ised voice, "he is quite unworthy of you! but it is late now, and
you should go to sleep; to-morrow I will tell you more." I would have
given worlds to press the question then, but could not venture. Mamma
kissed and left me. I tried to twist her words into a hundred meanings,
but in each I only thought that they were dictated by some worldly
information,--some new doubts as to his birth or fortune; and, though
that supposition distressed me greatly, yet it could not alter my love
or deprive me of hope; and so I cried and guessed, and guessed and
cried, till at last I cried myself to sleep.

When I awoke, Mamma was already up, and sitting beside me: she talked
to me for more than an hour upon ordinary subjects, till at last,
perceiving how absent or rather impatient I appeared, she dismissed
Jermyn, and spoke to me thus:--

"You know, Flora, that I have always loved you, more perhaps than I
ought to have done, more certainly than I have loved your brothers
and sisters; but you were my eldest child, my first-born, and all the
earliest associations of a mother are blent and entwined with you. You
may be sure therefore that I have ever had only your happiness in view,
and that it is only with a regard to that end that I now speak to you."

I was a little frightened, Eleanor, by this opening, but I was much more
touched, so I took Mamma's hand and kissed and wept silently over it;
she continued: "I observed Mr. Linden's attention to you, at ----; I
knew nothing more of his rank and birth then than I do at present:
but his situation in the embassy and his personal appearance naturally
induced me to suppose him a gentleman of family, and, therefore, if
not a great at least not an inferior match for you, so far as worldly
distinctions are concerned. Added to this, he was uncommonly handsome,
and had that general reputation for talent which is often better than
actual wealth or hereditary titles. I therefore did not check, though I
would not encourage any attachment you might form for him; and nothing
being declared or decisive on either side when we left--, I imagined
that if your flirtation with him did even amount to a momentary and
girlish phantasy, absence and change of scene would easily and rapidly
efface the impression. I believe that in a great measure it was effaced
when Lord Aspeden returned to England, and with him Mr. Linden. You
again met the latter in society almost as constantly as before; a
caprice nearly con