red feelings which language never could
impart to the breast of another.

Yet she felt it was using her cousin unkindly to keep her in ignorance
of what she was certain would give her pleasure to hear; and, summoning
her resolution, she at length disclosed to her all that had taken place.
Her own embarrassment was too great to allow her to remark Lady Emily's
changing colour, as she listened to her communication; and after it was
ended she remained silent for some minutes, evidently struggling with
her emotions.

At length she exclaimed indignantly--"And so it seems Colonel Lennox
and you have all this time been playing the dying lover and the cruel
mistress to each other? How I detest such duplicity! and duplicity with
me! My heart was ever open to you, to him, to the whole world; while
yours--nay, your very faces--were masked to me!"

Mary was too much confounded by her cousin's reproaches to be able to
reply to them for some time; and when she did attempt to vindicate
herself, she found it was in vain. Lady Emily refused to listen to
her; and in haughty displeasure quitted the room, leaving poor Mary
overwhelmed with sorrow and amazement.

There was a simplicity of heart, a singleness of idea in herself,
that prevented her from ever attaching suspicion to others. But a sort
of vague, undefined apprehension floated through her brain as she
revolved the extraordinary behaviour of her cousin. Yet, it was that
sort of feeling to which she could not give either a local habitation or
a name; and she continued for some time in that most bewildering state
of trying, yet not daring to think. Some time elapsed, and Mary's
confusion of ideas was increasing rather than diminishing, when Lady
Emily slowly entered the room, and stood some moments before her without
speaking.

At length, making an effort, she abruptly said--"Pray, Mary, tell
me what you think of me?"

Mary looked at her with surprise. "I think of you, my dear cousin, as I
have always done."

"That is no answer to my question. What do you think of my behaviour
just now?"

"I think," said Mary gently, "that if you have misunderstood me; that,
open and candid yourself, almost to a fault, you readily resent the
remotest appearance of duplicity in others. But you are too generous not
to do me justice--"

"Ah, Mary! how little do I appeal in my own eyes at this moment; and how
little, with all my boasting, have I known my own heart! No! It was not
because I