of mind. Alfred shut the door and escaped, scarcely able to bear I his own
emotion.

When they met at dinner, Mrs. Dean Falconer was an altered person--her
unseemly morning costume and well-worn shawl being cast aside, she appeared
in bloom-coloured gossamer gauze, and primrose ribbons, a would-be young
lady. Nothing of that curmudgeon look, or old fairy cast of face and
figure, to which he had that morning been introduced, but in their place
smiles, and all the false brilliancy which rouge can give to the eyes,
proclaimed a determination to be charming.

The dean was silent, and scarcely ate any thing, though the dinner was
excellent, for his lady was skilled in the culinary department, and in
favour of Alfred had made a more hospitable display than she usually
condescended to make for her husband's friends. There were no other guests,
except a young lady, companion to Mrs. Falconer. Alfred was as agreeable
and entertaining as circumstances permitted; and Mrs. Buckhurst Falconer,
as soon as she got out of the dining-room, even before she reached the
drawing-room, pronounced him to be a most polite and accomplished young
man, very different indeed from the _common run_, or the usual style, of
Mr. Dean Falconer's dashing bachelor beaux, who in her opinion were little
better than brute bears.

At coffee, when the gentlemen joined the ladies in the drawing-room, as
Alfred was standing beside Mrs. Falconer, meditating how and when to speak
of the object of his visit, she cleared the ground by choosing the topic of
conversation, which, at last fairly drove her husband out of the room. She
judiciously, maliciously, or accidentally, began to talk of the proposal
which she had heard a near relation of hers had not long since made to a
near relation of Mr. Alfred Percy's--Mr. Clay, of Clay-hall, her nephew,