innocent I took you for. No, no.'
She then changed her tone with fitful rapidity. 'Cytherea, try to love
me more than you love him--do. I love you more sincerely than any man
can. Do, Cythie: don't let any man stand between us. O, I can't bear
that!' She clasped Cytherea's neck again.

'I must love him now I have begun,' replied the other.

'Must--yes--must,' said the elder lady reproachfully. 'Yes, women are
all alike. I thought I had at last found an artless woman who had
not been sullied by a man's lips, and who had not practised or been
practised upon by the arts which ruin all the truth and sweetness and
goodness in us. Find a girl, if you can, whose mouth and ears have
not been made a regular highway of by some man or another! Leave the
admittedly notorious spots--the drawing-rooms of society--and look in
the villages--leave the villages and search in the schools--and you can
hardly find a girl whose heart has not been _had_--is not an old thing
half worn out by some He or another! If men only knew the staleness of
the freshest of us! that nine times out of ten the "first love" they
think they are winning from a woman is but the hulk of an old wrecked
affection, fitted with new sails and re-used. O Cytherea, can it be that
you, too, are like the rest?'

'No, no, no,' urged Cytherea, awed by the storm she had raised in the
impetuous woman's mind. 'He only kissed me once--twice I mean.'

'He might have done it a thousand times if he had cared to, there's no
doubt about that, whoever his lordship is. You are as bad as I--we are
all alike; and I--an old fool--have been sipping at your mouth as if
it were honey, because I fancied no wasting lover knew the spot. But
a minute ago, and you seemed to me like a fresh spring meadow--now you
seem a dusty highway.'

'O no, no!' Cytherea was not weak enough to shed tears except on
extraordinary occasions, but she was fain to begin sobbing now. She
wished Miss Aldclyffe would go to her own room, and leave her and her
treasured dreams alone. This vehement imperious affection was in one
sense soothing, but yet it was not of the kind that Cytherea's instincts
desired. Though it was generous, it seemed somewhat too rank and
capricious for endurance.

'Well,' said the lady in continuation, 'who is he?'

Her companion was desperately determined not to tell his name: she too
much feared a taunt when Miss Aldclyffe's fiery mood again ruled her
tongue.

'Won't you tell me? not