 very morning, that Standfast, at the instance of my Lord Hazard, undertook to set his pupil a task in the library immediately after breakfast, when it was agreed that the conversation should be resumed.
Perhaps Mr. Standfast was glad of a moment's pause. He certainly betrayed evident symptoms of

astonishment at the first part of Lady Hazard's harrangue, which, added to an affected indifference, and a forced sprightliness, would have conveyed to an uninterrupted by-stander, a trait or two of suspicion that the lady's conduct was not altogether agreeable to him: but we have already hinted that he never suffered long under perturbation of any kind. Thus, whatever inward sensations might produce the above effects, they certainly did not remain visible long enough to be noticed either by the lord or the lady; and with the assistance of summoning his pupil to breakfast, he had so rallied his spirits, that he appeared the most cheerful and unconcerned of the whole company.
It was far otherwise with my lord. He set it down for a certainty that his lady had, by some means, discovered all that had past, and divined all that was likely to come. Nevertheless, he felt no reluctance to review his intentions either in one light or the other; but certain nameless sensations, which he felt in spight of himself gave his behaviour an awkwardness which was apparent in proportion as he endeavoured to hide it.
Charles was no sooner informed by his father that he had some particular business with Mr. Standfast, and given his task, than he retired to the library,

when the lady, after an apology much in the style of the former one, acquainted her husband with all she knew relative to this strange affair: not even omitting either the insult she had received the morning before, the spirited kindness of Standfast, or the message she had sent after him to the Smyrna; which last business clearly accounted for her consusion in the library when John came back; whom she also loaded with praises, in which Standfast joined, declaring, at the same time, that the hiring of that worthy fellow was a new instance that Lord Hazard's knowledge of the world and judgment of mankind was superior to his, for that John had what he thought a forbidding countenance, which his lordship, however, with a penetration far beyond his, had construed into a sign of bluntness and plain dealing.
'But madam,' said Standfast, 'I interrupt you.'

The lady went on, saying that her husband's new and extraordinary conduct had first given her the alarm
