"I am not sure I think pride unbecoming in a girl," said Mr. Sandford, after a moment's reflection, "Miss Rivers is good-looking." "Now, I don't think her a patch on Miss Margaret," said Mr. Drayton. "Well, it's just as well you told me that _her_ future is settled; I am not at all sure, not at all sure, I might not have been hit." They left the subject and plunged into other matters, but Mr. Sandford quite forgot to take into account one thing, that the very way to encourage any one to like or care for anything is to put it out of his reach--forbidden fruit is as tempting now as in the days of our first parents, and he never, as far as his own wishes were concerned, did a more unwise thing than in adding this incentive to the slight dawning of admiration Mr. Drayton had for Margaret Rivers. In the meantime the girls discussed him with all the intemperate feelings of youth, added to the disappointment of his being so exactly the opposite of that coming prince who was to rescue poor Grace from the uncongenial home. "His laugh goes quite through my head," said Grace, pettishly, as she sat in front of the little mirror, and unplaited her hair for Margaret to brush. "What an odious man he is." "No, not odious, for he is good-natured," said Margaret, gently, "but I wish he did not laugh so; it makes me feel so melancholy; and oh, Grace, how difficult he is to talk to." "Difficult! say impossible. And Margaret, we thought it might be the prince," and Grace folded her hands, laid her chin upon them, and stared at herself in the glass. "The prince will come, Grace; you will see." "No, Margaret! I do not believe in him. I believe in nothing now. All my hopes are dead. What have they to live on? We shall go on living here for ever till we are quite old and grey, and we shall never see any one younger than Mr. Sandford and his friends, and never see the world, or know any other life," and she lowered her head in a fit of despair. "Grace, darling! you do not really think that all your many perfections were given to you only to be thrown away; this despair is unlike your usual bright brave spirit; and we are not so unhappy now. You are not so miserable here, now, Grace?" "Yes," said Grace, fiercely, "I am miserable. I am sick of my life here; of the ugliness of everything. I hate it, Margaret. I hate it more than I can say." "And I was growing contented," said poor Margaret, with a little suppressed sob; "I am so much less gifted than you, darling, so much less full of restless life; you must forgive my being so different, so easily satisfied--it was selfish, I might have thought of you." She put her arms round Grace affectionately. The sisters sat in silence and then Grace spoke again-- "The only good thing I know about Mr. Drayton is that he lives in the South; I envy him that, I envy his being near London; it is the only merit he has."