aving to give way to my married
sister, but saying it was quite time that she took charge of us; and
on that notion they all wrote to me. Then she persuaded papa to go
abroad; and I was delighted, little thinking she never meant me to
go back again."

"Did she not?"

"Listen! I've heard her praise Rockpier and its church to the skies
to one person--say Mr. Bindon. To another, such as our own Vicar,
she says it was much too ultra, and she likes moderation; she tells
your father that she wants to see papa among his old friends; and to
Mrs. Duncombe, I've heard her go as near the truth as is possible to
her, and call it a wearisome place, with an atmosphere of incense,
curates, and old maids, from whom she had carried me off before I
grew fit for nothing else!"

"I dare say all these are true in turn, or seem so to her, or she
would not say them before you."

"She has left off trying to gloss it over with me, except so far as
it is part of her nature. She did at first, but she knows it is of
no use now."

"Really, Lenore, you must be going too far."

"I have shocked you; but you can't conceive what it is to live with
perpetual falsity. No, I can't use any other word. I am always
mistrusting and being angered, and my senses of right and wrong get
so confused, that it is like groping in a maze." Her eyes were full
of tears, but she exclaimed, "Tell me, Joanna, was there ever
anything between Camilla and Mr. Poynsett?"

"Why bring that up again now?"

"Why did it go off?" insisted Lenore.

"Because Mrs. Poynsett could not give up and turn into a dowager, as
if she were not the mistress herself."

"Was that all?"

"So it was said."

"I want to get to the bottom of it. It was not because Lord Tyrrell
came in the way."

"I am afraid they thought so here."

"Then," said Eleonora, in a hard, dry way, "I know the reason of our
being brought back here, and of a good deal besides."

"My dear Lena, I am very sorry for you; but I think you had better
keep this out of your mind, or you will fall into a hard, bitter,
suspicious mood."

"That is the very thing. I am in a hard, bitter, suspicious mood,
and I can't see how to keep out of it; I don't know when opposition
is right and firm, and when it is only my own self-will."

"Would it not be a good thing to talk to Julius Charnock? You would
not be betraying anything."

"No! I can't seem to make up to the good clergyman! Certainly not.
Besides, I've