licitly. Observe, whoever sits next you
rises if Lord Vargrave approaches; the neighbourhood talk of nothing
else but your marriage; and your fate, Evelyn, is not pitied."

"I will leave this place! I will go back to the cottage! I cannot bear
this!" said Evelyn, passionately wringing her hands.

"You do not love another, I am sure: not young Mr. Hare, with his
green coat and straw-coloured whiskers; or Sir Henry Foxglove, with his
how-d'ye-do like a view-halloo; perhaps, indeed, Colonel Legard,--he is
handsome. What! do you blush at his name? No; you say 'not Legard:' who
else is there?"

"You are cruel; you trifle with me!" said Evelyn, in tearful reproach;
and she rose to go to her own room.

"My dear girl!" said Caroline, touched by her evident pain; "learn from
me--if I may say so--that marriages are _not_ made in heaven! Yours will
be as fortunate as earth can bestow. A love-match is usually the least
happy of all. Our foolish sex demand so much in love; and love, after
all, is but one blessing among many. Wealth and rank remain when love
is but a heap of ashes. For my part, I have chosen my destiny and my
husband."

"Your husband!"

"Yes, you see him in Lord Doltimore. I dare say we shall be as happy
as any amorous Corydon and Phyllis." But there was irony in Caroline's
voice as she spoke; and she sighed heavily. Evelyn did not believe her
serious; and the friends parted for the night.

"Mine is a strange fate!" said Caroline to herself; "I am asked by
the man whom I love, and who professes to love me, to bestow myself on
another, and to plead for him to a younger and fairer bride. Well, I
will obey him in the first; the last is a bitterer task, and I cannot
perform it earnestly. Yet Vargrave has a strange power over me; and
when I look round the world, I see that he is right. In these most
commonplace artifices, there is yet a wild majesty that charms and
fascinates me. It is something to rule the world: and his and mine are
natures formed to do so."

CHAPTER IX.

A SMOKE raised with the fume of sighs.

_Romeo and Juliet_.

IT is certain that Evelyn experienced for Maltravers sentiments which,
if not love, might easily be mistaken for it. But whether it were that
master-passion, or merely its fanciful resemblance,--love in early
youth and innocent natures, if of sudden growth, is long before it makes
itself apparent. Evelyn had been prepared to feel an interest in her
s