For a short time Mrs.
Greville indulged hopes, that their long separation had effected a change in her husband, and that they should at length be happy together.
He did not know much about Alfred, he said, except that he was well, and travelling with some friends in different parts of the Continent.
Mrs.Greville tried to be satisfied, and her cheering hopes did not desert her even when her husband expressed a wish that she would reside with him at Paris.

The wish rather confirmed them, as it evinced that he was no longer indifferent to her own and his child's society.

With joyful alacrity she consented, but in vain endeavoured to banish from Mary's mind the foreboding fears that appeared to have filled it, from the hour it was settled they were to leave Monte Rosa.

In vain her mother affectionately represented how much nearer she would be to Herbert; nothing could remove, though she strove to conquer, this seemingly uncalled-for and indefinable despondency.
"I confess my weakness," she wrote to her betrothed, "but I had so often pictured remaining at Monte Rosa till you came for me, as you had promised, so often pictured to myself the delight of showing to you my favourite haunts, ere we left them together for still dearer England, that I cannot bear to find these visions dispelled without pain.

I know you will tell me I ought to be thankful for this great and happy change in my father, and bear every privation for the chance of binding him to us for ever.