girls," said he, approaching them. "And,
indeed, I might have spent my time better, too. But no matter; we must
try and find out her Ladyship now, for the morning is slipping over."

As he spoke, George Onslow appeared, and recognizing the party with much
cordiality, conducted them to the breakfast-room, where Sir Stafford,
Lady Hester, and Miss Onslow were seated. If Sydney's reception of the
two sisters was less enthusiastic than Lady Hester's, it was not less
kind. Nelly was won almost instantaneously by the unaffected ease
and simplicity of her manner. As for Dalton himself, her Ladyship had
determined to carry him by storm. She suffered him to declaim about his
ancestors and their wealth; heard him with assumed interest in all
his interminable stories of Dal tons for six generations; and artfully
opposed to his regrets at the approaching departure of his daughter
the ingenious consolation that she was not about to sojourn with mere
strangers, but with those united to her by the ties of kindred.
George had, meanwhile, made two or three efforts to engage Kate in
conversation; but, whether from the preoccupation of her mind, agitated
as it well might be at such a moment, or that his topics were so utterly
new and strange to her, his attempt was not attended with any signal
success. A sense of shame, too, at the disparity of her own and her
sister's appearance, in contrast with the quiet elegance of Lady Hester
and Miss Onslow's dress, oppressed her. Strange was it that this feeling
should have agitated her now, she who always hitherto had never wasted a
thought on such matters, and yet she felt it acutely; and as she glanced
from the rustling robe of silk to the folds of her own homely costume,
her heart beat painfully, and her breathing came short. Was she already
changed, that thoughts tike these could impress her so strongly? Had
Adam's first shame descended to his daughter? "How unlike I am to them!"
was the bitter thought that rose to her mind, and ate like a cancer into
her heart.

The sense of inferiority, galling and torturing as it is, becomes
infinitely more unendurable when connected with matters of trivial
importance. There is a sense of indignant anger in the feeling that
we are surpassed by what seem the mere conventionalities and tricks of
society, and although Kate knew not the source of her unhappiness, some
of it lay in this fact. Every little gesture, every motion, the merest
peculiarities of voice