or duty to the woman embracing her, which
seemed to ask for confidence, ought to predominate. Here was a solution.
She would wait till Miss Aldclyffe referred to her acquaintanceship and
attachment to Cytherea's father in past times: then she would tell her
all she knew: that would be honour.

'Why can't you kiss me as I can kiss you? Why can't you!' She impressed
upon Cytherea's lips a warm motherly salute, given as if in the outburst
of strong feeling, long checked, and yearning for something to love and
be loved by in return.

'Do you think badly of me for my behaviour this evening, child? I don't
know why I am so foolish as to speak to you in this way. I am a very
fool, I believe. Yes. How old are you?'

'Eighteen.'

'Eighteen!... Well, why don't you ask me how old I am?'

'Because I don't want to know.'

'Never mind if you don't. I am forty-six; and it gives me greater
pleasure to tell you this than it does to you to listen. I have not told
my age truly for the last twenty years till now.'

'Why haven't you?'

'I have met deceit by deceit, till I am weary of it--weary, weary--and I
long to be what I shall never be again--artless and innocent, like you.
But I suppose that you, too, will, prove to be not worth a thought, as
every new friend does on more intimate knowledge. Come, why don't you
talk to me, child? Have you said your prayers?'

'Yes--no! I forgot them to-night.'

'I suppose you say them every night as a rule?'

'Yes.'

'Why do you do that?'

'Because I have always done so, and it would seem strange if I were not
to. Do you?'

'I? A wicked old sinner like me! No, I never do. I have thought all such
matters humbug for years--thought so so long that I should be glad to
think otherwise from very weariness; and yet, such is the code of the
polite world, that I subscribe regularly to Missionary Societies and
others of the sort.... Well, say your prayers, dear--you won't omit them
now you recollect it. I should like to hear you very much. Will you?'

'It seems hardly--'

'It would seem so like old times to me--when I was young, and
nearer--far nearer Heaven than I am now. Do, sweet one,'

Cytherea was embarrassed, and her embarrassment arose from the following
conjuncture of affairs. Since she had loved Edward Springrove, she had
linked his name with her brother Owen's in her nightly supplications to
the Almighty. She wished to keep her love for him a secret, and, above
all, a secret fro