Miss Delamere, in meeting Lady Westhaven at Paris, had severely felt all the difference of their situation; and as she had repented of her clandestine union almost as soon as she had formed it, the comparison between her sister’s husband and her own had embittered her temper, never very good, and made her return to England with reluctance; where she knew that she could not long evade acknowledging her marriage, and taking the inferior and humiliating name of Mrs. Crofts. To avoid returning was however not in her power; nor could she prevail on Crofts to delay a declaration which must be attended with circumstances, to her most mortifying and unpleasant. But impatient to demand a daughter of Lord Montreville as his wife, and still more impatient to receive twelve thousand pounds, which was her’s independant of her father, he would hear of no delay.