also in the public service to which a defect in speech was no obstacle.
She knew his secret, modest attachment; she alluded to it just enough to
encourage constancy and rebuke despair. As she ceased, his admiring and
grateful consciousness of his cousin's rare qualities changed the tide
of his emotions towards her from himself, and he exclaimed with an
earnestness that almost wholly subdued his stutter,

"What a counsellor you are! what a soother! If Montfort were but less
prosperous or more ambitious, what a treasure, either to console or to
sustain, in a mind like yours!"

As those words were said, you might have seen at once why Lady Montfort
was called haughty and reserved. Her lip seemed suddenly to snatch back
its sweet smile; her dark eye, before so purely, softly friend-like,
became coldly distant; the tones of her voice were not the same as she
answered,--

"Lord Montfort values me, as it is, far beyond my merits: far," she
added with a different intonation, gravely mournful.

"Forgive me; I have displeased you. I did not mean it. Heaven forbid
that I should presume either to disparage Lord Montfort--or--or to--"
he stopped short, saving the hiatus by a convenient stammer. "Only," he
continued, after a pause, "only forgive me this once. Recollect I was
a little boy when you were a young lady, and I have pelted you with
snowballs, and called you 'Caroline'." Lady Montfort suppressed a sigh,
and gave the young scholar back her gracious smile, but not a smile that
would have permitted him to call her "Caroline" again. She remained,
indeed, a little more distant than usual during the rest of their
interview, which was not much prolonged; for Morley felt annoyed with
himself that he had so indiscreetly offended her, and seized an excuse
to escape. "By the by," said he, "I have a letter from Mr. Carr Vipont,
asking me to give him a sketch for a Gothic bridge to the water yonder.
I will, with your leave, walk down and look at the proposed site. Only
do say that you forgive me."

"Forgive you, cousin George, oh, yes! One word only: it is true you were
a child still when I fancied I was a woman, and you have a right to talk
to me upon all things, except those that relate to me and Lord Montfort;
unless, indeed," she added with a bewitching half laugh, "unless you
ever see cause to scold me, there. Good-by, my cousin, and in turn
forgive me, if I was so petulant. The Caroline you pelted with snowballs
was always a