death of a relation having forced them into most unwilling retirement. It was very tiresome of aunts to die, if they were to be considered relations.
The second season thus broken up, Lady Lauriston was daily impressing on her beauty's mind the necessity of a "further-looking hope" and an establishment. Emily was sad, weary, and seemed ill: all said late hours were too much for her—a good sign, thought her calculating lover, in a wife; and every morning, between the paragraphs of the Morning Herald, Lord Merton weighed the advantages and disadvantages of wedded life.
Miss Arundel had never been properly brought out as an heiress; and amazing animation was added to the attachment, when, one evening, Lady Lauriston detailed to her dear Alfred much excellent advice, and the information that Emily was her uncle's adopted child, and, as such, certain of a noble fortune,—to say nothing of hopes from her aunt, whose property her indefatigable ladyship had ascertained was at her own disposal.
The next morning, her for once very obedient son rode back with Lorraine. Want of something else to say, and a very shady lane,
