Harriet stood up. To do her justice, she tried to look as grave as she could, though she had a great inclination to laugh. "I did not give you credit, Sir, for knowing so much of your profession," she said, coolly; "you have learned, I see, that it is a better plan to attack than to defend." "I--what have I to defend?" said Mr. Gage. "Can you deny that you long made me believe you were going to be married to Lord Raymond?" "Really, Mr. Gage," said Harriet, "your remarks are very original; unexpected, at least. I believe, for a long time we have had as little confidential communication as any two persons in the world. People were at liberty to conjecture what they pleased from Lord Raymond's intimacy with my family." "People!" echoed Mr. Gage, highly offended at being thus classed with the multitude. "Men, women and children!" said Harriet, very contentedly, and turning to the window ledge, she began to give Donald his dinner. Mr. Gage's indignation was now at its height; but he endeavoured to veil it under an appearance of great calmness. Harriet, as cool as himself, went on mincing Donald's cold beef. At last he said, that if it was not taxing her memory too far, he should be glad to know her motive for allowing Lord Raymond to be recognized as her lover; had she preferred Lord Raymond, he should have respected the feeling, although he should not, certainly, have thought very highly of her taste. "As that preference has been entirely a little fancy of your own," said Harriet, with spirit; "I think it not worth while to defend my taste on an imaginary point." "Still," said Mr. Gage, "you suffered me to remain in error on a subject which you well knew to be of great importance to my happiness." "As I am not appointed guardian to your happiness, Mr. Gage," said Harriet, with mock civility, "I do not feel any remorse upon that point. If you chose to compliment my taste, by inventing an attachment between me and a remarkably attractive man, I will take this opportunity, if you please, of returning you my best thanks." Mr. Gage looked still more stormy, but he seemed determined, in popular phrase, to "have his say out." "You never were attached to Lord Raymond then?" he said. "Never, as it happened," returned Harriet, with great indifference. "Then why give me to understand--" Mr. Gage began. "Stop there!" said Harriet, "don't ring the changes, my good friend, upon your misapprehension. I was not likely to tell _you_, of all people, my family secrets. Lord Raymond was always on an intimate footing with me. I could not remove the confusion in his affairs, nor help his mother dying at the wrong time: and these were the only things that prevented his marriage with Lucy from taking place earlier."