be fulfilled, and she should see the proud, cold, disdainful Mrs. Hamilton bowed down beneath the conduct of her child, humbled to the dust by the reflections which would be cast upon her when the elopement of Caroline should be made public; at that very time the letter of Lord Alphingham arrived, and told her of defeat, complete, irremediable.  Scorn, bitter scorn curled her lip, as she glanced over Caroline’s epistle, thus dishonourably transmitted for her perusal.  Severe disappointment was for the time her portion, and yet, amid all these violent emotions, attendant on one of her disposition, there was one of a very different nature mingling with them, one that, while she resolved if she could not mortify Mrs. Hamilton as she had intended, she would yet do so by insinuations against Caroline’s character, whenever she had an opportunity; would bid her rejoice, strangely rejoice, that she was not the wife of Lord Alphingham, that he was still free.  While she looked forward to that letter announcing the union of the Viscount and Caroline, as placing the final seal on her triumphant schemes, we may well doubt if even that enjoyment, the exultations in the sufferings of another, would have stilled the anguish of her own heart, and permitted her to triumph as she intended to have done, when the man she loved was the husband of another.  It was even so, though rendered by prejudice almost insensible to anything but her hatred of Mrs. Hamilton.

Annie had not associated so intimately with Lord Alphingham without feeling the effect of his many fascinations; and, therefore, though both provoked and disappointed at this unlooked-for failure of her schemes, she was better enabled to overcome them.  Resolving to leave her designs against the peace of Caroline and her mother henceforth to chance, all her energies were now put in action for the attainment of one grand object, to so work upon the disappointed Viscount as herself to take the place in his favour which Caroline had occupied.  Her reply to his letter, which he had earnestly requested might enclose Caroline’s, and be forwarded to him in London, was guarded, but artfully tending to inflame his indignation against Caroline; suppressing her own opinion on the subject, and exciting admiration of herself, and perhaps gratitude for her untiring sympathy in his welfare, which she ably contrived should breathe despondingly throughout.  As that important affair, she added, was thus unhappily over, their correspondence she felt ought to cease, and she begged Lord Alphingham would write to her no more.  She had braved remark when the happiness of two in whom she was so deeply interested was at stake; but as in that she had been disappointed, pain as it was for her to be the one to check a correspondence which could not fail to give her pleasure, being with one so enlightened, and in every way so superior as Lord Alphingham, she insisted that no more letters should pass between them.  She gained her point; the Viscount wondered how he could ever be so blind as to prefer Caroline to her, and her words added weight to his resolution, to annoy the former by devoted attentions to Miss Grahame, and, if it suited his interests, make the latter his wife.