The next few days passed off agreeably enough. When among the rest of the family, Lord Montreville was so generally pleasing, that she felt happy and contented; but whenever they were alone, she felt unaccountably shy, and, if possible, she either left the room with her mother, or detained her sister by her side. The kind, protecting, almost parental manner, which had at first so won upon her confidence, while at the same time it flattered her vanity, was exchanged for something more of the lover; and the ease she had felt in his society was gradually diminishing, at the very moment it was most desirable it should increase. Moreover, she occasionally found that it was not impossible for her to do amiss in his eyes. Her inordinate passion for animals, which he had appeared to think so very _naïf_ and fascinating, did not always meet with the same looks of amused admiration, which had, unknown to herself, encouraged her in her avowed fondness for them. He frequently remonstrated with her upon running out without her bonnet, and upon taking off her gloves when she was arranging the flowers, by which means she dirtied, and occasionally even scratched her fingers. He was dreadfully particular about shoes! These were trifles; but it seemed to her odd, that the very things he had appeared to think natural charms, “snatching a grace beyond the reach of art,” should now be the very points he wished altered. She was not aware how often the fault which excites disapprobation, allures, while it is condemned;—how often, also, the virtue which charms, is most perseveringly undermined by the person who peculiarly feels its attraction.