Yet there was nothing in all this, unhappily, to rouse him to a better life; to break the chain of evil habits in which he was involved. Ella was a child of this world; an impetuous, proud, haughty beauty; a contemptuous disregarder of the weak, the wanting, and, above all, the low, or the ugly;--living for the day, as her father lived for the day--she for the day of vanity and pleasure; he for the day of vanity and sin. There was that difference, indeed, and it was a vast one; but he did not feel it. There was no pure and holy influence of a higher and nobler life, diffused from the beautiful being. She was no angel of light. She was merely, to all appearance, a very fine, fashionable girl. And Clementina, in her gentleness and softness, was little more. The good seed which Matty had sown, had fructified at first, but the briars and thorns were gathering fast around it. The pleasures of life were choking it up. It was in danger of being altogether lost. Matty had long been gone. She had married a respectable tradesman, and was in a flourishing, though small, way of business. She would have been altogether forgotten long ago, only that she would not suffer this. She found herself still welcomed when she did come; for both the girls loved her, and she perfectly adored them. So she came, bringing her little offerings, from time to time--little matters such as she dealt in, in her shop--humble, but, for her sake, welcome. These two girls had both hearts. Where they got them I don't know. CHAPTER THE FIFTH. "Oh, Ella! Ella!--what's the use of your turning your head from me?--Why, I can see you are coloring crimson--as if I had no eyes! Oh! he _is_ charming, is not he?" "How tiresome you can be, Clementina! I am sure I don't care. No, not.... Besides, he's your flirt, not mine." "Is he? I wish he were! But I know better. He loves you, Ella; and what's more, you love him. And if _you_ don't know it--which perhaps you don't--_I_ do, and _he_ does." "_He_ does!--I like that!--_he_ does!--Upon my word! _I_ like him, and _he_ knows it! I do no such thing." "Take care what you say. Walls have ears." "Pooh!--nonsense! And if they have, I tell you I don't care." "You don't?--you are sure you don't? Oh, very well! If that be really so, then I had better keep my message to myself." "Message!--what message?" "You know a man does not like to be refused; and so, if you really do _not_ care for him, why, I had better hold my peace. He is young, and he is volatile enough.... And, indeed, I have wondered, Ella, sometimes, how you ever came to take a fancy to him; but I am forgetting. It was my mistake. You never _have_ taken a fancy to him."