affections had been engaged," she said to her sole and sympathising counsellor; and Mrs Chiley, who had had a great deal of experience in girls, became more and more of opinion that such sense was all but superhuman. Meantime the tide of public opinion ran very high in Carlingford against Mr Cavendish, who had been so popular a little while before. If it had been one of the Miss Browns, or a niece of the Colonel's, or indeed anybody in Grange Lane, people might have passed over it--but one of Mr Lake the drawing-master's daughters! The only person indifferent was Mrs Woodburn, who ought to have known better; but then she was thoughtless, like her brother, and liked it all the better, on the whole, that he should transfer those attentions which he had been paying to Miss Marjoribanks, and which in that quarter must have come to something, to a little harmless amusement with Barbara, who, after all, was very handsome, and had by times a little air of obdurate stupidity which captivated the mimic. As for anything coming of _that_, Mrs Woodburn rejected the idea with a simplicity which was perfectly consistent with her insight into other people's weaknesses. She could put on Barbara's stolid defiant look, and even make her eyebrows square, and give something of an oblique gleam to her eyes, with the most perfect skill and mastery of the character, and at the same time be just as stolid as Barbara in respect to what was going on at her very hand, and to the consequences which must follow. She did not want her brother to marry Miss Marjoribanks, and yet she could not have said a word against so unexceptionable a match; and accordingly it was quite a satisfaction to her to see him turned aside in so perfectly legitimate a manner. She added to her repertory a sketch of Barbara at the moment when, yielding to Mr Cavendish's entreaties, she seated herself at the piano "for just one song"; and being perfectly successful in the representation, Mrs Woodburn took no further care about the matter. To be sure, the hero was sufficiently experienced in such matters to know how to get out of it when it should be the proper time.