give
herself if he--he--the greatest, the best of men, was again rendered
unhappy in marriage by her imprudence (hers, who owed to him her
all!)--yes, imprudent indeed, to have thrown right in his way a pretty
coquettish girl ("for Caroline is coquettish, Mr. Darrell; most girls so
pretty are at that silly age"). In short, she carried her point against
all the eloquence Darrell could employ, and covered her designs by the
semblance of the most delicate scruples, and the sacrifice of worldly
advantages to the prudence which belongs to high principle and
affectionate caution.

And what were Caroline's real sentiments for Guy Darrell? She understood
them-now on looking back. She saw herself as she was then--as she had
stood under the beech-tree, when the heavenly pity that was at the core
of her nature--when the venerating, grateful affection that had grown
with her growth made her yearn to be a solace and a joy to that grand
and solitary life. Love him! Oh certainly she loved him, devotedly,
fondly; but it was with the love of a child. She had not awakened then
to the love of woman. Removed from his presence, suddenly thrown into
the great world--yes, Darrell had sketched the picture with a stern, but
not altogether an untruthful hand. He had not, however, fairly estimated
the inevitable influence which a mother such as Mrs. Lyndsay would
exercise over a girl so wholly inexperienced--so guileless, so
unsuspecting, and so filially devoted. He could not appreciate--no man
can--the mightiness of female cunning. He could not see how mesh upon
mesh the soft Mrs. Lyndsay (pretty woman with pretty manners) wove her
web round the "cousins," until Caroline, who at first had thought of the
silent fair-haired young man only as the Head of her House, pleased
with attentions that kept aloof admirers of whom she thought Guy Darrell
might be more reasonably jealous, was appalled to hear her mother
tell her that she was either the most heartless of coquettes, or poor
Montfort was the most ill-used of men. But at this time Jasper Losely,
under his name of Hammond, brought his wife from the French town at
which they had been residing, since their marriage, to see Mrs.
Lyndsay and Caroline at Paris, and implore their influence to obtain a
reconciliation with her father. Matilda soon learned from Mrs. Lyndsay,
who affected the most enchanting candour, the nature of the engagement
between Caroline and Darrell. She communicated the information