“Selina, I’ve told you before that such was not the case. I believe him to be perfectly worthy of me, and of any one much my superior too.” “But you did reject him, Fanny: you bade papa tell him to discontinue his visits—didn’t you?” Fanny felt that her cousin was taking an unfair advantage in throwing thus in her teeth her own momentary folly in having been partly persuaded, partly piqued, into quarrelling with her lover; and she resented it as such. “If I did,” she said, somewhat angrily, “it does not make my grief any lighter, to know that I brought it on myself.” “No, Fanny; but it should show you that the loss for which you grieve is past recovery. Sorrow, for which there is no cure, should cease to be grieved for, at any rate openly. If Lord Ballindine were to die you would not allow his death to doom you to perpetual sighs, and perpetual inactivity. No; you’d then know that grief was hopeless, and you’d recover.” “But Lord Ballindine is not dead,” said Fanny. “Ah! that’s just the point,” continued her ladyship; “he should be dead to you; to you he should now be just the same as though he were in his grave. You loved him some time since, and accepted him; but you found your love misplaced,—unreturned, or at any rate coldly returned. Though you loved him, you passed a deliberate judgment on him, and wisely rejected him. Having done so, his name should not be on your lips; his form and figure should be forgotten. No thoughts of him should sully your mind, no love for him should be permitted to rest in your heart; it should be rooted out, whatever the exertion may cost you.” “Selina, I believe you have no heart yourself.” “Perhaps as much as yourself, Fanny. I’ve heard of some people who were said to be all heart; I flatter myself I am not one of them. I trust I have some mind, to regulate my heart; and some conscience, to prevent my sacrificing my duties for the sake of my heart.” “If you knew,” said Fanny, “the meaning of what love was, you’d know that it cannot be given up in a moment, as you suppose; rooted out, as you choose to call it. But, to tell you the truth, Selina, I don’t choose to root it out. I gave my word to Frank not twelve months since, and that with the consent of every one belonging to me. I owned that I loved him, and solemnly assured him I would always do so. I cannot, and I ought not, and I will not break my word. You would think of nothing but what you call your own dignity; I will not give up my own happiness, and, I firmly believe his, too, for anything so empty.”