On entering Spring Garden gate, to his extreme surprise the first
objects that met his sight were Miss Euphemia Dundas and Miss
Beaufort.
Euphemia accosted him with ten thousand inquiries respecting his
friend, besides congratulations on his own good looks.
Thaddeus bowed; then smiling faintly, turned to the blushing Mary,
who, conscious of what had passed in the late conversation between
herself and Lady Tinemouth, trembled so much that, fearing to excite
the suspicion of Euphemia by such tremor, she withdrew her arm, and
walked forward alone, tottering at every step.
"I thought, Miss Beaufort," said he, addressing himself to her, "that
Lady Tinemouth was to have had the happiness of your company at
Harwold Park?"
"Yes," returned she, fearfully raising her eyes to his face, the
hectic glow of which conveyed impressions to her different from those
which Euphemia expressed; "but to my indescribable alarm and
disappointment, the morning after I had written to fix my departure
with her ladyship, my aunt's foot caught in the iron of the stair-
carpet as she was coming down stairs, and throwing her from the top
to the bottom, broke her leg. I could not quit her a moment during
her agonies; and the surgeons having expressed their fears that a
fever might ensue, I was obliged altogether to decline my attendance
on the countess."
"And how is Miss Dorothy?" inquired Thaddeus, truly concerned at the
accident.
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