This reproach I could not bear from him; for I knew, if I was become pettish and captious, affection for him was the cause; and I burst into tears. But struggling with my feelings, I sobbed out, "And I suppose, sir, you think I _have_ no _other_ charm than my good-temper." "_I_, Helen! No such thing: I think quite the contrary; and I do assure you, the ladies I have just left, they----" "O yes!" cried I, "they, I suppose, have every charm possible." "They have great charms, certainly, both of face and person; still, they are only _fine women_; but _you_, Helen, are quite a _little beauty_--only you are as yet but a _child_, you know." Away went my ill-humours, and even my jealousy; for I was sure, though the boy of seventeen thought it more manly to talk to women grown, I knew as he advanced in life, and I too, he would be of a different opinion; and I also knew a few years would fade the ladies whom he so much admired, while the same number of years would leave me still young, and _still a beauty_. Yes, he thought me a beauty, and he had told me so; and I repeated his words to myself so often, that in a reverie I once spoke them aloud, and my mother asked, "Child, what are you saying about Helen and beauty?" "Helen was a great beauty, mamma--was she not?" said I, blushing at my own duplicity; but the subterfuge weighed heavily on my mind, nor could I rest till I told the whole truth to my mother, who, in consideration of my ingenuousness, merely observed to me, that when, from the exaggeration to which even boys were much given, Seymour called me a beauty, he only meant I was a pretty girl: but _I_ thought _differently_. Seymour now remained at home full six months, with a private tutor, as he was too old to go back to school, and Lady Helen thought him too young for Oxford. During that time, my mother, from (as I suspected) some private information, began to form an unfavourable opinion of his steadiness of conduct; and the anxieties of a mother for his future well-being clouded the still beautiful countenance of Lady Helen. Once, as I was apparently engaged in reading, I overheard Lady Helen say to my mother, "Do you not discern any symptoms yet of a growing attachment on his side? he may be on his guard before me." "None whatever: he seems to consider her still only as a beautiful child; and she is certainly not at all more womanly in her appearance this last year." "I am sorry for it," was the answer; "for there is no guard so good for the morals of a young man, as a virtuous attachment." "Yes," said my mother; "and I had hoped, that by being so much with Helen, he would have loved her, as it were, by anticipation."