So delighted were the dear girls with their visit, that the grand affair of the party was actually forgotten; for, cribbed and stinted in all the common pleasures of their age and station, they were wont to live much on the heart; and their unavoidable loss of two sisters, and more especially Louisa's supposed uneasiness and enforced estrangement, had rendered them exceedingly solicitous respecting her; and at this time she might be said to "engross them wholly." Not so their lady-mother, who was at this very juncture managing to start her scheme of a party in such a manner, that the idea appeared to proceed from Lady Penrhyn, who honestly confessed "that her curiosity was exceedingly excited on the subject of how the couple in question appeared since their degradation, and whether they actually retained the power of looking any body in the face who was really somebody.
"Besides," she added, "though it is a weakness, and certainly the last in the world a woman in my circle ought to indulge, to you, my dear Lady Anne, who cannot, under existing circumstances, condemn me for it, I may say there is something awkward, even painful, in losing sight all at once, in so disagreeable a way, of your only brother—one who in childhood was, from the death of our mother, consigned to my especial tenderness, and who is really of so sweet a temper, so cheerful a disposition, loved me so well, and for my sake exerted himself so much, and has borne so much (I may say) from Lord Penrhyn, that altogether I find
