“Do you repent, Calantha?”—“Do not talk of repentance: I cannot feel it: my sin is light compared with his.”—“Towards your husband,”—“Oh! Lord Avondale, he is happy enough: he cares not.”—“Indeed he does, my child. I tremble for you: every hour of your life is a continual warfare and peril. One danger no sooner ends than another arises. Will you never consider the duties of your situation, or the character you have to form and to preserve?”—“Who is more loved than I am? On whom does even the world smile with greater kindness? Beauties, wits, the virtuous—can they cope with me? I am every one’s friend, and every one loves, even though they blame Calantha.” As she said this, she smiled, and threw herself on her aunt’s bosom. But all this Calantha did but to cheer her aunt. Though not false, she dreaded any one’s seeing the real state of her mind: at this moment, she thought Mrs. Seymour too gentle, and of too tender a nature to bear the violence of her headstrong character:—she knew it would cause her misery were she to read her heart’s secret, and she smiled therefore and spoke with levity, whilst her soul was in torture. But the very moment Mrs. Seymour had left her, Calantha gave way to the rage of fury, and the despondency she felt. To have lost Glenarvon, was at this time the real source of her regret;—to speculate upon the cause of his sudden cruelty and treachery her sole occupation. At the hour of dinner Mrs. Seymour again entered her room; but without a single reproach. She had been crying—her eyes were swollen and red; but she affected scarcely to remember what had passed, and urged Calantha to accompany her to dinner, as her absence on the day Lord Glenarvon was from home, might appear strange. But Lady Avondale stubbornly refused, and would not speak. She even appeared sullen, that her aunt might not see she was miserable. She even affected more anger, more violence than she felt against Glenarvon, that she might disguise from herself and her aunt the pang his loss had given her. She relented however when she saw her aunt’s grief; and, struggling with tears which never come till passion is over, and which she thought it weak to display, she dressed and appeared at dinner. It was alone to please Mrs. Seymour she had done so; and, solely engrossed with the past, and utterly indifferent to the mortifying remarks her melancholy and silence occasioned, Calantha hated those who had the unkindness to censure and judge her, and looked not upon herself with one sentiment of condemnation. Towards evening Lord Avondale came to her, and said kindly enough that she looked ill. Then her heart smote her, and affecting a pettish ill temper, which she did not, could not feel, she replied that she was well, and took up a book, as if to read. May none ever experience the torture Calantha felt, when, instead of being offended, he gently pressed her hand. She had rather he had struck a dagger into her heart.