ouched; but that it truly was so not only
may we be allowed to doubt, but it appeared that Annie did so also, by
her laborious efforts to fan the newly ignited spark into a name, and
never once permit Caroline to look into herself; and she took so many
opportunities of speaking of those silly, weak-spirited girls, that went
with a tale of love directly to their mothers, and thus very frequently
blighted their hopes and condemned them to broken hearts, by their
duennas' caprices, that Caroline shrunk from the faintest wish to
confide all to her mother, with a sensation amounting almost to fear and
horror. Eminently handsome and accomplished as Lord Alphingham was,
still there was somewhat in his features, or rather their expression,
that did not please, and scarcely satisfied Mrs. Hamilton's penetration.
Intimate as he was with Grahame, friendly as he had become with her
husband, she could not overcome the feeling of repugance with which she
more than once found herself unconsciously regarding him; and she felt
pleased that Mr. Hamilton steadily adhered to his resolution in not
inviting him to his house. To have described what she disliked in him
would have been impossible, it was indefinable; but there was a casual
glance of that dark eye, a curl of that handsome mouth, a momentary
knitting of the brow, that whispered of a mind not inwardly at peace;
that restless passions had found their dwelling-place around his heart.
Mrs. Hamilton only saw him in society: it was uncharitable perhaps to
judge him thus; but the feelings of a mother had rendered her thus
acute, had endowed her with a penetration unusually perceptive, and she
rejoiced that Caroline gave him only the meed of politeness, and that no
sign of encouragement was displayed in her manner towards him.

That mother's fears were not unfounded. Lord Alphingham loved Caroline,
but the love of a libertine is not true affection, and such a character
for the last fourteen years of his life he had been; nine years of that
time he had lived on the Continent, gay, and courted, in whatever
country he resided, winning many a youthful heart to bid it break, or
lure it on to ruin. It was only the last year he had returned to
England, and as he had generally assumed different names in the various
parts of the Continent he had visited, the adventures of his life were
unknown in the land of his birth, save that they were sometimes
whispered by a few in similar coteries, and then