It was rather late in life to begin to teach, even if they had been inclined to learn. They resented her last lesson, or rather her last act of authority, with acrimony proportioned to the value of the object; and Miss Turnbull was compelled to hear their complaints. Lady Gabriella said, she was convinced that her mother’s only reason for making her return the necklace was because she had not one quite so handsome. Lady Agnes, between whom and her mamma there was pending a dispute about a pair of diamond ear-rings, left by her grandmother, observed, that her mother might, if she pleased, call _jealousy, propriety_; but that she must not be surprised if other people used the old vocabulary; that her mamma’s pride and vanity were always at war; for that though she was proud enough to see her daughters _show well_ in public, yet she required to have it said that she looked younger than any of them, and that she was infinitely better dressed. Lady Bab and Lady Kitty did not fail in this favourable moment of general discontent to bring forward their list of grievances; and in the discussion of their rights and wrongs they continually appealed to our heroine, crowding round her whilst she stood silent and embarrassed. Ashamed of them and of herself, she compared the Lady Bradstones with Ellen--she compared the sisters-in-law she was soon to have with the friend she had forsaken. The young ladies mistook the expression of melancholy in Almeria’s countenance at this instant, for sympathy in their sorrows; and her silence, for acquiescence in the justice of their complaints. They were reiterating their opinions with something like plebeian loudness of voice, when their mother entered the room. The ease with which her daughters changed their countenances and the subject of conversation, when she entered, might have prevented all suspicion but for the blushes of Almeria, who, though of all the party she was the least guilty, looked by far the most abashed. The necklace which hung from her hand, and on which in the midst of her embarrassment her eyes involuntarily fell, seemed to Lady Bradstone proof positive against her. Her ladyship recollected certain words she had heard as she opened the door, and now applied them without hesitation to herself. Politeness restrained the expression of her anger towards Miss Turnbull, but it burst furiously forth upon her daughters; and our heroine was now as much alarmed by the violence of her future mother-in-law as she had been disgusted by the meanness of her _intended_ sisters. From this day forward, Lady Bradstone’s manner changed towards Almeria, who could plainly perceive, by her altered eye, that she had lost her confidence, and that her ladyship considered her as one who was playing a double part, and fomenting dissensions in her family. She thought herself bound, in honour to the daughters, not to make any explanation that could throw the blame upon them; and she bore in painful silence the