made myself a hero, as simple hearts do, but
my idol was clay all the same. Wealth and
power would do for John Hollingford what
his father's misconduct had undone. It was
utter silliness, my abasing myself, saying that
Rachel Leonard was more loveable than I.
Her rich expectations were her superior charm.
Oh me! how people will talk, just to be thought
knowing, just to be thought wise, just to
dazzle, and to create an excitement for the
hour.

I do think that Grace Tyrrell loved me after
her own fashion, and that she thought I had
been hardly used; but the sympathy she gave
me was a weak sympathy that loved to spend
itself in words, that was curious to sift out
the matter of my grief, that laid little wiles to
prove the judgment she had given me true.
She had watched them (Rachel and John), she
said, and John's manner was not the manner
of a lover, though he affected it as much as he
could. He was trying to bind her with
promises, but she would not be bound. Yes, she,
Grace, had watched them, and would watch
them. Every night she brought me into her
room, and detailed her observations of the day,
and pitied, and petted, and caressed her poor
darling. I was weak in health, and unutterably
lonely and sad, and I clung to her
protection and kindness. But instinctively I
distrusted her judgment. I disliked her coarse
views of things, and followed her counsels
doubtingly.

I have not described her to you yet, my
children. Imagine, then, a showy, frivolous-looking,
blonde young woman, fond of pretty
feathers, and flowers, and gay colours; pretty
enough in her way, good-humoured and talkative.

I thought, then, that I had every reason
to be grateful to her, and I blamed myself for
not loving her spontaneously, as I had loved,
as I still fought against loving Rachel. I
think now that I had no reason to be grateful
to her. If she had not been always by my
side, so faithful, so watchful, so never-failing
with her worldly lesson, I think I should have
found a way out of the darkness of my trouble.
I think I should have softened a little when
Rachel met me in the gallery, twined her soft
arm round my neck, and asked me why we two
should be so estranged. I think I should have
wept when John took my hand between his
two and asked me, in God's name, to tell him
why I had grown so altered. But I was blind,
deaf, and dumb to their advances. Their
reproaches were meaningless, their caresses
treacherous, and I would have none of them.
I would stand where they themselves had placed
me, but I would draw no nearer to set their
consciences at rest. And then there was
Captain Tyrrell at the hall.

Why did Grace Tyrrell want me to marry
her brother? I do not know; unless because
she liked me, for she was fond of him; unless
because my substantial dowry would be of use
to the needy man of fashion. I had heard
before that he had made two unsuccessful
attempts to marry an heiress. I was not an
heiress, but the hand that I should give to a
husband would lie pretty well filled. At all
events, he was ever by my side, and Grace (I
am now sure) helped him to contrive that it
should be so. I did not like him, I never had
liked him. Before I had come to Hillsbro' he
had wearied me with compliments and
attentions. When he had visited me at the farm,
elegant as he was, I had contrasted him
unfavourably with the absent "ploughman,"
wondering that language had only provided one
word, "man," by which to designate two
creatures so different. He was the same now that
he had been then; but I, who had soared to things
higher, had fallen. Anyone was useful to talk
to, to walk with, to drive with, so that time might
pass; any noise, any bustle, that would keep me
from thinking, was grateful. So I tolerated
the attention of Captain Tyrrell, and he and
Grace hemmed me in between them. Rachel
looked on in silence, sometimes with contempt,
sometimes with wondering pity. John kept
further and further aloof, and his face got darker,
and sadder, and sterner to me. And this it
was that bewildered and chafed me more than
anything I had suffered yet. Why, since he
had turned his back upon me, would he keep
constantly looking over his shoulder? And, oh
me! how Grace did whisper; and how her
whispers fired me with pride, while the
confidence I had foolishly given her daily wore
away my womanly self-respect.

My children, you will wonder why I did not
behave heroically under this trial. You despise
a heroine who is subject to the most common
faults and failings. The old woman now can
look back and mark out a better course of
conduct for the girl. But the girl is gone—the
past is past, the life is lived. I was full of the
humours and delusions of nineteen years, and I
saw the glory and delight of my youth wrecked.
Existence was merely inextricable confusion in
the dark. I never dreamt of a path appearing,
of a return of sunshine, of a story like this to
be afterwards told.

Rachel's conduct was variable and strange to
me at this time. She kept aloof from me, as I
have told you, looking on at my poor little
frantic efforts to be careless with a grand
contempt. She watched me as closely as Grace
watched her; but one day, I know not how it
happened, some word of jealous misery escaped
me, and Rachel grew very white and silent, and
there was a long pause of days before either of
them addressed the other again; but Rachel's
look and manner was altered to me from that
moment. A long, tender, wistful gaze followed
me about. She did not venture to dispute
Grace Tyrrell's possession of me, but it made
her uneasy. She was observant and sad,
patient and kind, while my manner to her was
often irritable and repellant. One night she
stole into my room when I was sinking to sleep,
and bent over me in my bed. "My darling, my
sister!" she said, "let me kiss you, let me put