“I thought no one was awake but myself,” she said; “I am a bad sleeper. If you are the same, we will have a little chat together; I am naturally a sociable animal. Of all company, I find my own the worst, and above all things hate to be alone.” Surprised at this frank invitation, from a woman who had pronounced her _nobody_, Flora replied, rather coldly, “I fear, Mrs. Dalton, that our conversation would not suit each other.” “That is as much as to say, that you don’t like me; and that you conclude from that circumstance, that I don’t like you?” “To be candid then,—you are right.” “I fancy that you overheard my observations to Major F.?” “I did.” “Well if you did, I can forgive you for disliking me. When I first saw you, I thought you a very plain person, and judged by your dress, that you held a very inferior rank in society. After listening a few minutes to your conversation with Miss Leigh, who is a highly educated woman, I felt convinced that I was wrong; and that you were far superior to most of the women round me. Of course you thought me a very malicious, vain woman.” Flora smiled, in spite of herself. “Oh, you may speak it out. I shan’t like you a bit the less for speaking the truth. I am a strange, wayward creature, subject at times to the most dreadful depression of spirits; and it is only by affecting excessive gaiety that I hinder myself from falling into the most hopeless despondency.” “Such a state of mind is not natural to one of your age, and who possesses so many personal attractions. There must be some cause for these fits of gloom.” “Of course there is. I am not quite the heartless coquet I seem. My father was an officer in the army, and commanded a regiment in the West Indies, where I was born. I was an only child, and very much indulged by both my parents. I lost them while I was a mere child, and was sent to Scotland to be educated by my grandmother. I was an irritable, volatile, spoilt child, and expected that everybody would yield to me, as readily as my slave attendants had done in Jamaica. In this I was disappointed. My grandmother was a proud, ambitious woman, and a strict disciplinarian; and it was a constant battle between us who should be master. I was no match, however, for the old lady, and I fretted constantly under her control, longing for any chance that might free me from her rule. It was a joyful day for me, when I was sent to finish my education at one of the first schools in Edinburgh, which I did not leave until I was sixteen years of age. I found grandmamma several years older, and many degrees more exacting than she was before. She was so much alarmed lest I should make an unsuitable alliance, that she never suffered me to go out without I was accompanied by herself, or an old maiden aunt, who was more rigid and stiff than even grandmamma herself.