The festive scene of the previous evening had, for the first time opened her eyes fairly to her own position; she read it in the demeanor of all present; she heard it in the whispers which unintentionally reached her ears; she felt it intuitively in the shade--it was not a shade, yet she observed it--of difference perceptible in the degree of deference and courtesy paid to herself and to her sister. She felt, for the first time, that Blanche was every thing, herself a mere cipher--that Blanche was the lady of the manor, the cynosure of all eyes, the queen of all hearts, herself but the lady's poor relation, the dependent on her bounty, and at the best a creature to be played with, and petted for her beauty and her wit, without regard to her feelings, or sympathy for her heart. And prepared as she was at all times to resist even just authority with insolent rebellion; ready as she was always to assume the defensive, and from that the offensive against all whom she fancied offenders, how angrily did her heart now boil up, how almost fiercely did she muster her faculties to resist, to attack, to conquer, to annihilate all whom she deemed her enemies--and that, for the moment, was the world. Conscious of her own beauty, of her own wit, of her own high and powerful intellect, perhaps over-confident in her resources, she determined on that instant that she would devote them all, all to one purpose, to which she would bend every energy, direct every thought of her mind--to her own aggrandizement, by means of some great and splendid marriage, which should set her as far above the heiress of Ditton-in-the-Dale, as the rich heiress now stood in the world's eye above the portionless and dependent sister. Nor was this all--there was a sterner, harder, and more wicked feeling yet, springing up in her heart, and whispering the sweetness of revenge--revenge on that amiable and gentle sister, who, so far from wronging her, had loved her ever with the tenderest and most affectionate love, who would have sacrificed her dearest wishes to her welfare--but whom, in the hardness of her embittered spirit, she could now see only as an intruder upon her own just rights, a rival on the stage of fashion, perhaps in the interests of the heart--whom she already envied, suspected, almost hated. And Blanche, at that self-same moment, had resolved to keep watch on her own heart narrowly, and to observe her sister's bearing toward George Delawarr, that in case she should perceive her favoring his suit, she might at once crush down the germ of rising passion, and sacrifice her own to her dear sister's happiness. Alas! Blanche! Alas! Agnes!