gave it to Mrs. Falconer."

"You are certain of that, Lady Frances Arlington?"

"I am certain, Mr. Alfred Percy."

"And how can you prove it to me, Lady Frances?"

"The easiest way in the world--by asking Mrs. Falconer. Only I don't go
there now much, since Georgiana and I have quarrelled--but what can make
you so curious about it?"

"That's a secret."--At the word _secret_, her attention was fixed.--"May I
ask if your ladyship would know the seal again if you saw it?--Is this any
thing like the impression?" (showing her the seal on the forged cover.)

"The very same that I gave Mrs. Falconer, I'll swear to it--I'll tell you
how I know it particularly. There's a little outer rim here, with points to
it, which there is not to the other. I fastened my bread-seal into an old
setting of my own, from which I had lost the stone. Mrs. Falconer took a
fancy to it, among a number of others, so I let her have it. Now I have
answered all your questions--answer mine--Whom am I to marry?"

"Your ladyship will marry whomsoever--your ladyship _pleases_."

"That was an ambiguous answer," she observed; "for that she _pleased_
every body." Her ladyship was going to run on with some further questions,
but Alfred pretending that the oracle was not permitted to answer more
explicitly, left her completely in the dark as to what his meaning had been
in this whole conversation.