ection with the fallen leaves of dead hopes and vanished dreams,
that there was now nothing in her heart recognizable to herself as love
to father or mother. She always behaved to them, of course, with
perfect propriety; never refused any small request; never showed
resentment when blamed--never felt any, for she did not care enough to
be angry or sorry that father or mother should disapprove.

On the other hand, Lady Margaret saw great improvement in her daughter.
To the maternal eye, jealous for perfection, Hesper's carriage was at
length satisfactory. It was cold, and the same to her mother as to
every one else, but the mother did not find it too cold. It was
haughty, even repellent, but by no means in the mother's eyes
repulsive. Her voice came from her in well-balanced sentences, sounding
as if they had been secretly constructed for extempore use, like the
points of a parliamentary orator. "Marriage has done everything for
her!" said Lady Malice to herself with a dignified chuckle, and
dismissed the last shadowy remnant of maternal regret for her part in
the transaction of her marriage.

She never saw herself in the wrong, and never gave herself the least
trouble to be in the right. She was in good health, ate, and liked to
eat; drank her glass of champagne, and would have drunk a second, but
for her complexion, and that it sometimes made her feel ill, which was
the only thing, after marrying Mr. Redmain, she ever felt degrading. Of
her own worth she had never had a doubt, and she had none yet: how was
she to generate one, courted wherever she went, both for her own beauty
and her husband's wealth?

To her father she was as stiff and proud as if she had been a maiden
aunt, bent on destroying what expectations from her he might be
cherishing. Who will blame her? He had done her all the ill he could,
and by his own deed she was beyond his reach. Nor can I see that the
debt she owed him for being her father was of the heaviest.

Her husband was again out of health--certain attacks to which he was
subject were now coming more frequently. I do not imagine his wife
offered many prayers for his restoration. Indeed, she never prayed for
the thing she desired; and, while he and she occupied separate rooms,
the one solitary thing she now regarded as a privilege, how _could_ she
pray for his recovery?

Greatly contrary to Mr. Redmain's unexpressed desire, Miss Yolland had
been installed as Hesper's cousin-companion. Afte