Now, Mrs Hale was still very much the invalid, despite all Isabel's medicines and treatments, and so it was that she found herself quite swept up in the excitement of the Thornton's annual dinner. Confined to the house as she was - and having no friends of whom could call - Mrs Hale sought her diversion from the three ladies of the house (loyal Dixon ever in attendance), and in the post. Nothing new being brought from Sorrento - or perhaps Aunt Shaw had been forced elsewhere due to extremes of climate - the post could not hold Mrs Hale's thrall for any length of time. It was, therefore, the Thornton's dinner which occupied her many hours of decline. She dwelt, with an almost-childlike wonder, upon the menu that might be served. She speculated over the side dishes Mrs Thornton would provide. She considered silverware and crystal and attempted to envisage the floral decorations which might adorn the room. Having never been to the mill house - and so not knowing its cold, austere ambience - Mrs Hale conjured such romantic visions in her mind as to lull her into a blissful cloud of reminiscence as Lady Beresford. She sighed at the happy memories, regretted that such occasions had not been her lot, the past twenty five years in Helstone, but smiled with a maternal satisfaction at the thought of Margaret dining with the first families of Milton.

Where Mrs Hale could not exhaust the topic of conversation, where she could not fail to find diversion, Margaret - although happy to indulge her mother with prophecies and estimations - could not conjure any true amusement. She felt it would be a dull and tedious evening, and was only mollified by the supposition that to go would bring joy to her parents and set Isabel before Mr Thornton.

Mrs Hale had been fearful that Margaret would have no suitable dress to wear for such an event. Margaret had suggested the white silk, worn only the year before, to her Cousin Edith's wedding. Mrs Hale, nervous in her incarceration, fretted that the dress would no longer fit.

'I'm am sure it shall, Mamma. Perhaps it may be a fraction longer or shorter on me, depending on whether I have gained or lost any weight, but I hardly think I have,' comforted Margaret.

'But white! Margaret. It may have yellowed, being stored away.'

'I have a fine pink dress, then. Aunt Shaw gave it to me only a few months prior to Edith's wedding; that shall do nicely, and will certainly not have yellowed.' The invalid thought, and - unwilling to allow herself a moment of relaxation - for that is not what invalidism is about - she pouted with a weakened frown.

'But it may have faded,' came her trembling reply; voice weakening with the body.

'Then I have a lovely green.' Mrs Hale was anxious still. She wished she could know for a certainty that Margaret would look well, and seeing that her mother was not reassured, Margaret took herself upstairs and proceeded to put on each dress for her mother, in order to attain her approval. The white silk was selected, and the remaining two dresses turned over to Isabel, who simply gasped in horror.

'Oh! I have never worn such a dress. It is not even a dress, but a gown! No, I have never worn a gown.' Margaret smiled at her companion's endearing discomfort, and pressed upon her, the pink and green dresses.

'But you must wear a gown. Which should you prefer; the pink or the green? I myself, think the green more suited to your colouring - certainly your eyes.'

'But we are different sizes, Margaret!' announced Isabel, plaintively. She certainly could not wear either dress unaltered; being several inches shorter and of a much smaller, straighter frame, and she would not see one of Margaret's fine dresses dismantled and re-stitched for her benefit.

'Then we shall alter it, for certainly we have time, and the green - that is my least favourite. Personally, I prefer the pink, so you may wear the green and keep it; I need not three fine gowns.' Seeing Isabel's reluctance to accept, caused a smile to light upon Margaret's face. She had thought her friend quite fearless, but it seemed she was greatly discomposed by dresses.

'I think I ought not go,' declared Isabel. 'I could look after your Mamma and you may accompany Mr Hale, and keep your green dress intact. No, I ought not go.' Margaret scowled; she wished Isabel to attend; to put on a fine gown and stand before Mr Thornton.

'I insist, Isabel. And besides, we have sent our acceptance; they expect a party of three and it would upset their numbers if you were to now suddenly decline.'

