Looking right and left for proselytes, Lady Lundie had necessarily remarked the disappearance of certain members of her circle.

Mr.Delamayn had vanished, nobody knew where.

Sir Patrick and Blanche had followed his example.

Her ladyship had observed, upon this, with some asperity, that if they were all to treat each other in that unceremonious manner, the sooner Windygates was turned into a Penitentiary, on the silent system, the fitter the house would be for the people who inhabited it.

Under these circumstances, Arnold suggested that Blanche would do well to make her excuses as soon as possible at head-quarters, and accept the seat in the carriage which her step-mother wished her to take.