accused of. It was
some time before John perceived her aim; he did not even grasp the idea
at first that this girl whose whole heart was set upon marrying Phil
Compton, and defying for his sake every prophecy of evil and all the
teachings of prudence, did not indeed at all know what it was which Phil
had been supposed to have done. Had she been a girl in society she could
scarcely have avoided some glimmerings of knowledge. She would have
heard an unguarded word here and there, a broken phrase, an expression
of scorn or dislike, she might even have heard that most unforgettable
of nicknames, the dis-Honourable Phil. But Elinor, who was not in
society, heard none of these things. She had been warned in the first
fervour of her betrothal that he was not a man she ought to marry, but
why? nobody had told her; how was she to know?

"You don't like Lady Mariamne, John?"

"It matters very little whether I like her or not: we don't meet once in
a year."

"It will matter if you are to be in a kind of way connected. What has
she ever done that you shouldn't like her? She is very nice at home;
she has three nice little children. It's quite pretty to see her with
them."

"Ah, I daresay; it's pretty to see a tiger with her cubs, I don't
doubt."

"What do you mean, John? What has she ever done?"

"I cannot tell you, Elinor; nothing perhaps. She does not take my fancy:
that's all."

"That's not all; you could never be so unjust and so absurd. How
dreadful you good people are! Pretending to mean kindness," she cried,
"you put the mark of your dislike upon people, and then you won't say
why. What have _they_ done?"

It was this "they" that put John upon his guard. Hitherto she had only
been asking about the sister, who did not matter so very much. If a man
was to be judged by his sister! but "they" gave him a new light.

"Can't you understand, Elinor," he said, "that without doing anything
that can be built upon, a woman may set herself in a position of enmity
to the world, her hand against every one, and every one's hand against
her?"

"I know that well enough--generally because she does not comply with
every conventional rule, but does and thinks what commends itself to
her; I do that myself--so far as I can with mamma behind me."

"You! the question has nothing to do with you."

"Why not with me as much as with another of my family?" said Elinor,
throwing back her head.

He turned round upon her with something like