"Oh, it is all right between them now, for I met him going there, and told him to meet me when I had been with her one hour. He did, and so I am sure I left them happy." "And are you not more happy yourself, dear Lucy?" "Yes, I think I am--I hardly know--yes, I believe I am; but I am a new traveller in your track," she said, looking up with a smile. "And every step is hard to take--I know it, darling, I know it," Mabel said, fondly smoothing the entangled ringlets of her light brown hair; "but you will go on--I know you will, for it leads to happiness at last." CHAPTER V O, envy! hide thy bosom, hide it deep: A thousand snakes, with black envenomed mouths, Rest there, and hiss, and feed through all thy heart! POLLOK. Caroline had no sooner returned from the ride, which had been to her full of disappointment, than she went to her mother, and begged her to find a remedy for, what she termed, their dependent's insolence. Mrs. Villars attempted, but in vain, to parry her angry threats--for Caroline was a stranger to the early discipline, which makes a person submit to what is right, for right's sake--and her mother's doctrine of expediency was too deeply engrafted in her disposition, to allow of her adopting any other rule of conduct. Why she imagined that her cousin stood in her way, she scarcely knew herself, except that she felt by instinct, that there was a superiority about her, which placed herself in a lower position. She had never, either, forgiven her resistance of her first attempts to humble her to what she deemed her fit position in the family--and though she had since abstained from any such open attack, her anger had not been the less strong, because it smouldered in silence. She was conscious that she appeared to less advantage in contrast to Mabel, and she now resolved to remove her. This she boldly declared to her mother, in violent terms, refusing to listen to any excuses, for, what she termed, her bold behaviour--and the latter saw, with horror, that she had raised, in her own family, by careful culture, a power of evil, which was urging her still further in the path of sin and fraud. To do her justice, she never began with the intention of doing wrong--she always believed herself led on by circumstances, and compelled by expediency. The remembrance of purer thoughts, shared with her more romantic sister, rose to check her at every step, though seldom strong enough to restrain her altogether. But it was not so with her daughter--she had no such hallowed nursery recollections--she had often heard her mother's praises of her beauty, but never her prayers for her purity--and, with strong, unrelenting terms, she demanded, what her mother wished, but feared to do?