h from her breast all feelings of anger
against her lover, and of regret as regarded herself. Probably, as
she told herself, she had made more of what he had said than he had
intended that she should do; and then, was it not natural that he
should think much of his mother, and feel anxious as to the way in
which she might receive his wife? As to that feeling of anger on her
own part, she did get quit of it;--but the regret was not to be so
easily removed. It was not only what Captain Aylmer had said about
his mother that clung to her, doing much to quench her joy; but there
had been a coldness in his tone to her throughout the evening which
she recognised almost unconsciously, and which made her heart heavy
in spite of the joy which she repeatedly told herself ought to be her
own. And she also felt,--though she was not clearly aware that she
did so,--that his manner towards her had become less affectionate,
less like that of a lover, since the honest tale she had told him of
her own early love for him. She should have been less honest, and
more discreet; less bold, and more like in her words to the ordinary
run of women. She had known this as she was packing last night, and
she told herself that it was so as she was dressing on this her last
morning at Perivale. That frankness of hers had not been successful,
and she regretted that she had not imposed on herself some little
reticence,--or even a little of that coy pretence of indifference
which is so often used by ladies when they are wooed. She had been
boldly honest, and had found her honesty to be bad policy. She
thought, at least, that she had found its policy to be bad. Whether
in truth it may not have been very good,--have been the best policy
in the world,--tending to give her the first true intimation which
she had ever yet received of the real character of the man who was
now so much to her,--that is altogether another question.

But it was clearly her duty to make the best of her present
circumstances, and she went down-stairs with a smiling face and with
pleasant words on her tongue. When she entered the breakfast-room
Captain Aylmer was there; but Martha was there also, and her pleasant
words were received indifferently in the presence of the servant.
When the old woman was gone, Captain Aylmer assumed a grave face, and
began a serious little speech which he had prepared. But he broke
down in the utterance of it, and was saying things very different
from wh