"
"I only meant," she said, yet more confused, "that I am more likely to
be at home alone at two." And turning quickly away, she took a vacant
seat beside one of her friends, to whom, while fanning herself, she
complained of the heated room. She seemed, indeed, quite overcome by
it, which accounted for her labored breathing and heightened color.
* * * * *
"After all," said Lady Mabel, some days after the morning on which
L'Isle found her at home alone, "I was neither so good an actress, nor
so great a hypocrite as you took me for. My offence was not so much
that I simulated, as that I ceased to dissemble."
L'Isle readily embraced the faith that she was no actress but a true
woman, nor did he ever waver from it. But she did not always find so
easy a convert. Old Moodie, true to his nature, baffled all her
efforts to convince him of his errors. It is true that he became in
time, somewhat reconciled to L'Isle, but to his dying day he continued
to laud that special providence, which had snatched Lady Mabel from
the land of idolatry, at the very last moment before her perversion to
Rome.
Lady Mabel was not the woman to forget old friends; and now, that she
could recur with pleasure to her recollections of Elvas, she sought
out that companion who had so amiably filled the part of duenna and
chaperon.
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