"Mary never has any thing to say; and I think you are all growing like her. Do take care, Louisa; if you lean back, you will spoil your bonnet."
Louisa started from her reverie, colouring a little deeper than there seemed any occasion for, and said,
"Indeed, mamma, I should be very sorry to spoil your pretty present."
"I am sure it has been quite thrown away," interrupted her mother. "I would never have gone to the expence of such a bonnet, had I not thought that Sir Henry Calthorpe was serious in his attentions; but it is all your own fault."
"Nay, mamma," said Helen, timidly, "Louisa could not force Sir Henry to make her an offer."
"Force, indeed!—what strange words you use!" interrupted Lady Anne; "have I not told you a hundred times, that a strong expression is so unladylike? I dare say it was something Louisa said that frightened Sir Henry away—she must have been to blame."
And again her ladyship sank back in the carriage. Silence, however, again became wearisome, and she continued.
"I expect that I shall have you all on my hands, like Mary, who never will go off now. I am sure she need not grow so thin and pale, unless she liked it." The tears came into poor Mary's eyes, and she turned aside to the window. A thick mist covered the fields, but the prospect was not more dreary than her own—it was obscure, colourless—and such she felt was her future.
