never once permit Caroline to look into herself; and she took so many opportunities of speaking of those silly, weak-spirited girls, that went with a tale of love directly to their mothers, and thus very frequently blighted their hopes and condemned them to broken hearts, by their duennas' caprices, that Caroline shrunk from the faintest wish to confide all to her mother, with a sensation amounting almost to fear and horror. Eminently handsome and accomplished as Lord Alphingham was, still there was somewhat in his features, or rather their expression, that did not please, and scarcely satisfied Mrs. Hamilton's penetration. Intimate as he was with Grahame, friendly as he had become with her husband, she could not overcome the feeling of repugance with which she more than once found herself unconsciously regarding him; and she felt pleased that Mr. Hamilton steadily adhered to his resolution in not inviting him to his house. To have described what she disliked in him would have been impossible, it was indefinable; but there was a casual glance of that dark eye, a curl of that handsome mouth, a momentary knitting of the brow, that whispered of a mind not inwardly at peace; that restless passions had found their dwelling-place around his heart. Mrs. Hamilton only saw him in society: it was uncharitable perhaps to judge him thus; but the feelings of a mother had rendered her thus acute, had endowed her with a penetration unusually perceptive, and she rejoiced that Caroline gave him only the meed of politeness, and that no sign of encouragement was displayed in her manner towards him.