Lady Davenant said she had done quite right. The general was no present-maker, and this exception in his favour could not lead to any future inconvenience. “But Cecilia,” continued she, “is too much addicted to trinket giving, which ends often disagreeably even between friends, or at all events fosters a foolish taste, and moreover associates it with feelings of affection in a way particularly deceitful and dangerous to such a little, tender-hearted person as I am speaking to, whose common sense would too easily give way to the pleasure of pleasing or fear of offending a friend. Kiss me, and don’t contradict me, for your conscience tells you that what I say is true.” The sapphires, the ruby brooch, and all her unsettled accounts, came across Helen’s mind; and if the light had shone upon her face at that moment, her embarrassment must have been seen; but Lady Davenant, as she finished the last words, laid her head upon the pillow, and she turned and settled herself comfortably to go to sleep. Helen retired with a disordered conscience; and the first thing she did in the morning was to look in the red case in which the sapphires came, to see if there was any note of their price; she recollected having seen some little bit of card--it was found on the dressing-table. When she beheld the price, fear took away her breath--it was nearly half her whole year’s income; still she _could_ pay it. But the ruby brooch that had not yet arrived--what would that cost? She hurried to her accounts; she had let them run on for months unlooked at, but she thought she must know the principal articles of expense in dress by her actual possessions. There was a heap of little crumpled bills which, with Felicie’s griffonage, Helen had thrown into her table-drawer. In vain did she attempt to decipher the figures, like apothecaries’ marks, linked to quarters and three-quarters, and yards, of gauzes, silks, and muslins, altogether inextricably puzzling. They might have been at any other moment laughable, but now they were quite terrible to Helen; the only thing she could make clearly out was the total; she was astonished when she saw to how much little nothings can amount, an astonishment felt often by the most experienced--how much more by Helen, all unused to the arithmetic of economy! At this instant her maid came in smiling with a packet, as if sure of being the bearer of the very thing her young lady most wished for; it was the brooch--the very last thing in the world she desired to see. With a trembling hand she opened the parcel, looked at the note of the price, and sank upon her chair half stupified, with her eyes fixed upon the sum. She sat she knew not how long, till, roused by the opening of Cecilia’s door, she hastened to put away the papers. “Let me see them, my dear, don’t put away those papers,” cried Cecilia; “Felicie tells me that you have been at these horrid accounts these two hours,