chair, and the handsome foreigner seen to he leaning over her, talking of her daughters. Lady Penrhyn readily took the cue given by the Count; she said "the meeting with a kind friend unexpectedly had been too much for her dear Lady Anne, joined to the excessive heat of the room," sent to order her own carriage, and deluged the place with eau de Cologne, but all would not do; the mortification in the first instance, the revulsion of feeling in the next, a dread of exposure, a deep sense of contrition towards Riccardini (and in the melèe of awakened emotion, thankfulness to God might have part), were altogether too much for her, and she would have fallen prostrate in a swoon, if the watchful eyes of Lady Penrhyn and the arms of the Count had not saved her.
Lord Meersbrook, with the agility of his age, was in a moment over the counter, and assisting in bearing her to the door, where the air soon effected her restoration. She was loath to leave the rooms, as feeling with Mrs. Candour, that "she left her character behind her," but at the earnest entreaty of Lady Jemima (who insisted on accompanying her with a kindness of heart that made her accent musical), she consented to go, and the ladies drove off together in Lady Penrhyn's chariot.
"I hope," said Lord Meersbrook to the Count, whom he now understood to be a relation, "you have not brought Lady Anne bad news from her daughters?"
