hat she has lost her
home feelings, and cares only for Dykelands; I scarcely know what she
means.'

'I think that I can guess,' said Lady Merton, 'from knowing a little
more of Mrs. Staunton's character. She is a very amiable person, and
has in reality, I believe, plenty of good sense; but she has allowed
herself to fall into an exaggerated style of feeling and expression,
which, I dare say, bewitched a girl like Helen, and now makes her find
home cold and desolate.'

'Like the letter which Mrs. Staunton wrote to you about Rupert, and
which Papa called ecstatic,' said Anne.

'That is an instance of Mrs. Staunton's way of expressing herself,'
said Lady Merton; 'now I will give you one of her acuteness of feeling,
as she calls it. Your Aunt Katherine was her greatest friend when she
was a girl, though I believe the kind epithets she lavished upon me
would have been enough to stock two or three moderate friendships. We
all used to walk together, and spend at least one evening in the week
together. One evening, your aunt, who had a good deal of the same high
careless spirit which you observe in Lizzie, chanced to make some
observation upon the rudeness of sailors in general, forgetting that
Helen Atherley's brother was a sailor.'

'Or if she had remembered it,' said Anne, 'judging by Lizzie, she would
have said the same thing; she would have taken it for granted that the
present company was always excepted.'

'Captain Atherley was not of the present company,' said Lady Merton,
'he was in the Mediterranean; and it happened that he had not had time
to call at Merton Hall in due form, the last time he had been at home,
so that poor Helen thought that this speech was aimed at him. She said
nothing at the time; but next morning arrived a note to me, to entreat
me to find out what her darling Henry could possibly have done to
offend dearest Katherine Merton, for she should be wretched till she
understood it, and Katherine had forgiven her and him. She assured me
that she had lain awake all night, thinking it over, and had at last
come to the conclusion that it must be this unfortunate omission, and
she promised to write to dear Henry immediately, to make him send all
possible apologies.'

'Poor Captain Atherley!' exclaimed Anne; 'and what could my aunt say?'

'Unfortunately,' said Lady Merton, 'both she and I had entirely
forgotten the speech, and could not guess what could have given rise to
Helen's imaginations.