"I have ever been noted for sagacity and discernment from childhood,"
she returned; for, indeed, on the possession of these qualities she
peculiarly piqued herself.

"You never plotted to win a husband, I'll be bound," pursued Mrs. Yorke;
"and you have not the benefit of previous experience to aid you in
discovering when others plot."

Caroline felt this kind language where the benevolent speaker intended
she should feel it--in her very heart. She could not even parry the
shafts; she was defenceless for the present. To answer would have been
to avow that the cap fitted. Mrs. Yorke, looking at her as she sat with
troubled, downcast eyes, and cheek burning painfully, and figure
expressing in its bent attitude and unconscious tremor all the
humiliation and chagrin she experienced, felt the sufferer was fair
game. The strange woman had a natural antipathy to a shrinking,
sensitive character--a nervous temperament; nor was a pretty, delicate,
and youthful face a passport to her affections. It was seldom she met
with all these obnoxious qualities combined in one individual; still
more seldom she found that individual at her mercy, under circumstances
in which she could crush her well. She happened this afternoon to be
specially bilious and morose--as much disposed to gore as any vicious
"mother of the herd." Lowering her large head she made a new charge.

"Your cousin Hortense is an excellent sister, Miss Helstone. Such ladies
as come to try their life's luck here at Hollow's Cottage may, by a very
little clever female artifice, cajole the mistress of the house, and
have the game all in their own hands. You are fond of your cousin's
society, I dare say, miss?"

"Of which cousin's?"

"Oh, of the lady's, _of course_."

"Hortense is, and always has been, most kind to me."

"Every sister with an eligible single brother is considered most kind by
her spinster friends."

"Mrs. Yorke," said Caroline, lifting her eyes slowly, their blue orbs at
the same time clearing from trouble, and shining steady and full, while
the glow of shame left her cheek, and its hue turned pale and
settled--"Mrs. Yorke, may I ask what you mean?"

"To give you a lesson on the cultivation of rectitude, to disgust you
with craft and false sentiment."

"Do I need this lesson?"

"Most young ladies of the present day need it. You are quite a modern
young lady--morbid, delicate, professing to like retirement; which
implies, I suppose, that you fin