ed "Very well," what could that mean?'

'I am very much grieved that it has come to this,' sighed Violet.

'How could it come to anything else?' he said, his face full of sorrow
and severity. 'I was mad to suppose there was any hope for such a temper
of pride and stubbornness. Yet,' he added, softening, and his quick,
stern eyes filling with tears, 'it is a noble nature,--high-minded,
uncompromising, deeply tender, capable of anything. It has been a cruel
wicked thing to ruin all by education. What could come of it? A life
of struggle with women who had no notion of an appeal to principle and
affection--growing up with nothing worthy of her love and respect--her
very generosity becoming a stumbling-block, till her pride and
waywardness have come to such an indomitable pitch that they are
devouring all that was excellent.'

He paused; Violet, confused and sorrowful, knew not how to answer; and
he proceeded, 'I have known her, watched her, loved her from infancy!
I never saw one approaching her in fine qualities. I thought, and still
think, she needs but one conquest to rise above all other women. I
believed guidance and affection would teach her all she needed; and so
they would, but it was presumption and folly to think it was I who could
inspire them.'

'O, Mr. Fotheringham, indeed--'

'It was absurd to suppose that she who trifles with every one would not
do so with me. Yet, even now, I cannot believe her capable of carrying
trifling to the extent she has done.'

'She was in earnest,--oh! she was!'

'I would fain think so,' said he, sadly. 'I held to that trust, in spite
of the evidence of my senses. I persuaded myself that her manners were
the effect of habit--the triumph of one pre-eminent in attraction.'

'That they are! I don't even think she knows what she does.'

'So I believed; I allowed for her pleasure in teasing me. I knew all
that would come right. I ascribed her determination to run after that
woman to a generous reluctance to desert a friend.'

'Indeed, indeed it is so!'

'But how am I to understand her neglect of my aunt--the one relation
whom I have tried to teach her to value--my aunt, who was the comfort
of my sister and of her brother--who had suffered enough to give her a
claim to every one's veneration! To run away from her to the races, and
the society of Mark Gardner and Mrs. Finch! Ay, and what do you think we
heard yesterday of her doings there, from Gardner's own mother? That she