that of
other parts of England, revealing in quiet, unconscious touches of
description a sense of the picturesque, an appreciation of the beautiful
or commonplace, a power of comparing the wild with the cultured, the
grand with the tame, that gave to her discourse a graphic charm as
pleasant as it was unpretending.

The sort of reverent pleasure with which Caroline listened--so sincere,
so quiet, yet so evident--stirred the elder lady's faculties to gentle
animation. Rarely, probably, had she, with her chill, repellent outside,
her diffident mien, and incommunicative habits, known what it was to
excite in one whom she herself could love feelings of earnest affection
and admiring esteem. Delightful, doubtless, was the consciousness that a
young girl towards whom it seemed, judging by the moved expression of
her eyes and features, her heart turned with almost a fond impulse,
looked up to her as an instructor, and clung to her as a friend. With a
somewhat more marked accent of interest than she often permitted herself
to use, she said, as she bent towards her youthful companion, and put
aside from her forehead a pale brown curl which had strayed from the
confining comb, "I do hope this sweet air blowing from the hill will do
you good, my dear Caroline. I wish I could see something more of colour
in these cheeks; but perhaps you were never florid?"

"I had red cheeks once," returned Miss Helstone, smiling. "I remember a
year--two years ago--when I used to look in the glass, I saw a different
face there to what I see now--rounder and rosier. But when we are
young," added the girl of eighteen, "our minds are careless and our
lives easy."

"Do you," continued Mrs. Pryor, mastering by an effort that tyrant
timidity which made it difficult for her, even under present
circumstances, to attempt the scrutiny of another's heart--"do you, at
your age, fret yourself with cares for the future? Believe me, you had
better not. Let the morrow take thought for the things of itself."

"True, dear madam. It is not over the future I pine. The evil of the day
is sometimes oppressive--too oppressive--and I long to escape it."

"That is--the evil of the day--that is--your uncle perhaps is not--you
find it difficult to understand--he does not appreciate----"

Mrs. Pryor could not complete her broken sentences; she could not manage
to put the question whether Mr. Helstone was too harsh with his niece.
But Caroline comprehended.

"Oh, that