The Countess whispered her niece, and Venetia accordingly presented Lord Cadurcis to her aunt.  This was a most gratifying circumstance to him.  He was anxious, by some means or other, to effect his entrance into her circle; and he had an irresistible suspicion that Lady Annabel no longer looked upon him with eyes of favour.  So he resolved to enlist the aunt as his friend.  Few persons could be more winning than Cadurcis, when he willed it; and every attempt to please from one whom all emulated to gratify and honour, was sure to be successful.  The Countess, who, in spite of politics, was a secret votary of his, was quite prepared to be enchanted.  She congratulated herself on forming, as she had long wished, an acquaintance with one so celebrated.  She longed to pass Lady Monteagle in triumph.  Cadurcis improved his opportunity to the utmost.  It was impossible for any one to be more engaging; lively, yet at the same time gentle, and deferential with all his originality.  He spoke, indeed, more to the aunt than to Venetia, but when he addressed the latter, there was a melting, almost a mournful tenderness in his tones, that alike affected her heart and charmed her imagination.  Nor could she be insensible to the gratification she experienced as she witnessed, every instant, the emotion his presence excited among the passers-by, and of which Cadurcis himself seemed so properly and so utterly unconscious.  And this was Plantagenet!

Lord Cadurcis spoke of his cousin, who, on his joining the party, had assisted the arrangement by moving to the other side; and he spoke of him with a regard which pleased Venetia, though Cadurcis envied him his good fortune in having the advantage of a prior acquaintance with Miss Herbert in town; ’but then we are old acquaintances in the country,’ he added, half in a playful, half in a melancholy tone, ’are we not?’

’It is a long time that we have known each other, and it is a long time since we have met,’ replied Venetia.

‘A delicate reproach,’ said Cadurcis; ’but perhaps rather my misfortune than my fault.  My thoughts have been often, I might say ever, at Cherbury.’

‘And the abbey; have you forgotten the abbey?’

‘I have never been near it since a morning you perhaps remember,’ said his lordship in a low voice.  ‘Ah!  Miss Herbert,’ he continued, with a sigh, ’I was young then; I have lived to change many opinions, and some of which you then disapproved.’

The party stopped at a box just vacant, and in which the ladies seated themselves while their carriages were inquired for.  Lord Cadurcis, with a rather faltering heart, went up to pay his respects to Venetia’s mother.  Lady Annabel received him with a courtesy, that however was scarcely cordial, but the Countess instantly presented him to her husband with an unction which a little astonished her sister-in-law.  Then a whisper, but unobserved, passed between the Earl and his lady, and in a minute Lord Cadurcis had