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 hibited horrour rather than affright. But she felt that to fly the uncle, at a moment when she might seem to pursue the nephew, might be big with suspicious mischief; and, though shaking with terrour, she placed herself as if she were examining a small landscape, behind an immense screen, which in summer, as well as in winter, nearly surrounded the sofa of Mrs. Ireton. And hence she hoped, when his lordship should be entered, to steal unnoticed from the room.

"This is a stroke that surpasses all the rest!" faintly cried Mrs. Ireton; "that Lord Denmeath, whom I have not seen these seven ages, should renew his acquaintance at an epoch of such strange disorder in my house! He will never believe this apartment to be mine! it will not be possible for him to believe it. He'll conclude me in some lodging. He'll imagine me the victim of some dreadful reverse of fortune. He is so little accustomed to see me in any motley group! He can so little figure me to himself as a person in a general herd!"