"
At that moment out burst Lady Belle, shouting with laughter: "Ho!
ho! Have I caught you, brother, gallanting away with Miss? What
will my lady say? Pretty doings!"
She had no time for more. Her brother fiercely laid hold of her,
and bore her away with a peremptory violence that she could not
resist, and only turning at the hall door to make one magnificent
bow.
Loveday was obliged to follow, and the children were left clinging
to Aurelia and declaring that the dreadful young lady was as bad as
the lions; while Aurelia, glowing with shame and resentment at what
she felt as insults, had a misgiving that her protector had been the
worse lion of the two.
She had no explanation of the invasion till the next morning, when
Loveday appeared full of excuses and apologies. From the fact of
Lady Aresfield's carriage having been used on Aurelia's arrival, her
imprisonment was known, and Lady Belle, spending a holiday at Lady
Belamour's, had besieged Loveday with entreaties to take her to see
her rival. As the waiting-woman said, for fear of the young lady's
violent temper, but more probably in consideration of her bribes,
she had yielded, hoping that Lady Belle would be satisfied with a
view from the window, herself unseen. However, from that moment all
had been taken out of the hands of Loveday, and she verily believed
the Colonel had made following his sister an excuse for catching a
sight of Miss Delavie, for he had been monstrously smitten even
with the glimpse he had had of her in the carriage.
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