d I was free, I had full liberty to act,
speak, think as I pleased, while here a chain is thrown around my
simplest action; my very words are turned into weapons against me; my
friendship disapproved of, and in that at least surely I may have
liberty to choose for myself."

"You have," replied Mrs. Hamilton mildly. "I complain not, Caroline, of
the pain you have inflicted upon me, in so completely withdrawing your
confidence and friendship, to bestow them upon a young girl. I control
not your affection, but it is my duty, and I will obey it, to warn you
when I see your favourite companion likely to lead you wrong. Had your
every thought and feeling been open to my inspection as at Oakwood,
would you have trifled as you have with the most sacred feelings of a
fellow-creature? would you have called forth love by every winning art,
by marked preference to reject it, when acknowledged, with scorn, with
triumph ill concealed? would you have sported thus with a heart whose
affections would do honour to the favoured one on whom they were
bestowed? would you have cast aside in this manner all that integrity
and honour I hoped and believed were your own? Caroline, you have
disappointed and deceived your parents; you have blighted their fondest
hopes, and destroyed, sinfully destroyed, the peace of a noble,
virtuous, excellent young man, who loved you with all the deep fervour
of an enthusiastic soul. To have beheld him your husband would have
fulfilled every wish, every hope entertained by your father and myself.
I would have intrusted your happiness to his care without one doubt
arising within me; and you have spurned his offer, rejected him without
reason, without regret, without sympathy for his wounded and
disappointed feelings, without giving him one hope that in time his
affection might be returned. Caroline, why have you thus decidedly
rejected him? what is there in the young man you see to bid you tremble
for your future happiness?"

Caroline answered not; she had leaned her arms on the cushion of the
couch, and buried her face upon them, while her mother spoke, and Mrs.
Hamilton in vain waited for her reply.

"Caroline," she continued, in a tone of such appealing affection, it
seemed strange that it touched not the heart of her child, "Caroline, I
will not intrude on your confidence, but one question I must ask, and I
implore you to answer me truly--do you love another?"

Still Caroline spoke not, moved not. Her mot