," Caroline at length said, summoning, as her
aunt Eleanor had often done, pride to drown the whisperings of
conscience, "that I must love another, because I rejected Lord St. Eval?
In such an important step as marriage, I should imagine my own
inclinations were the first to be consulted. It would be strange indeed,
if, after all I have heard you say on the evil of forcing young women to
marry, that you should compel your own child to accept the first offer
she received."

"You do me injustice, Caroline," replied her mother, controlling with an
effort natural displeasure; "St. Eval would not accept an unwilling
bride, nor after what has passed would your father and myself deem you
worthy to become his wife."

"Then long may this paragon of excellence remain away," replied
Caroline, with indignant haughtiness kindling in every feature. "I have
no wish ever to associate again with one by whose side I am deemed so
unworthy, even by my parents."

"Those who love you best, Caroline, are ever the first to behold and
deplore your faults. Have you acted honourably? have you done worthily
in exciting love merely to give pain, to amuse and gratify your own love
of power?"

"I have done no more than other girls do with impunity, without even
notice; and surely that which is so generally practised cannot demand
such severe censure as you bestow on it."

"And therefore you would make custom an excuse for sin, Caroline. Would
you have spoken thus a few months since? would you have questioned the
justice of your mother's sentences? and yet you say you are not changed.
Is it any excuse for a wrong action, because others do it? Had you been
differently instructed it might be, but not when from your earliest
years I have endeavoured to reason with, and to convince you of the sin
of coquetry, to which from a child you have been inclined. You have
acted more sinfully than many whose coquetry has been more general. You
devoted yourself to one alone, encouraged, flattered, because you saw he
was already attracted, instead of adhering to that distant behaviour
which would have at once told him you could feel no more for him than as
a friend. You would have prevented future suffering, by banishing from
the first all secret hopes; but no, you wished to prove you could
accomplish more than others, by captivating one so reserved and superior
as St. Eval. Do not interrupt me by a denial, Caroline, for you dare not
deliberately say such was n