illusions of all who approach them, as the sole condition
of peace and favor. All gentlemen, by a sort of instinct, recognize
the woman who lives by flattery, and give her her portion of meat
in due season; and thus some poor women are hopelessly buried, as
suicides used to be in Scotland, under a mountain of rubbish, to which
each passer-by adds one stone. It is only by some extraordinary power
of circumstances that a man can be found to invade the sovereignty of
a pretty woman with any disagreeable tidings; or, as Junius says, "to
instruct the throne in the language of truth." Harry was brought up to
this point only by such a concurrence of circumstances. He was in love
with another woman,--a ready cause for disenchantment. He was in
some sort a family connection; and he saw Lillie's conduct at last,
therefore, through the plain, unvarnished medium of common sense.
Moreover, he felt a little pinched in his own conscience by the view
which Rose seemed to take of his part in the matter, and, manlike, was
strengthened in doing his duty by being a little galled and annoyed at
the woman whose charms had tempted him into this dilemma. So he
talked to Lillie like a brother; or, in other words, made himself
disagreeably explicit,--showed her her sins, and told her her duties
as a married woman. The charming fair ones who sentimentally desire
gentlemen to regard them as sisters do not bargain for any of this
sort of brotherly plainness; and yet they might do it with great
advantage. A brother, who is not a brother, stationed near the ear of
a fair friend, is commonly very careful not to compromise his position
by telling unpleasant truths; but, on the present occasion, Harry made
a literal use of the brevet of brotherhood which Lillie had bestowed
on him, and talked to her as the generality of _real_ brothers talk to
their sisters, using great plainness of speech. He withered all her
poor little trumpery array of hothouse flowers of sentiment, by
treating them as so much garbage, as all men know they are. He set
before her the gravity and dignity of marriage, and her duties to her
husband. Last, and most unkind of all, he professed his admiration of
Rose Ferguson, his unworthiness of her, and his determination to win
her by a nobler and better life; and then showed himself to be a
stupid blunderer by exhorting Lillie to make Rose her model, and seek
to imitate her virtues.

Poor Lillie! the world looked dismal and dreary enou