But in the end, Margaret's green dress was saved, because Mr Hale - in his regular correspondence with his good friend, Mr Bell - had mentioned that they were all to attend the Thornton's dinner, and that his goddaughter was quite anxious about wearing one of Margaret's gowns. Now, Mr Hale had not intentionally withheld the knowledge of Isabel's having joined the Hale household from his friend, only that his was a cluttered mind, prone to lengthy ruminations on topics of ideological import, but flitting and fleeting upon matters of what he would call "news". It was then, the first that Mr Bell had heard of Isabel's presence in Milton, and having never met her, despite being a firm friend of her late father, he hastily wrote back, informing his friend of his impending arrival in Milton. Rooms he took at The Clarendon, and in addition, he sent a note to his tenant - Mr Thornton - to advise him of his being in Milton, well knowing that a late invitation to the annual dinner would immediately be extended to the wealthy landlord.

It was, then, on the eighteenth instant, that Mr Bell made his impromptu arrival in Milton, calling first upon the Hales. Mr Bell had not seen his friend, Hale, for many years - their friendship being maintained through regular correspondence. As he was sat in the drawing room taking tea with his friend, Margaret entered the room, quite unsuspecting his presence. Mr Bell rose with alacrity and smiled down on the beautiful creature before him. He had not seen her since she was a young girl, but the raven hair and ivory skin were surely unsurpassable, and he expressed his delight at seeing her, in such effusive tones that Margaret recoiled with a timid blush.

'Come, Bell! You embarrass Margaret with all your flattery,' laughed Mr Hale (whose mood had instantly lifted upon his friend's arrival).

'My apologies, dear. I only wished to impart how pleased I am to see you.' Margaret smiled, and chose to forgive the man readily, for she could plainly see that he was a positive influence upon her father. 'And where is your companion, Miss Darrow?' asked Mr Bell, impatiently.

'She is gone to the apothecary, I believe,' replied Margaret. 'I should not think she will be long.' And indeed, not a moment later, the front door sounded and footsteps carried up the stairs as Isabel made to repair to her room.

'Isabel, my dear,' called Mr Hale, halting her progress. She took off her bonnet and breezed into the sitting room, only to find herself stood before a stranger. She looked at him assessingly, her brow dipped as she cast her eyes over his face and body.

'Mr Bell?' asked she, even though she had no knowledge of his presence in Milton.

'Why! Isabel, you are quite the Seer, are you not?' laughed Mr Hale, anxiously. Mr Bell did not reply, but looked upon her for several moments, before smiling tightly and dropping her a deep bow.

'Adam Bell,' he finally declared. 'Delighted to make your acquaintance, Miss Darrow.' She smiled at him in reply, and saw him settled upon his chair, whereby she was excused to rid herself of her outer garments, promising to return to their guest promptly.

'She looks very young,' admitted Mr Bell, once Isabel had left the room. 'She is twenty-seven - nearly twenty-eight, is she not?'

'Indeed. The foreign climate must have agreed with her,' replied Mr Hale.

'I should not have recognised her as Isabel Darrow if I did not know her to be so.'

'Really?' asked Mr Hale in surprise. 'I recognised her the moment I met her on the platform. There is something quite familiar about her.'

'True,' nodded Mr Bell. 'Perhaps you recognise Jane in her? She has the same colour of hair, certainly.'

'Yes, that is very true,' mused Mr Hale, but in truth, he gave it little thought, for he was thinking upon some translations he had been working on, and wished to show them to Mr Bell.

Isabel returned to the room and took up a seat beside Margaret. Mr Bell was intrigued to see that instead of reaching for some worsted-work from the sewing basket, Isabel settled herself with a copy of Aristotle. Little did he know that Isabel shunned embroidery for the simple reason that she would show herself to be quite alien if anyone was to see the inexperience of her work.

'You are fond of the classics?' Mr Bell asked, trying to draw the girl out. He knew Darrow to have been a gifted scholar, and was not wholly surprised to see her poring over a book. Isabel turned to him with a polite smile and her keen eyes locked with his, causing a tightening within his chest.

'I am fond of anything which raises questions as opposed to answering them.' He inclined his head in acknowledgement of her answer and turned to Margaret.

'You are looking forward to the Thornton's dinner, Margaret?' He caught the merest twitching of her lip, and understood that she was not, but continued, nonetheless. 'My friend, Hale, tells me that you are unlike any other young lady I have ever met, Miss Darrow,' said Mr Bell, turning his gaze back to the interesting new creature before him. He saw her instantly tense, and decided to tease her in his jocular way. 'Come, come, Miss Darrow; I meant - or should I say, he meant - only in terms of your being reluctant to dress up in a fine gown for this dinner.' Isabel blushed, and to hide her embarrassment, bid Mr Bell to call her Isabel.

