was a pleasant life, and Marian thoroughly enjoyed it but was it a safe one?
Chapter IX.
'So too may soothing Hope thy leave enjoy,
Sweet visions of long severed hearts to frame;
Though absence may impair or cares annoy,
Some constant mind may draw us still the same.'
CHRISTIAN YEAR.
'Here are two letters for you, Marian,' said Mrs. Lyddell, meeting the girls as they came in from a walk; 'Lady Marchmont's servant left this note.'
'An invitation to dinner for this evening,' said Marian opening it; 'ah! I knew they were to have a party; 'just recollected that Lady Julia Faulkner used to know Fern Torr, and I must have you to meet her, if it is not a great bore.''
'Then, my dear, had you not better send an answer? James can take it directly.'
'No, no, thank you; the carriage will call at seven. Who can this Lady Julia be? But--' by this time Marian had arrived at her other letter, and, with a sudden start and scream of joy, she exclaimed, 'They are coming!'
'Coming? Who?' asked Caroline.
'Agnes--and Mr. and Mrs. Wortley! O! All coming to stay with their friends in Cadogan Place. I shall see them at any time I please.'
'I am very glad of it,' said Caroline.
'Tell them that their earliest engagement must be to us,' said Mrs. Lyddell. 'When do you expect them?'
'Next week, next week itself,' cried Marian, 'to stay a whole fortnight, or perhaps three weeks. Mr. Wortley has business which will occupy him--'
Few faces ever expressed more joy than Marian's in the prospect of a meeting with these dearest of friends; Mrs. Lyddell and Caroline smiled at her joy as she flew out of the room to make Saunders a partaker in her pleasure.
'Strange girl,' said Caroline; 'so cold to some, so warm to others; I shall be glad to see these incomparable Wortleys.'
'So shall I,' said Mrs. Lyddell; 'but I expect that Marian's opinion of them will soon alter, she has now become used to such different society. However we must be very civil to them, be they what they may.'
In the meantime Marian penned a letter to Agnes, in terms of delight and affection twenty times warmer than any which had ever passed her lips, and then resigned herself to Saunders' hands to be dressed, without much free will on her own part; too excited to read as usual during the operation, sometimes talking, sometimes trying to imagine Agnes in London, a conjunction which seemed to her almost impossible.
The carriage came for her, and in due time she was entering the great drawing-room, where Selina, looking prettier than ever in her evening dress, sat reading a novel and awaiting her guests.
'O Selina, only think,' she began; 'the Wortleys are coming!'
'What say you? Why, Marian, you are in a wild state. Who are coming?'
'The Wortleys, Selina, my own Agnes.'
'O, your old clergyman's daughter! You constant little dove, you don't mean that you have kept up that romantic friendship all these years?'
