true; but her feelings towards her were anything but genial. One's heart cannot be made to yearn towards a sly and deceitful young person, just because she happens to be one's daughter-in-law. Her pity for Walter was great, but it did not beget Love for _her_. With Letty, again, Rose stood even lower, or perhaps seemed to do so, from the higher eminence which she had previously occupied in the affections of her school-friend. A young lady who has sworn an eternal friendship, does not relish the discovery that the other party to that solemn transaction has been making a fool of her under her own roof for months; nay, has been systematically deceiving her upon a matter mutual confidences concerning which form the very basis of such compacts--namely, the Beloved Object. Young men do not encourage one another to communicate their honest love-secrets, although some are boastful enough of their conquests over the sex, where there is no pretence of the heart being concerned; but with young ladies, this sort of information is the most prized of all. There is a tacit, if not an expressed understanding between female friends, that the first genuine “attachment” formed by either shall at once be revealed to the other. The expectation of that tender avowal is what is uppermost in their minds whenever they meet; and when it _has_ been made, what an endless subject of sympathy does the unconscious swain become between these devoted young persons! How the qualities of his mind are canvassed, and the colour of his hair; how his religious principles are eulogised, and also his small feet; and how, in short, the Betrothed and her faithful Confidante construct a mental and physical ideal for Jones, out of what they have read of the Admirable Crichton and the Apollo Belvedere. Betty Lisgard was as good a girl--in my opinion--as ever drew breath; but she was human, and when she kissed Rose the first time after she learned she had become her sister, it was by no means the impassioned salute which it had used to be, nor had her “my dear,” although delivered with emphasis, at all the genuine ring. As for the other females at the Abbey, it was fortunate for Rose that she had not to apply to _them_ for a character; for although Mistress Forest knew her place better than to circulate scandal, Miss Anne Rees, no longer restrained by terror of the constabulary, indemnified herself for previous reticence, by favouring her fellow-servants with some very curious details indeed with respect to Mrs Walter Lisgard. My Lady's proposal, that Rose should take advantage of Mr Arthur Haldane's escort on the morrow to her aunt's house, until she should receive her husband's directions as to her future place of abode, was, I think, very generally welcomed, and felt to be a relief by the whole house. During the long railway journey to town, however, she made herself agreeable enough to her companion, as she was well able to do, when so disposed, to all his sex.