h a
hand on each elbow of her arm-chair, as though in the stocks.

'I would not, my child,' was the mournful answer, 'if I could help caring
for you.'

Lucilla sprang up and kissed her. 'Don't, then; I don't like anybody to
be sorry,' she said. 'I'm sure I'm not worth it.'

'How can I help it, when I see you throwing away happiness--welfare--the
good opinion of all your friends?'

'My dear Honora, you taught me yourself not to mind Mrs. Grundy! Come,
never mind, the reasonable world has found out that women are less
dependent than they used to be.'

'It is not what the world thinks, but what is really decorous.'

Lucilla laughed--though with some temper--'I wonder what we are going to
do otherwise!'

'You are going beyond the ordinary restraints of women in your station;
and a person who does so, can never tell to what she may expose herself.
Liberties are taken when people come out to meet them.'

'That's as they choose!' cried Lucilla, with such a gesture of her hand,
such a flash of her blue eyes, that she seemed trebly the woman, and it
would have been boldness indeed to presume with her.

'Yes; but a person who has even had to protect herself from incivility,
to which she has wilfully exposed herself, does not remain what she might
be behind her screen.'

'_Omne ignotum pro terribili_,' laughed Lucilla, still not to be made
serious. 'Now, I don't believe that the world is so flagrantly bent on
annoying every pretty girl. People call me vain, but I never was so vain
as that. I've always found them very civil; and Ireland is the land of
civility. Now, seriously, my good cousin Honor, do you candidly expect
any harm to befall us?'

'I do not think you likely to meet with absolute injury.' Lucilla
clapped her hands, and cried, 'An admission, an admission! I told Rashe
you were a sincere woman.' But Miss Charlecote went on, 'But there is
harm to yourself in the affectation of masculine habits; it is a blunting
of the delicacy suited to a Christian maiden, and not like the women whom
St. Paul and St. Peter describe. You would find that you had forfeited
the esteem, not only of ordinary society, but of persons whose opinions
you do value; and in both these respects you would suffer harm. You, my
poor child, who have no one to control you, or claim your obedience as a
right, are doubly bound to be circumspect. I have no power over you; but
if you have any regard for her to whom your father confide