After a time, I said hesitatingly, "I scarcely presume to condole with you, Lady Ellinor; yet, believe me, few things ever shocked me like the death you allude to. I trust Miss Trevanion's health has not much suffered. Shall I not see her before I leave England?" Lady Ellinor fixed her keen bright eyes searchingly on my countenance, and perhaps the gaze satisfied her, for she held out her hand to me with a frankness almost tender, and said--"Had I had a son, the dearest wish of my heart had been to see you wedded to my daughter." I started up--the blood rushed to my cheeks, and then left me pale as death. I looked reproachfully at Lady Ellinor, and the word "cruel" faltered on my lips. "Yes," continued Lady Ellinor, mournfully, "that was my real thought, my impulse of regret, when I first saw you. But, as it is, do not think me too hard and worldly, if I quote the lofty old French proverb, _Noblesse oblige_. Listen to me, my young friend,--we may never meet again, and I would not have your father's son think unkindly of me with all my faults. From my first childhood I was ambitious--not as women usually are, of mere wealth and rank--but ambitious as noble men are, of power and fame. A woman can only indulge such ambition by investing it in another. It was not wealth, it was not rank, that attracted me to Albert Trevanion; it was the nature that dispenses with the wealth, and commands the rank. Nay," continued Lady Ellinor, in a voice that slightly trembled, "I may have seen in my youth, before I knew Trevanion, one (she paused a moment, and went on hurriedly)--one who wanted but ambition to have realised my ideal. Perhaps, even when I married--and it was said for love--I loved less with my whole heart than with my whole mind. I may say this now, for _now_ every beat of this pulse is wholly and only true to him with whom I have schemed, and toiled, and aspired; with whom I have grown as one; with whom I have shared the struggle, and now partake the triumph--realising the visions of my youth." Again the light broke from the dark eyes of this grand daughter of the world, who was so superb a type of that moral contradiction--_an ambitious woman_. "I cannot tell you," resumed Lady Ellinor, softening, "how pleased I was when you came to live with us. Your father has perhaps spoken to you of me, and of our first acquaintance?"-- Lady Ellinor paused abruptly, and surveyed me as she paused. I was silent. "Perhaps, too, he has blamed me?" she resumed, with a heightened colour. "He never blamed you, Lady Ellinor!"