nequal. Fond affection had
blinded her eyes, and fostered in its object the very faults most hateful
to her. She could only humble herself before her Maker for the recurring
sin, and entreat for her own pardon, and for that of the offender with
whose sins she charged herself.

And to man she humbled herself by her confession to Captain Charteris,
and by throwing herself unreservedly on the advice of Mr. Saville and Sir
John Raymond, for her future conduct towards the culprit. If he were
suffering now for her rejection of the counsel of manhood and experience,
it was right that they should deal with him now, and she would try to
bear it. And she also tried as much as possible to soften the blow to
Lucilla, who was still abroad with her cousins.

CHAPTER XII

A little grain of conscience made him sour.

TENNYSON

'A penny for your thoughts, Cilly,' said Horatia, sliding in on the
slippery boards of a great bare room of a lodging-house at the celebrated
Spa of Spitzwasserfitzung.

'My thoughts? I was trying to recollect the third line of

"Sated at home, of wife and children tired,
Sated abroad, all seen and naught admired."'

'Bless me, how grand! Worth twopence. So good how Shakspeare, as the
Princess Ottilie would say!'

'Twopence for its sincerity! It is not for your sake that I am not in
Old England.'

'Nor for that of the three flaxen-haired princesses, with religious
opinions to be accommodated to those of the crowned heads they may
marry?'

'I'm sick of the three, and their raptures. I wish I was as ignorant as
you, and that Shakspeare had never been read at the Holt.'

'This is a sudden change. I thought Spitzwasserfitzung and its
princesses had brought halcyon days.'

'Halcyon days will never come till we get home.'

'Which Lolly will never do. She passes for somebody here, and will never
endure Castle Blanch again.'

'I'll make Owen come and take me home.'

'No,' said Rashe, seriously, 'don't bring Owen here. If Lolly likes to
keep Charles where gaming is man's sole resource, don't run Owen into
that scrape.'

'What a despicable set you are!' sighed Lucilla. 'I wonder why I stay
with you.'

'You might almost as well be gone,' said Ratia. 'You aren't half so
useful in keeping things going as you were once; and you won't be
ornamental long, if you let your spirits be so uncertain.'

'And pray