heard Camilla talking to his wife!"

"Talking?"

"Admiring that dress, which she had been sneering at to your mother,
don't you remember? It was one of her honey-cups with venom below--
only happily, Lady Rosamond saw through the flattery. I'm ashamed
whenever I see her!"

"I don't think that need cut you off from Julius."

"Tell me _truly_," again broke in Lenore, "what Mrs. Poynsett really
is. She is a standing proverb with us for tyranny over her sons;
not with Camilla alone, but with papa."

"See how they love her!" cried Jenny, hotly.

"Camilla thinks that abject; but I can't forget how Frank talked of
her in those happy Rockpier days."

"When you first knew him?" said Jenny.

They must have come at length to the real point, for Eleonora began
at once--"Yes; he was with his sick friend, and we were so happy;
and now he is being shamefully used, and I don't know what to do!"

"Indeed, Lenore," said Jenny, in her downright way, "I do not
understand. You do not seem to care for him."

"Of course I am wrong," said the poor girl; "but I hoped I was doing
the best thing for him." Then, as Jenny made an indignant sound,
"See, Jenny, when he came to Rockpier, Camilla had been a widow
about three months. She never had been very sad, for Lord Tyrrell
had been quite imbecile for a year, poor man! And when Frank came,
she could not make enough of him; and he and I both thought the two
families had been devotedly fond of each other, and that she was
only too glad to meet one of them."

"I suppose that was true."

"So do I, as things stood then. She meant Frank to be a sort of
connecting link, against the time when she could come back here; but
we, poor children, never thought of that, and went on together, not
exactly saying anything, but quite understanding how much we cared.
Indeed, I know Camilla impressed on him that, for his mother's sake,
it must go no farther then, while he was still so young; and next
came our journey on the Continent, ending in our coming back here
last July."

Jenny remembered that Raymond's engagement had not been made known
till August, and Frank had only returned from a grouse-shooting
holiday a week or two before the arrival of the brides.

"Now," added Eleonora, "Camilla has made me understand that nothing
will induce her to let papa consent; and though I know he would, if
he were left to himself, I also see how all this family must hate
and loathe the connection."