own to control, she is better able to note his, and take her course accordingly.
Henrietta had nothing to interfere with keeping a perpetual watch over Lord Allerton; she had neither timidity nor scruples; and she had that sort of ready talent which makes a capital actress. Nature had meant Henrietta to be something better than society had made her. She had loved—loved with all the intenseness of an impassioned nature. Had that attachment been more fortunate, she would have been a different creature; but her sweetest and best feelings had been excited to gratify the lowest of all vanities, and then neglected as carelessly as they had been called forth. The iron had entered into her soul, and left its own harshness behind. She looked upon marriage in that light which it is as fatal to a woman's delicacy as to her happiness to consider it—merely as an establishment.
Mary's soft eyes, filled with unbidden tears, more than once excited a feeling as like remorse as she was now capable of experiencing; but it was deadened, if not dissipated, by the idea of being mistress of Allerton Park on one hand, and being left still dependant on her worldly aunt, who would visit upon her the failure of their scheme.
"I have been thinking," said Lord Rotheles to his wife, as she came into the library with some letters to be franked, "that Allerton has been trifling with Mary."
