“Is that my fault?” said Frederick, making a motion as if to break away. “I do not say it is your fault. Stop and hear what I have to say. It was very good of you, no doubt, to be so kind to her on the journey, to gain her confidence----” “Your words are very nice, mother,” said Frederick, “but your tone implies that it was anything but good of me, as if I had gained her confidence with an evil intention----” “Frederick! how dare you put such a suggestion into my lips? If I were to answer you as you deserve, I should say that only a guilty mind could have thought of such a thing, or thought that I could think of it,” cried Mrs. Eastwood, becoming involved in expression as she lost her temper. This heat on both sides was entirely to be attributed to the Sunday afternoon. On arriving so near the brink of the quarrel as this, Mrs. Eastwood paused. “Sunday is not a day for quarrelling,” she said, “and heaven knows I have no wish to quarrel with any one, much less my own boy; but Frederick, dear, you must let me warn you. You do not know the world as I do (heaven help the innocent soul!) nor how people are led on further than they have any intention; nor how the simplest kindness on your part may affect the imagination of a girl. She is not much more than a child----” “She is an utter child--and a fool besides,” said Frederick, throwing the female creature about whom he was being lectured overboard at once, as a sacrifice to the waves, according to the wont of man. “I would not say that,” said Mrs. Eastwood doubtfully. “She is a very strange girl, but I do not like to think she is a fool; and as for being a child--a child of sixteen is very near a woman--and, my dear, without meaning it, without thinking of it, you might do a great deal of harm. With a brooding sort of girl like this, you can never tell what may be going on. If she was one to speak out and say what she is thinking, like my Nelly----” “Nelly! Well, to do her justice, she is very different from Nelly,” said Frederick, with that natural depreciation of his sister which is also usual enough, and which was largely increased by Sunday-afternoonishness. “No, indeed, she is not like Nelly, more’s the pity,” said Mrs. Eastwood, fortunately not detecting the injurious tone. “She is so shut up in herself that you can never tell what may be going on within her. I am sure you don’t mean it, Frederick, but sometimes I think, for Innocent’s own sake, it would be better if you were not quite so kind. I don’t like her waiting for you in the hall, and that sort of thing. There is no harm in it, I know--but I don’t like it. It is always an unpleasant thing to have ideas--which she would be better without--put into a girl’s head.” “You are too mysterious for me to follow,” said Frederick. “What ideas? If you will be a little more plain in your definition----”