ment to herself; and so, in her pride, she said to Valencia, and
told her that she should love her for ever for her kindness to Elsley,
while her heart was ready to burst.

But ere the fortnight was over the Nemesis had come, and Lucia, woman
as she was, could not repress a thrill of malicious joy, even though
Elsley became more intolerable than ever at the change.

What was the Nemesis, then?

Simply that this naughty Miss St. Just began to smile upon Frank
Headley the curate, even as she had smiled upon Elsley Vavasour.

It was very naughty; but she had her excuses. She had found Elsley
out; and it was well for both of them that she had done so. Already,
upon the strength of their supposed relationship, she had allowed him
to talk a great deal more nonsense to her,--harmless perhaps, but
nonsense still,--than she would have listened to from any other
man; and it was well for both of them that Elsley was a man without
self-control who began to show the weak side of his character freely
enough, as soon as he became at ease with his companion, and excited
by conversation. Valencia quickly saw that he was vain as a peacock,
and weak enough to be led by her in any and every direction, when she
chose to work on his vanity. And she despised him accordingly, and
suspected, too, that her sister could not be very happy with such a
man.

None are more quick than sisters-in-law to see faults in the
brother-in-law, when once they have begun to look for them; and
Valencia soon remarked that Elsley showed Lucia no _petits soins_,
while he was ready enough to show them to her; that he took no real
trouble about his children, or about anything else; and twenty more
faults, which she might have perceived in the first two days of her
visit, if she had not been in such a hurry to amuse herself. But she
was too delicate to ask Lucia the truth, and contented herself with
watching all parties closely, and in amusing herself meanwhile--for
amusement she must have--in

"Breaking a country heart
For pastime, ere she went to town."

She had met Frank several times about the parish and in the schools,
and had been struck at once with his grace and high breeding, and with
that air of melancholy which is always interesting in a true woman's
eyes. She had seen, too, that Elsley tried to avoid him, naturally
enough not wishing an intrusion on their pleasant _tetes-a-tete._
Whereon, half to spite Elsley, and half to show her own right