'I do not believe,' returned Juliet, 'that any woman upon earth has power over him,--a cold, cynical, sarcastic----' 'You forget,' interrupted I, 'that he has owned a strong interest in me;' for, in the soft hour of returning confidence, I had showed his billet to my friend. 'Yes,' answered Miss Arnold, 'that is true; but don't you think he may once have been a lover of your mother's, and that on her account----' 'My mother's!' cried I. 'Ridiculous! impossible! Maitland must have been a mere child when my mother married.' 'Let me see,' said Miss Arnold, with calculating brow, 'your mother, had she been alive, would now have been near forty.' 'And Maitland, I am sure, cannot be more than two-and-thirty.' 'Is he not?' said Miss Arnold, who had ventured as far as she thought prudent. Silence ensued; for I was now in no very complacent frame. Miss Arnold was the first to speak. 'Perhaps,' said she, 'Mr Maitland only wishes to conceal his own sentiments, till he makes sure of yours,--perhaps he would be secure of success before he condescends to sue.' 'If I thought the man were such a coxcomb,' cried I, 'I would have no mercy in tormenting. I detest pride.' 'If I have guessed right,' pursued Miss Arnold, 'a little fit of jealousy would do excellently well to prove him, and punish him at the same time; I am sure he deserves it very well, for making so much mystery of nothing.' A by-stander might have indulged a melancholy smile at my detestation of pride, and Miss Arnold's antipathy to mystery. But our abhorrence of evil is never more vehemently, perhaps never more sincerely expressed, than when our own besetting sin thwarts us in the conduct of others. 'But,' said I, for experience had begun to teach me some awe for Maitland's penetration, 'what if he should see through our design, and only laugh at us and our manoeuvring?' 'Oh! as for that,' returned Juliet, 'choose his rival well, and there is no sort of danger. A dull, every-day creature, to be sure, would never do: but fix upon something handsome, lively, fashionable, and it must appear the most natural thing in the world. By the by, did he ever seem to suspect any one in particular?' 'What! don't you remember that, in his note, he speaks with tolerably decent alarm of Lord Frederick?' 'Oh! true,' returned Miss Arnold, 'I had forgotten.--Well, do you think you could pitch upon a better flirt?' Now my friend knew that I happened at that moment to have no choice of flirts; for, besides that Lord Frederick was the only dangler whom I had ever systematically encouraged, he was the only one of my present admirers who could boast any particular advantages of figure or situation. 'He might answer the purpose well enough,' returned I, 'if we knew how to bring Maitland and him together; but you know he does not visit here since his foolish old father thought fit to interfere.' 'That may be easily managed,' replied Juliet. 'The slightest hint from you would bring him back.'