sin had expressed for him.

"Well!" cried Lady Emily, after they were gone, "the plot begins to
thicken; lovers begin to pour in, but all for Mary; how mortifying to
you and me, Adelaide! At this rate we shall have nothing to boast of in
the way of disinterested attachment nobody refused!--nothing renounced!
By-and-bye Edward will be reckoned a very good match for _me,_and _you_
will be thought greatly married if you succeed in securing
Lindore--_poor_ Lord Lindore, as it seems that wretch Placid calls him."

Adelaide heard all her cousin's taunts in silence and with apparent
coolness; but they rankled deep in a heart already festering with pride,
envy, and ambition. The thoughts of her sister--and that sister so
inferior to herself--attaining a more splendid alliance, was not to be
endured. True, she loved Lord Lindore, and imagined herself beloved in
return; but even that was not sufficient to satisfy the craving passions
of a perverted mind. She did not, indeed, attach implicit belief to all
that her cousin said on the subject; but she was provoked and irritated
at the mere supposition of such a thing being possible; for it is not
merely the jealous whose happiness is the sport of trifles light as
air--every evil thought, every unamiable feeling, bears about with it
the bane of that enjoyment after which it vainly aspires.

Mary felt the increasing ill-humour which this subject drew upon her,
without being able to penetrate the cause of it; but she saw that it was
displeasing to her mother and sister, and that was sufficient to make
her wish to put a stop to it. She therefore earnestly entreated Lady
Emily to end the joke.

"Excuse me," replied her Ladyship, "I shall do no such thing. In the
first place, there happens to be no joke in the matter. I'm certain,
seriously certain, or certainly serious, which you like, that you may be
Duchess of Altamont, if you please. It could be no common admiration
that prompted his Grace to an original and spontaneous effusion of it. I
have met with him before, and never suspected that he had an innate idea
in his head. I certainly never heard him utter anything half so
brilliant before--it seemed quite like the effect of inspiration."

"But I cannot conceive, even were it as you say, why my mother should be
so displeased about it. She surely cannot suppose me so silly as to be
elated by the unmeaning admiration of anyone, or so meanly aspiring as
to marry a man I could not love