"And if she did," replied Caroline, very much provoked, "she said nothing that I am ashamed of repeating. She knew my aunt before she went to India, and I am sure if her children are like her, they will be no agreeable additions to our family." "Bravo, Caroline! you really are an apt pupil; Lady Helen's words and manner completely! but you may have one comfort; children are not always like their parents, and if they are as unlike Lady Helen's description of my poor aunt (which by the way she had no right to give, nor you to listen to) as you are at this moment unlike mamma, we shall get on capitally, and need have no fears about them." "Percy you are intolerably disagreeable!" "Because I speak the sad, sober truth? Caroline, do pray, get rid of that dawning ill temper, before mamma comes; it will not be a pleasant welcome home." "I am not ill-tempered, Percy: I suppose I may have my own opinion of Ellen and Edward, as well as all of you," replied his sister angrily. "But do not let it be an unkind one, without knowing them, dear Caroline," observed Herbert gently; "it is so very difficult to get rid of a prejudice when once it has entered our minds, even when we know and feel that it is a wrong one. I am sure if we only thought how sad it is that they have neither father nor mother to love them, and are coming all among strangers--born in a strange land too--we should find quite enough to think kindly about, and leave all wonder as to what they will be like, till we know them. I dare say we shall often have to bear and forbear, but that we have to do with each other, and it will only be one brother and sister more." "Brother and sister! I am sure I shall not think of them so, Herbert, however you may. My father might have been a nobleman, and who knows any thing of theirs?" "Caroline, how can you be so ridiculous!" exclaimed Percy, with a most provoking fit of laughter. "Their father served and died for his king--as our grandfather did; and had he lived might have been offered a title too--and their mother--really I think you are very insulting to mamma: her sister's children I should imagine quite as high in rank as ourselves!" "And even if they were not--what would it signify?" rejoined Herbert. "Dear Caroline, pray do not talk or think so; it makes me feel so sorry, for I know how wrong it is--we might have been in their place." "I really can not fancy any thing so utterly impossible," interrupted Caroline, "so you may spare the supposition, Herbert." "It is no use, Bertie; you must bring the antipodes together, before you and Caroline will think alike," interposed Percy, perceiving with regret the expression of pain on his brother's face, and always ready to guard him either from physical or mental suffering, feeling instinctively that, from his extraordinary mind and vivid sense of duty, he was liable to the latter, from many causes which other natures would pass unnoticed.