sible to
her. So she acted on herself by an agent she repudiated, and there was
no help for it. Had Wilfrid loved her the woman's heart was ready. It
was ready with a trembling tenderness, softer and deeper than a girl's.
For Charlotte would have felt: "With this love that I have craved for,
you give me life." And she would have thanked him for both, exultingly,
to feel: "I can repay you as no girl could do;" though she had none of
the rage of love to give; as it was, she thought conscientiously that
she could help him. She liked him: his peculiar suppleness of a growing
mind, his shrouded sensibility, in conjunction with his reputation for
an evidently quite reliable prompt courage, and the mask he wore, which
was to her transparent, pleased her and touched her fancy.

Nor was he so vain of his person as to make him seem like a boy to her.
He affected maturity. He could pass a mirror on his right or his left
without an abstracted look over either shoulder;--a poor example, but
worth something to a judge of young men. Indeed, had she chosen from a
crowd, the choice would have been one of his age. She was too set for
an older man; but a youth aspiring to be older than he was; whose faults
she saw and forgave; whose merits supplied two or three of her own
deficiencies; whom her station might help to elevate; to whom she
might come as a benefactress; feeling so while she accomplished her own
desire;--such a youth was everything to her, as she awoke to discover
after having played with him a season. If she lost him, what became of
her? Even if she had rejoiced in a mother to plot and play,--to bait and
snare for her, her time was slipping, and the choosers among her class
were wary. Her spirit, besides, was high and elective. It was gradually
stooping to nature, but would never have bowed to a fool, or, save under
protest, to one who gave all. On Wilfrid she had fixed her mind: so,
therefore, she bore the remembrance of the recent scene without much
fretting at her burdens;--the more, that Wilfrid had in no way shamed
her; and the more, that the heat of Emilia's love played round him and
illumined him. This borrowing of the passion of another is not uncommon.

At daybreak Mrs. Chump was abroad. She had sat up for Wilfrid almost
through the night. "Oh! the arr'stocracy!" she breathed exclamations, as
she swept along the esplanade. "I'll be killed and murdered if I tell
a word." Meeting Captain Gambier, she fell into a great