This it was that had held her abstracted and apparently indifferent, while Lord St. George was exerting all his powers of entertainment in her behalf; this it was that had roused her indignation at hearing her sister speak so slightingly, and, as it seemed to her, so ungenerously of one whom she felt intuitively to be good and noble. This it was which now held her mute and thoughtful, and almost sad; for she felt conscious that she was on the verge of loving--loving one who, for aught that he had shown as yet, cared naught for her, perhaps even preferred another--and that other her own sister. Thereupon her maiden modesty rallied tumultuous to the rescue, and suggested the shame of giving love unasked, giving it, perchance, to be scorned--and almost she resolved to stifle the infant feeling in its birth, and rise superior to the weakness. But when was ever love vanquished by cold argument, or bound at the chariot-wheels of reason. The thought would still rise up prominent, turn her mind to whatever subject she would, coupled with something of pity at the treatment which he was like to meet from Agnes, something of vague, unconfessed pleasure that it was so, and something of secret hope that his eyes would erelong be opened, and that she might prove, in the end, herself his consoler. And what, meanwhile, were the dreams of Agnes? Bitter--bitter, and black, and hateful. Oh! it is a terrible consideration, how swiftly evil thoughts, once admitted to the heart, take root and flourish, and grow up into a rank and poisonous crop, choking the good grain utterly, and corrupting the very soil of which they have taken hold. There is but one hope--but one! To tear them from the root forcibly, though the heart-strings crack, and the soul trembles, as with a spiritual earthquake. To nerve the mind firmly and resolutely, yet humbly withal, and contritely, and with prayer against temptation, prayer for support from on high--to resist the Evil One with the whole force of the intellect, the whole truth of the heart, and to stop the ears steadfastly against the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely. But so did not Agnes Fitz-Henry. It is true that on the preceding night her better feelings had been touched, her heart had relented, and she had banished, as she thought, the evil counsellors, ambition, envy, jealousy, and distrust, from her spirit. But with the night the better influence passed away, and ere the morning had well come, the evil spirit had returned to his dwelling place, and brought with him other spirits, worse and more wicked than himself.