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would be there; and that a large circle was engaged to meet at her house, the same night. The succeeding day, a party of intimate friends of Lady Valmar's from various parts, were coming to remain for three or four weeks, altogether in the house. Walter was to join the circle on the evening of the morrow; and, the day after, to take up his abode in Grosvenor-square, with the rest, during their stay. He should then be made acquainted with Lady Val

mar.

'That, once done, Agnes said, his presentation to all their mutual acquaintances-as her, Agnes's, ward and adopted relative, would follow as a matter of course; as well as the completion of various plans she meditated, and which as yet he did not know of, for the furtherance of his interests.'

Walter thanked her, but sighed as he

did so.

"Dear Agnes," he said, "I dread this arrival, whatever advantages to me it may bring. I fear it will interfere with the freedom of our intercourse, which is interrupted but too much already. To exchange what is left to me still of it, for the whirl of fashionable pleasure would, at present, be exquisitely painful to me. Will this Lady Valmar be the means of dividing us further ?”

"No, far from it: she will be the means of keeping us always together. If where I go, henceforth, you go too-will no that be something gained, instead of lost ?"

"Anything-anywhere-so that it be with you, my guardian angel. It is only away from you that I am sad."

CHAPTER XIII.

THE expected evening came. They had not met that day.

On Walter's entrance which took place very late, (a trifling accident having detained him unavoidably)-all was light and stir and glitter, and the hum of subdued voices, and the pride and glow of dress, and rank, and beauty. But he knew no one; and the dress, and the rank, and the beauty, were nothing to him.

His eye sought out Agnes.

She was seated in an adjoining room, with a circle around her, as he had seen her before, on that night which it thrilled him to recal, at Almack's. There was the same deference and respectful admiration in the manner of those who addressed her; and they were not the mere butterflies of society, courting influence wherever it might be found. Walter saw several, known to him by sight and reputation, whose rank placed them above all courting, even of the highest; whose talents, whose honoured character, whose fame, would render their attention a flattering distinction to the proudest, the wisest and the best.

He drew near gradually; near enough at last-though she did not see him, for her face was averted-to catch the subject of discourse. It was plain to him that it was

not any adventitious circumstance only, which led those who were engaged in conversation with her to seek her society. It pleased, it interested them-that seemed evident. He noted how their wit and intellect drew out hers; how the latent powers of her fine and acute mind, of her poetical, teeming imagination, were called forth by that congenial contact; and thought she shone, in that encouraging, inspiring atmosphere, in her true lightas much above the herd in intelligence, depth and genius, as she had ever done, in the eyes of those who were admitted into her inner life, in feeling and in truth— in every loveable quality and womanly excellence.

"And she is mine!" said he to himself, with a swelling heart-"Mine !-mine alone !"—and with the thought, his manly

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