I did not think it would have distressed you so much,' said
Anne; 'I never thought it was more than a very foolish affair.'

'It is a very different thing for you,' said Elizabeth; 'you have
nothing to do with the town, and you need not have known that it was
not a fit place to go to.'

'But you did not know that it was not fit for us,' said Anne.

'I did know that I ought not to go where I had not been told I might
go,' said Elizabeth. 'It was relying on my own judgement that led me
astray. But, oh! I wish I had been here at the time the Socialist
lectures were given; I should as soon have thought of climbing up the
kitchen-chimney, as of going to that den, and giving the ragamuffins
such a victory over Papa.'

'It was very silly of us not to ask a few more questions,' said Anne.

'Ah! that is the worst part of my behaviour,' said Elizabeth; 'that
abominably unfair account which I gave you, at Mr. Turner's door, of
Helen's objections. It was in fact almost deceit, and the only thing
that can take off from the blackness of it, is that I was sufficiently
senseless to believe it myself at the time I spoke.'

'Oh yes, of course you did,' said Anne.

'Yet there must have been a sort of feeling that your hearing her
arguments would put a stop to the beautiful scheme,' said Elizabeth;
'you do not know, perhaps, that Kate was nearly convinced by Helen's
good sense, and I do believe that the reason I was not, was, what I
tremble to think of, that I have been indulging in a frightful spirit
of opposing and despising Helen, because I was angry with her for
loving Dykelands better than home. I do believe she hardly dares to
open her lips. I heard her telling Lucy afterwards that there was a
rose at Dykelands of the colour of her pattern, and I dare say she did
not say so, when it would have been to the purpose, for fear I should
say that damp turns roses orange-coloured; and I could see she did not
defend her pendant with Captain Atherley for fear I should tell her he
was not infallible. No wonder she pines for Dykelands; a fine sort of
sister and home she has found here, poor child.'

'Oh! now you think so--' Anne began, but here she stopped short,
checked by her dread of interfering between sisters; she could not bear
to add to Elizabeth's bitter feelings of self-reproach, and she could
not say that her conduct on the preceding evening had been by any means
what it ought to have been, that she had treated Helen kin