the next room; I see him talking to Colonel Fitzwilliam."

"And are your brother and his pretty wife in Bath this spring? I remember her so well."

"No, they are at home; but we have a brother of hers staying with us—James Morland. He has a curacy in a very unhealthy part of the Thames Valley, and he has been extremely ill with a low fever, so we have brought him here for a fortnight in the hope that it will do him good."

"How very kind of you to take care of him! He is fortunate to have such friends."

"Oh, no, it is a very small thing; and he is such an excellent young fellow—sensible and agreeable, and so hard-working! My husband has the highest opinion of him; and were he less amiable, it would be a pleasure to be of service to anyone connected with Catherine."

"You oblige me to repeat that anyone who has you for his or her advocate is indeed fortunate, Lady Portinscale," answered Elizabeth, smiling; "but now that you know your character, pray perform the same kind office for some of the people here. They are nearly all strangers to me, and if my husband were not listening, I should say that I wonder how my aunt manages to pick them up."

"Lady Portinscale will soon gauge your character, Elizabeth, if you make such terribly outspoken comments," said Darcy, smiling. "You must not mind her, Lady Portinscale; my aunt's presence has a demoralizing effect upon my wife. It is a very sad thing, but I have often remarked it."

"Not her presence in the ordinary way," said Elizabeth; "but to-day we have been through such a stormy scene together, that I may be excused for feeling that my aunt and I must go diametrically opposite ways for the rest of our lives."

"Really?" said Eleanor Portinscale, with the faintest suspicion of laughter in her eyes. "Poor Lady Catherine! I recollect last year that you and your sister-in-law were continually brewing some kind of rebellious mischief against her."

"That is just the cause of the trouble now," responded Elizabeth. "My sister-in-law became engaged to Colonel Fitzwilliam last November; but I saw that they were both so extremely unhappy in their engagement that I was instrumental in breaking it off, and this happened only last week; so that is why Robert Fitzwilliam is looking ten years younger, Georgiana is sheltering safely at home, and Lady Catherine is furiously angry with everyone all round, especially with me."

"I am sorry," said Lady Portinscale with gentle sympathy. "These things cannot be done without regrets and heartburnings. I hope it will mean real happiness for them both in the end."

"One has to take that part of it on trust," was Elizabeth's answer; "in the meantime it has upset my husband dreadfully, and I am afraid he will never be quite reconciled to it until he sees Georgiana happily married to somebody who has at present not appeared on the scene."

"I suppose she felt altogether disinclined for coming with you to Bath, else she might have met friends here who would have distracted her thoughts."

"Yes; but, of course, she would not come, and I could hardly persuade her even to accept an invitation to go and stay with my sister Jane for part of the time that we shall be away. We left her in such terribly low spirits that it is really some consolation to see Colonel Fitzwilliam looking as if a weight had been taken off his mind. It would be a sad pity that we should all have got into hot water with Lady Catherine and nobody be a penny the better for it."

Lady Portinscale smiled. "He is a very handsome man, and extraordinarily young-looking; he is nearly forty, is he not?"

"Yes, one would not suspect him of it. There is Captain Wentworth talking to him now; they seem to come here every year. Mrs. Wentworth and Georgiana became rather friendly, and they correspond. But those relatives of hers are impossible! Why, what is going on? Lady Catherine seems to be carrying off Colonel Fitzwilliam; poor man, he was in such a congenial group! Whom can she be introducing him to? They are people I never saw before."

"I do not know them myself, but I have several times seen them with Lady Catherine," replied Lady Portinscale. "They are called Ferrars; at least, one of them is Mrs. Ferrars, I am not sure which."

The persons who had attracted Elizabeth's attention were three in number; the two ladies somewhat resembled one another, being rather thin, small in stature, and very elaborately dressed in the height of the fashion. One of them might have been considered pretty, but for her sharp, almost shrewish features, restless eyes, and the discontented, irritable lines which had formed themselves in her face. The other had these characteristics in a more marked degree, together with a general air of much less refinement and sense. It was not to be expected that Lucy and Anne Steele would have altered very greatly for the better since the empty-headed and overdressed fop who now accompanied them had exalted Lucy to the honour of becoming Mrs. Robert Ferrars. After four years of family quarrels with Mrs. Ferrars and Mrs. John Dashwood, of spending more than her husband's income, of scheming to obtain Anne a husband, of striving to push herself into fashionable society and to hold her own there; she found her only happiness in visits to gay watering-places, where she could pick up new acquaintances, and in their company forget for a time the incessant worries and vexations of her home-life. Anne spent the greater part of the year with her sister and brother-in-law, occasionally diversifying her programme by a visit from Mrs. Jennings, or to Elinor and Edward Ferrars, when out of kindness to Lucy they would consent to receive her for a time; but these visits of Anne's to the rectory at Delaford were a trial to all concerned; and since, on the death of Colonel Brandon, Edward had effected an exchange of livings with a clergyman in Derbyshire, Elinor ventured to hope that Anne would no longer find it a convenience to stay with persons who resided in such an out-of-the-way part of the country. For the present, both Lucy and Anne were quite satisfied with their surroundings. They had had the good fortune to become known to Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and by the exercise of all the tact, flattery and obliging manners at their command, had rendered themselves indispensable at whatever entertainments she gave, large or small, and were being treated by her with such marked graciousness as to rouse their hopes of receiving an invitation to Rosings, a mansion of the glories of which they had heard much, as had all Lady Catherine's friends. The introduction, on this evening, to such a handsome, soldierly and aristocratic-looking man as Colonel Fitzwilliam was a piece of good luck which exceeded Anne's wildest dreams; and although, as soon as the proper civilities had been exchanged, he seized the first opportunity of returning to his men friends, Anne lost no time in confiding to Lucy her extreme satisfaction at the addition of such a very smart beau to Lady Catherine's party.

"Don't be a fool, Nancy," was Lucy's answer, in somewhat discouraging tones; "what's the good of expecting a man like that to look at you? And, besides,