Poor Lady Elizabeth had not a chance with Cousin George. She succumbed to him at once, not knowing why, but feeling that she herself became bright, amusing, and happy when talking to him. She was a woman not given to familiarities; but she did become familiar with him, allowing him little liberties of expression which no other man would take with her, and putting them all down to the score of cousinhood. He might be a black sheep. She feared there could be but little doubt that he was one. But, from her worsted-work up to the demerits of her dearest friend, he did know how to talk better than any other young man she knew. To Emily, on that first evening, he said very little. When he first met her he had pressed her hand, and looked into her eyes, and smiled on her with a smile so sweet that it was as though a god had smiled on her. She had made up her mind that he should be nothing to her,--nothing beyond a dear cousin; nevertheless, her eye had watched him during the whole hour of dinner, and, not knowing that it was so, she had waited for his coming to them in the evening. Heavens and earth! what an oaf was that young Thoresby as the two stood together near the door! She did not want her cousin to come and talk to her, but she listened and laughed within herself as she saw how pleased was her mother by the attentions of the black sheep. One word Cousin George did say to Emily Hotspur that night, just as the ladies were leaving the room. It was said in a whisper, with a little laugh, with that air of half joke half earnest which may be so efficacious in conversation: "I did not go to Goodwood, after all." She raised her eyes to his for a quarter of a second, thanking him for his goodness in refraining. "I don't believe that he is really a black sheep at all," she said to herself that night, as she laid her head upon her pillow. After all, the devil fights under great disadvantages, and has to carry weights in all his races which are almost unfair. He lies as a matter of course, believing thoroughly in lies, thinking that it is by lies chiefly that he must make his running good; and yet every lie he tells, after it has been told and used, remains as an additional weight to be carried. When you have used your lie gracefully and successfully, it is hard to bury it and get it well out of sight. It crops up here and there against you, requiring more lies; and at last, too often, has to be admitted as a lie, most usually so admitted in silence, but still admitted,--to be forgiven or not, according to the circumstances of the case. The most perfect forgiveness is that which is extended to him who is known to lie in everything. The man has to be taken, lies and all, as a man is taken with a squint, or a harelip, or a bad temper. He has an uphill game to fight, but when once well known, he does not fall into the difficulty of being believed.