"They are of equal, if not greater weight than your cousin's, Caroline. You have been, from your earliest infancy, the object of the most tender and devoted care to your father and myself. Miss Harcourt has followed out our plans; you have never been exposed to any temptation, not even that of casual bad example. Ellen, till she became mine, encountered neglect, harshness, all that could not fail in such a character to engender the faults she has. You can not compare yourself with her, for, had you been situated as she was, I fear you would have had still heavier failings." "I should never have told untruths," exclaimed Caroline with returning temper. "Perhaps not, for some persons are so physically constituted that they do not know what fear is; and harshness would harden, not terrify and crush, as with such dispositions as Ellen's. But Caroline, when temper gains dominion over you, as it has done to-day, do you always think and utter nothing but the truth?" Caroline turned from that penetrating look and burst into tears. Few as the words were, they seemed to flash light into the very inmost recesses of her heart, and tell her that in moments of uncontrolled temper, in her brooding fancies, she really did forfeit the truth, on adherence to which she so prided herself; and that there was no excuse for her in the idea that she did not know what she said or did--for why had religion and reason been so carefully implanted within her, but to enable her to subdue the evil temper, ere it acquired such fearful dominion. "Perhaps you have never thought of this before, Caroline," resumed Mrs. Hamilton, and her tone was not quite so cold; "but think of it in future, and it may help you to conquer yourself. Remember, words can never be recalled, and that, though you may have lost such command over yourself, as scarcely to know the exact sense of what you say, yet those to whom they are addressed, or those who may have only heard them, must believe, and so receive, and perhaps act on false impressions, which no after effort will remove. Now to your next charge, that I treat Ellen as a reasonable being, and you as a child:--if you have the least foundation for this supposition, speak it without hesitation--whence has it arisen?" For one minute Caroline hesitated, but then resolved she would atone for her fault at least by a full confession. She told all the wishes, the hopes Annie's information of Lady Helen's promise had imparted, and the pain it was to feel that her mother thought her such a child as not to speak to her on the subject.