“Thank you, Selina. You’re very kind, but I won’t mind it to-day.” “How very foolish of you, Fanny; you know you want it, and then you’ll be annoyed about it. You’d better let me order it with the other things.” “Very well, dear: order it then for me.” “How much will you want? you must send the pattern too, you know.” “Indeed, Selina, I don’t care about having it at all; I can do very well without it, so don’t mind troubling yourself.” “How very ridiculous, Fanny! You know you want black crape—and you must get it from Ellis’s.” Lady Selina paused for a reply, and then added, in a voice of sorrowful rebuke, “It’s to save yourself the trouble of sending Jane for the pattern.” “Well, Selina, perhaps it is. Don’t bother me about it now, there’s a dear. I’ll be more myself by-and-by; but indeed, indeed, I’m neither well nor happy now.” “Not well, Fanny! What ails you?” “Oh, nothing ails me; that is, nothing in the doctor’s way. I didn’t mean I was ill.” “You said you weren’t well; and people usually mean by that, that they are ill.” “But I didn’t mean it,” said Fanny, becoming almost irritated, “I only meant—” and she paused and did not finish her sentence. Lady Selina wiped her pen, in her scarlet embroidered pen-wiper, closed the lid of her patent inkstand, folded a piece of blotting-paper over the note she was writing, pushed back the ruddy ringlets from her contemplative forehead, gave a slight sigh, and turned herself towards her cousin, with the purpose of commencing a vigorous lecture and cross-examination, by which she hoped to exorcise the spirit of lamentation from Fanny’s breast, and restore her to a healthful activity in the performance of this world’s duties. Fanny felt what was coming; she could not fly; so she closed her book and her eyes, and prepared herself for endurance. “Fanny,” said Lady Selina, in a voice which was intended to be both severe and sorrowful, “you are giving way to very foolish feelings in a very foolish way; you are preparing great unhappiness for yourself, and allowing your mind to waste itself in uncontrolled sorrow in a manner—in a manner which cannot but be ruinously injurious. My dear Fanny, why don’t you do something?—why don’t you occupy yourself? You’ve given up your work; you’ve given up your music; you’ve given up everything in the shape of reading; how long, Fanny, will you go on in this sad manner?” Lady Selina paused, but, as Fanny did not immediately reply, she continued her speech—“I’ve begged you to go on with your reading, because nothing but mental employment will restore your mind to its proper tone. I’m sure I’ve brought you the second volume of Gibbon twenty times, but I don’t believe you’ve read a chapter this month back. How long will you allow yourself to go on in this sad manner?” “Not long, Selina. As you say, I’m sad enough.” “But is it becoming in you, Fanny, to grieve in this way for a man whom you yourself rejected because he was unworthy of you?”