‘Arbella, my dear,’ said Lady Torrendale, with one of her softest looks, ‘I have ordered the carriage for S –, would you not like to accompany me? I am surprised you never go. My son must feel truly grateful for the flattering partiality with which you honor him, and to which he may almost entirely attribute his present situation; and there's your aunt who would, of course, be glad to see you, you know.’

Besides her daily visits to Mrs. Stockwell's, messages constantly passed between the Captain and Lady Torrendale, who desired to hear of him long before she was in readiness to ascertain in person how he was; for she could not, even for a son so beloved, put any restraint upon her settled habits.

Major O'hara, from a different motive, was almost as constant in his enquiries, and was greatly relieved by hearing that a favorable turn had taken place in Captain Fitzroy's illness.

As for Sowerby, his disappointment with regard to Arbella, seemed only to increase the value and regard he felt for his fair guest; with whose more praise-worthy conduct, on a similar occasion, he did not fail to contrast, the levity and coquetry of her friend. ‘Matilda refused me indeed,’ said he, ‘but her whole behaviour was marked with that candour, that nobleness, that fair-dealing, which a woman, with a truly well-born mind and soul, feels it as much required of her from a man, as in any intercourse with her own sex. I was wrong to expect the same from her friend. The Stockwells are a bad breed – her uncle a mere trader, without expansion of heart, or ability of head. In any branch of such a stock, improve it by culture how / you will, a certain want of nobility of heart, a lower tone of mind will betray the inferior source from which it sprung.’