She seemed to speak with some difficulty, and yet to be resolved to go on. “Helen, I have a mind,” continued she, “to tell you what, in the language of affected autobiographers, I might call ‘some passages of my life.’” Helen’s eyes brightened, as she eagerly thanked her: but hearing a half-suppressed sigh, she added--“Not if it is painful to you though, my dear Lady Davenant.” “Painful it must be,” she replied, “but it may be useful to you; and a weak friend is that who can do only what is pleasurable. You have often trusted me with those little inmost feelings of the heart, which, however innocent, we shrink from exposing to any but the friends we most love; it is unjust and absurd of those advancing in years to expect of the young that confidence should come all and only on their side: the human heart, at whatever age, opens only to the heart that opens in return.” Lady Davenant paused again, and then said,--“It is a general opinion, that nobody is the better for advice.” “I am sure I do not think so,” said Helen. “I am glad you do not; nor do I. Much depends upon the way in which it is offered. General maxims, drawn from experience, are, to the young at least, but as remarks--moral sentences--mere dead letter, and take no hold of the mind. ‘I have felt’ must come before ‘I think,’ especially in speaking to a young friend, and, though I am accused of being so fond of generalising that I never come to particulars, I can and will: therefore, my dear, I will tell you some particulars of my life, in which, take notice, there are no adventures. Mine has been a life of passion--of feeling, at least,--not of incidents: nothing, my dear, to excite or to gratify curiosity.” “But, independent of all curiosity about events,” said Helen, “there is such an interest in knowing what has been really felt and thought in their former lives by those we know and love.” “I shall sink in your esteem,” said Lady Davenant--“so be it.” “I need not begin, as most people do, with ‘I was born’--” but, interrupting herself, she said, “this heat is too much for me.” They turned into a long shady drive through the woods. Lady Davenant drew up the reins, and her ponies walked slowly on the grassy road; then, turning to Helen, she said:-- “It would have been well for me if any friend had, when I was of your age, put me on my guard against my own heart: but my too indulgent, too sanguine mother, led me into the very danger against which she should have warned me--she misled me, though without being aware of it. Our minds, our very natures differed strangely.