"Dear me," said Lady Ursula, kindly, "I will make mamma look for it at once, and I am sure if it is a matter in which my sympathy could be of any use, you will appreciate my motive in offering it; but I do think in this world people might be of so much more use to each other than they are, if they would only trust one another, and believe in the sincerity of friendship. Although you did try to shock me last night," she said, with a smile, "I have heard so much of you from Lord Grandon, and know how kind and good you are, although he says you are too enthusiastic and too fond of paradoxes, but I assure you I consider you quite an old friend. You remember, years ago, when I was a little girl, how you used to gallop about with me on my pony in the park at Broadhem? You won't think me inquisitive, I am sure, in saying this, but there are moments sometimes when it is a relief to find a listener to the history of one's troubles." "But when, by a curious fatality, that listener is the cause of them all, these moments are not likely to arrive," I thought, but did not say. Is it not enough to love a woman to distraction, and be obliged by every principle of honour to conceal it from her, without her pressing upon you her sympathy, and inviting your confidence? and the very tenderness which had prompted her speech rose up against her in judgment in my mind. So ready with her friendship, too! Should I tell her bitterly that she was the only being in the whole world whose friendship could aggravate my misery? Should I congratulate her upon the ingenuity she had displayed in thus torturing me? or should I revenge myself by giving her the confidence she asked, and requesting her to advise me how to act under the circumstances? Then I looked at the gentle earnest face, and my heart melted. My troubles! Do I not know too well what hers are? Perhaps it would be a relief to her to hear, that if worse comes to worst, she can always escape Chundango by falling back upon me. If she is driven to begging me to offer myself up on her shrine, what a very willing sacrifice she would find me! As she knows that I must have overheard what passed between her and Chundango this morning, shall I make a counter-proposition of mutual confidence, and allude delicately to that most painful episode! If she is generous enough to forget her own troubles and think of me, why should not I forget mine and think of her? The idea of this contradiction in terms struck me as so exquisitely ludicrous, that I laughed aloud.