'If you are lifelong friends with Mr Hale, and are Margaret's godfather, then you ought surely to call me Isabel, seeing as the Hales are my closest family.' Mr Bell smiled, well pleased, and tried again.

'You are not fond of dresses?'

'I have never worn what I could call a gown. A dress, of course - you see me now - but never anything one would term a gown. I am loath to see one of Margaret's dresses altered for myself; especially as I am not likely to have another occasion to wear such a dress.' Mr Bell glanced quickly over both young ladies; Margaret was taller, with a fuller figure; still slender, but with feminine curves and rounded arms. A dress which suited Margaret was unlikely to suit Isabel.

'Wear one of Margaret's dresses!' cried he. 'No, no, no! I shan't hear of it. Out of the question,' said he, shaking his head in a theatrical display of dismay. Isabel was gratified, but only momentarily, for the very next moment he professed that she must have a new gown of her own choosing, and that he was to pay for it with his own purse.

'Oh! But Mr Bell, I could not. Not at all!'

'Isabel, I insist!' declared he, rising from his chair and crossing the room in three strides. He took her hand in his and squeezed it gently whilst peering into her hazel eyes; glinting with flecks of gold. 'You are my good friend, Darrow's daughter. I like to think that had I not been in South America at the time of your parents' marriage and your subsequent birth, that I should have been your godfather instead of Hale, here. As it is, I was out of the country and had not the chance to meet you before your widowed mother took you off to foreign lands. If your father had lived and you had stayed in England, I would surely have bought you many a pretty dress or doll upon your birthday. One gown after twenty-seven years is nothing! Nothing at all!' He declared it in such an easy fashion, as though it was so absolutely necessary and of such little consequence to him to present her with such a gift, that Isabel felt to argue further would be churlish. She knew, also, that Mr Bell was a wealthy man, and one gown - however fine - would not hurt his purse, whereas the Hales would buy nothing new if they did not have to.

'Very well. I thank you wholeheartedly,' she blushed, feeling a little suffocated under his intense gaze.

'Splendid! Splendid!' And to prove that it was splendid, he clapped his hands thrice and beamed at her with a charismatic smile. She thought him very suave, and quite difficult to dislike - much as she had found from the book - but he had an unsettling way of looking at her. She wondered - foolish though she thought it was, for Margaret was the great beauty - that perhaps she felt now (under his scrutiny) as Margaret would one day feel when Mr Bell chose to allude to their possible marriage.

Now, Isabel that thought that Margaret would be commissioned to accompany her to the dressmakers to buy a dress which had already been made up - the dinner being only three days hence - but Mrs Hale claimed need of her daughter, for she wished to talk over a coral necklace she had decided would suit Margaret's white silk gown most pleasantly. Isabel had momentarily floundered when Margaret glanced at her cautiously and told her that her mother required her company that afternoon, but Mr Bell spoke up almost immediately, and declared that as a bachelor, he had never had the pleasure of assisting a lady in her shopping, and that he wished to experience such an errand before he died. All laughed at this like joke - so very like him, she intrinsically knew - but her laughter, alone, was forced, for she knew that he would eventually succumb to an apoplectic fit.

'Come, now. A gentleman never to have carried a bag for a lady?' gasped Mr Bell. 'How have I the gall to think of myself as a gentleman when I have never had the honour of offering a lady such assistance? No, we shall go together, and I shall ensure you buy something most handsomely-priced.'

They had not a great deal of dresses to choose from, for those ready-made were in short supply, most people still buying fabrics to fashion their own or pass to a favoured dressmaker, but time was short, and so ready-made must do.

'This teal, I think,' said Mr Bell, tapping his cane idly against the side of his boot. 'It would suit your colouring very well, and the flecks of gold in your eyes; the amber that shines in your hair when the light catches it.' Isabel frowned into the dress, hiding her disturbed blushes from him. Surely a man should not speak to a woman in such a way? Not here, in Milton! To talk of my eyes and my hair, as though he had made a study of them, and I met him not five hours ago!

But the bell above the door chimed and a blast of cool air struck about the back of Isabel's neck, and before she could form her stilted reply to Mr Bell's suggestion, a loud and excitable voice called out in exclamation.

