Susanna had felt her heart lift with gladness. Life had seemed very good indeed.

Until it no longer did.

Frances and Mr. Raycroft were talking about Vienna. Frances had been there very recently, and Mr. Raycroft’s betrothed, Miss Hickmore, had just gone there with her parents to spend the autumn and winter months.

Mr. Raycroft, tall, loose-limbed, sandy-haired, his face good-humored more than it was handsome, had always been particularly amiable. Frances had once suggested, only half in jest, that Susanna set her cap at him. But he had shown no romantic partiality for her-and she had felt none for him. She felt no pang of regret to learn now of his betrothal, only a hope that Miss Hickmore was worthy of him.

He was gentleman enough to draw Susanna into the conversation, explaining that he was as ignorant as she of what such places as Vienna were really like, having never set foot outside the British Isles himself.

“It is undoubtedly a most lovely city,” he said, smiling kindly at her, “though I am sure it cannot surpass London in beauty. Are you familiar with London, Miss Osbourne?”

She determinedly tried to concentrate upon the conversation rather than upon the other thoughts that whirled in jumbled disorder through her mind.

“Only very slightly,” she said. “I spent a short time there as a girl but have not been since. I envy Frances’s having seen Vienna and Paris and Rome.”

“Lady Edgecombe,” one of the young ladies called from behind them, “do you suppose there will be any waltzes at the assembly the week after next? I shall simply die if there is one and Mama forbids us to dance it as she surely will. Is it really quite shockingly fast?”