"Just as people began to look and talk, and wonder why we were so slow, and why it did not come out, and just as I began to think that I had had enough of society, and that perhaps I ought to be willing to settle down, I began to feel, too, that my power over him was going, gone! The strings I had always played upon so easily were broken, and though I ran over them in the old way, I could not win a sound. I hardly had time to feel more than puzzled and frightened, when his engagement came out, and it was all over. But there! it was the kindest way he could have done it. I hate to think of some of the things I did and said to try if he had indeed ceased to care for me; but they were not _much_, and if I had had time I might have done more and worse. I was struck dumb with surprise like everybody else. My father and mother were hurt and anxious, but it was easy to reassure them, and without deception. I could tell them the truth, but not the whole truth. I did not suffer from what they supposed. My heart was not broken, or even seriously hurt, but oh! how much I wished at times that it had been! Had I really loved and been forsaken, I could have sat down by the wayside and asked the whole world for pity, without a thought of shame. But for what had I to ask pity? I was like a rider who had been thrown and broken no bones, in so ridiculous a way that he excites no sympathy. What if he is battered and bruised? If he complains, people only laugh. I held my tongue when my raw places were hit. I had the pleasure of hearing that Julia Noble had been saying--" and here Lily put on Mrs. Allston's manner to perfection--"'I hope poor Miss Carey was not disappointed. Jack has, I fear, been paying her more attention than he ought; but it was only to divert comment from me; dear Jack has so much delicacy of feeling where I am concerned!'--No, don't say anything; let me have done, I will not take long. I could not get away from it all, and what was I to do? To go on in society and play the same game over with some one else was unendurable; I was getting past the age for that. Susan was out and Eleanor coming out, and I felt I ought to have taken myself out of their way, in the proper fashion. To take up art or philanthropy was not in my line. The girls I knew were not brought up with those ideas and didn't take to them unless they started with being odd, or ugly, or would own up to a disappointment. My place in the world had suited me to perfection, and now it was hateful and no other was offered me.