She was at hand to excite, to an almost painful degree, the mind of her friend, to speak in rapturous praise of Lord Alphingham, to chain him now and then to her side, and yet so contrive, that the whole of his conversation was with Caroline; and yet the conduct of Annie Grahame had been such that night as rather to excite the admiration than the censure of Mr.Hamilton.
Playfully he combated the prejudice of his wife, who as sportively owned that Miss Grahame's conduct in society was different to that she had anticipated; but her penetrative mind felt not the more at ease when she thought on the friendship that subsisted between Annie and her child.
"Am I dreaming, or is it Mrs.Hamilton I again behold ?" exclaimed an elderly gentleman, as she came forward, and hastily advancing, seized both her hands, and pressed them with unfeigned warmth and pleasure, which greeting Mrs.Hamilton as cordially returned.

He was a very old friend of her father's, and had attained by promotion his present high rank of Admiral of the Blue, but had been the first captain under whose orders her lamented brother sailed.

Very many, therefore, were the associations that filled her mind as she beheld him, and her mild eyes for a moment glistened in uncontrollable emotion.
"How very many changes have taken place since we have come alongside, Mrs.Hamilton," the old veteran said, gazing on the blooming matron before him with almost paternal pleasure.

"Poor Delmont! could his kind heart have borne up against the blow of poor Charles's fate, he surely would have been happy, if all the tales I hear of his daughter Emmeline be true." "Come and judge for yourself, Sir George; my home must ever be open to my father's dearest friend," replied Mrs.Hamilton, endeavouring by speaking playfully to conceal the painful reminiscences called forth by his words.

"I will not vouch for the truth of anything you may have heard about us in London.