Cornelia reddened, and asked no more questions. She controlled her agitation; and at first, indeed, she was scarcely aware how much she felt: but while the whole house was listening to a favourite air, and her thoughts had leisure to rally, they came on her painfully, and involuntary tears filled her eyes. It was sad, indeed, to hear of her child as of a stranger; and to be made to feel sensibly how wide the gulf was that separated them. "My sweet girl--my own Ethel!--are you, indeed, so lost to me?" As her heart breathed this ejaculation, she felt the downy cheek of her babe close to her's, and its little fingers press her bosom. A moment's recollection brought another image:--Ethel, grown up to womanhood, educated in hatred of her, negligent and unfilial;--this was not the little cherub whose loss she lamented. Let her look round the crowd then about her; and among the fair girls she saw, any one was as near her in affection and duty, as the child so early torn from her, to be for ever estranged and lost. The baleful part of Cornelia's character was roused by these reflections; her pride, her selfwill, her spirit of resistance. "And for this she has been taken from me," she thought, "to marry, while yet a child, a ruined man--to be wedded to care and indigence. Thus would it not have been had she been entrusted to me. O, how hereafter she may regret the injuries of her mother, when she feels the effects of them in her own adversity! It is not for me to prevent this ill-judged union. The aunt and niece would see in my opposition a motive to hasten it: wise as they fancy themselves--wise and good--what I, the reviled, reprobated, they would therefore pursue with more eagerness. Be it so--my day will yet come!" A glance of triumph shot across her face as she indulged in this emotion of revenge; the most deceitful and reprehensible of human feelings--revenge against a child--how sad at best--how sure to bring with it its recompense of bitterness of spirit and remorse! But Cornelia's heart had been rudely crushed, and in the ruin of her best affections, her mother had substituted noxious passions of many kinds--pride chief of all. While thus excited and indignant, she saw Edward Villiers. He came into her box; the lady with her was totally unaware of what had been passing in her thoughts, nor reverted to the name mentioned as having any connexion with her. She asked Villiers if it were true that he was going to be married? Lady heard the question; she turned on him her eyes full of significant meaning, and with a smile of scorn answered for him, "O yes, Mr. Villiers is going to be married. His bride is young, beautiful, and portionless; but he has the tastes of a hermit--he means to emigrate to America--his simple and inexpensive habits are admirably suited to the wilderness."