ifference.

It was very plain, however, that, though Mr. Glascock did not like
bright feathers for himself, he chose that his wife should wear them.
Nothing could be prettier than the way in which Caroline Spalding,
whom we first saw as she was about to be stuck into the interior
of the diligence, at St. Michel, now filled her carriage as Lady
Peterborough. The greeting between them was very affectionate, and
there was a kiss in the carriage, even though the two pretty hats,
perhaps, suffered something. "We are so glad to have you at last,"
said Lady Peterborough. "Of course we are very quiet; but you won't
mind that." Nora declared that no house could be too quiet for her,
and then said something of the melancholy scene which she had just
left. "And no time is fixed for your own marriage? But of course it
has not been possible. And why should you be in a hurry? We quite
understand that this is to be your home till everything has arranged
itself." There was a drive of four or five miles before they reached
the park gates, and nothing could be kinder or more friendly than was
the new peeress; but Nora told herself that there was no forgetting
that her friend was a peeress. She would not be so ill-conditioned as
to suggest to herself that her friend patronised her;--and, indeed,
had she done so, the suggestion would have been false;--but she could
not rid herself of a certain sensation of external inferiority, and
of a feeling that the superiority ought to be on her side, as all
this might have been hers,--only that she had not thought it worth
her while to accept it. As these ideas came into her mind, she hated
herself for entertaining them; and yet, come they would. While she
was talking about her emblematic beef-steak with Hugh, she had no
regret, no uneasiness, no conception that any state of life could be
better for her than that state in which an emblematic beef-steak was
of vital importance; but she could not bring her mind to the same
condition of unalloyed purity while sitting with Lady Peterborough in
Lord Peterborough's carriage. And for her default in this respect she
hated herself.

"This is the beginning of the park," said her friend.

"And where is the house?"

"You can't see the house for ever so far yet; it is two miles off.
There is about a mile before you come to the gates, and over a mile
afterwards. One has a sort of feeling when one is in that one can't
get out,--it is so big." In so speaking, i