generally distinguished.

"Is it possible, that that frivolous mind can be touched by grief?"
thought Flora. "That that woman can feel?"

Mrs. Dalton, as if she had heard the unuttered query, raised her head,
and caught the intense glance with which Mrs. Lyndsay was unconsciously
regarding her.

"I thought no one was awake but myself," she said; "I am a bad sleeper.
If you are the same, we will have a little chat together; I am naturally
a sociable animal. Of all company, I find my own the worst, and above
all things hate to be alone."

Surprised at this frank invitation, from a woman who had pronounced her
_nobody_, Flora replied, rather coldly, "I fear, Mrs. Dalton, that our
conversation would not suit each other."

"That is as much as to say, that you don't like me; and that you
conclude from that circumstance, that I don't like you?"

"To be candid then,--you are right."

"I fancy that you overheard my observations to Major F.?"

"I did."

"Well if you did, I can forgive you for disliking me. When I first saw
you, I thought you a very plain person, and judged by your dress, that
you held a very inferior rank in society. After listening a few minutes
to your conversation with Miss Leigh, who is a highly educated woman, I
felt convinced that I was wrong; and that you were far superior to most
of the women round me. Of course you thought me a very malicious, vain
woman."

Flora smiled, in spite of herself.

"Oh, you may speak it out. I shan't like you a bit the less for speaking
the truth. I am a strange, wayward creature, subject at times to the
most dreadful depression of spirits; and it is only by affecting
excessive gaiety that I hinder myself from falling into the most
hopeless despondency."

"Such a state of mind is not natural to one of your age, and who
possesses so many personal attractions. There must be some cause for
these fits of gloom."

"Of course there is. I am not quite the heartless coquet I seem. My
father was an officer in the army, and commanded a regiment in the West
Indies, where I was born. I was an only child, and very much indulged by
both my parents. I lost them while I was a mere child, and was sent to
Scotland to be educated by my grandmother. I was an irritable, volatile,
spoilt child, and expected that everybody would yield to me, as readily
as my slave attendants had done in Jamaica. In this I was disappointed.
My grandmother was a proud, ambitious woman, and a strict