that passed through her
brain? We have shown the feelings of her heart enough.

She formed plans; she determined her course; she looked around for
means. Various persons suggested themselves to her mind as instruments.
The three women, I have mentioned in a preceding chapter--the good sort
of friends. But it was an agent she wanted, not a confidant. No, no,
Mrs. Hazleton knew better than to have a confidant. She was her own best
council-keeper, and she knew it. Nevertheless, these good ladies might
serve to act in subordinate parts, and she assigned to each of them
their position in her scheme with wonderful accuracy and skill. As she
did so, however, she remembered that it was by the advice of Mrs.
Warmington that she had brought Mr. Marlow to Hartwell Place; and in her
heart's secret chamber she gave her fair friend a goodly benediction.
She resolved to use her nevertheless--to use her as far as she could be
serviceable; and she forgot not that she herself had been art and part
in the scheme that had failed. She was not one to shelter herself from
blame by casting the whole storm of disappointment upon another. She
took her own full share. "If she was a fool so to advise," said Mrs.
Hazleton, "'twas a greater fool to follow her advice."

She then turned to seek for the agent. No name presented itself but that
of Shanks, the attorney; and she smiled bitterly when she thought of
him. She recollected that Sir Philip Hastings had thrown him
head-foremost down the steps of the terrace, and that was very
satisfactory to her; for, although Mr. Shanks was a man who sometimes
bore injuries very meekly, he never forgot them.

Nevertheless, she had somewhat a difficult part to play, for most agents
have a desire of becoming confidants also, and that Mrs. Hazleton
determined her attorney should not be. The task was to insinuate her
purposes rather than to speak them--to act, without betraying the
motive of action--to make another act, without committing herself by
giving directions.

Nevertheless, Mrs. Hazleton arranged it all to her own satisfaction; and
as she did so, amongst the apparently extinct ashes of former schemes,
one small spark of hope began to glow, giving promise for the time to
come. What did she propose? At first, nothing more than to drive Sir
Philip Hastings and his family from the country, mingling the
gratification of personal hatred with efforts for the accomplishment of
her own purposes. It was a bold