'Oh! it is here! It is here! My blue silk from France.' Isabel did not need to look round to know that it was Fanny Thornton who had spoken, for not only did the voice so very clearly belong to none other, but she was surely the only lady in all of Milton who could muster such excitement - and express it with such display - as to warrant her the only possible candidate for the cause of such a shrill and unpleasant noise.

'The Thornton girl,' observed Mr Bell with a note of amusement, as he looked about his shoulder. He quickly lost interest and turned back to his new acquaintance. 'I should think this teal will do, dear. Do you not agree?' He stood very close and his tone was intimate. Isabel knew him to be a singular man, and felt she ought to have no fear of him, and yet she could not but feel that his interest in her seemed peculiar.

'It is a very fine dress,' agreed Isabel, hesitantly. 'And handsomely priced to boot!' added she, with a nervous laugh.

'Come, Isabel. I wish to buy it for you. I shall buy it; you must let me.' Seeing her reluctant, Mr Bell stepped ever closer, until his thigh almost brushed her hip, and he took up her hand and lifted it to his lips. 'You ought to have fine things, my dear. If you like it, you shall have it. Do not deny me.' Pulling her hand from his - using the excuse of wishing to examine the quality of the dress - Isabel nodded uncomfortably, and gave her approval.

'Oh! John! Look here; this silk. I must have this silk. I must!' enthused Fanny, demanding her brother's attention. He was happy to give it, for he had stood uncomfortably in the corner of the shop, as Fanny ran up a large bill, and all the while he had been watching his landlord with Miss Darrow. He had heard the intimate tone of voice in which the older gentleman addressed the young lady; he saw his proximity, the way he took up her hand and placed it to his lips. Mr Thornton was jealous; a flash of emotion he had never known before, and he was vexed to rudeness.

'What need have you for more silk, Fanny? And purple!' Her mouth hung open in consternation, appalled by his curt reply.

'Look at it, John! Of course I need it; it is so fine.' He glowered and rolled his eyes; his sister could not understand the concept of need. She thought nothing of having her every desire satisfied. Every want was keenly felt - believed to be a mortal need - and to think the need would go unmet was, to her, a terrifying notion.

'If you have still some of your allowance, then of course you may buy it,' said he, in a low voice. Fanny veritably stamped her foot, for he knew well she had exceeded her allowance.

'John!' hissed Fanny; a furtive glance towards Miss Darrow and Mr Bell, who were fast approaching to pay for some item. 'You embarrass me, John.' Mr Thornton was inclined to say that she, herself, was the cause of the embarrassment, but was saved from having to reply by the cheerful voice of his long-standing acquaintance.

'Thornton!' called Mr Bell, proudly wearing Isabel upon his arm. 'Good to see you, Thornton!' He lowered his voice, cast an appraising eye over a petulant Fanny Thornton, and dipped his head to her. 'Miss Thornton, a pleasure.' She crinkled her nose as she attempted to stifle a frown, and forced her lips into a polite smile.

'Mr Bell, Miss Darrow.' Immediately, Isabel bobbed low on her knees, ensuring she met both brother and sister's gaze, but as she looked upon Mr Thornton, she noted a look of displeasure, and when their eyes locked together, she felt a coolness in his gaze that she had never felt before. It sent her heart racing and she recoiled a fraction in surprise. Mr Bell felt the action - her hand still looped about his arm - and looked to her in question. Quick and observant man that he was, he glanced immediately to Mr Thornton, saw his dark look, and turned back to Isabel.

'Whatever is the matter, Isabel?' he asked, well-knowing the answer.

'Nothing at all, Mr Bell,' came her ready reply. Another fierce wave of jealousy lashed out at Mr Thornton, for why was Mr Bell - who must surely be a stranger to her - allowed to call her Isabel, when all he was permitted was a cold and impersonal Miss Darrow?

'This silk, John!' interrupted Fanny. Seeing the set of Mr Thornton's jaw, Isabel turned to Fanny in a whisper, well aware both men were still listening.

'Purple? You wear purple?' asked Isabel, her tone of voice laced with a hint of accusation.

'I don't own anything purple, but this silk is so very fine. I must have it!' wittered Fanny. Isabel frowned and paused as though thinking deeply.