lish, heir should
stand in the way of her darling boy! She had told herself a thousand
times that the Devil was speaking to her when she had dared to wish
that,--that Lord Hampstead was not there! She had put down the wish
in her heart very often, telling herself that it came from the Devil.
She had made a faint struggle to love the young man,--which had
resulted in constrained civility. It would have been unnatural to her
to love any but her own. Now she thought how glorious her Frederic
would have been as Lord Hampstead,--and how infinitely better it
would have been, how infinitely better it would be, for all the
Traffords, for all the nobles of England, and for the country at
large! But in thinking this she knew that she was a sinner, and she
endeavoured to crush the sin. Was it not tantamount to wishing that
her husband's son was--dead?

CHAPTER IV.

LADY FRANCES.

There is something so sad in the condition of a girl who is known to
be in love, and has to undergo the process of being made ashamed of
it by her friends, that one wonders that any young woman can bear it.
Most young women cannot bear it, and either give up their love or say
that they do. A young man who has got into debt, or been plucked,--or
even when he has declared himself to be engaged to a penniless young
lady, which is worse,--is supposed merely to have gone after his
kind, and done what was to be expected of him. The mother never
looks at him with that enduring anger by which she intends to wear
out the daughter's constancy. The father frets and fumes, pays the
debts, prepares the way for a new campaign, and merely shrugs his
shoulders about the proposed marriage, which he regards simply as
an impossibility. But the girl is held to have disgraced herself.
Though it is expected of her, or at any rate hoped, that she will get
married in due time, yet the falling in love with a man,--which is,
we must suppose, a preliminary step to marriage,--is a wickedness.
Even among the ordinary Joneses and Browns of the world we see that
it is so. When we are intimate enough with the Browns to be aware
of Jane Brown's passion, we understand the father's manner and the
mother's look. The very servants about the house are aware that
she has given way to her feelings, and treat her accordingly. Her
brothers are ashamed of her. Whereas she, if her brother be in love
with Jemima Jones, applauds him, sympathizes with him, and encourages
him.

There are