Notwithstanding, however, the delicacy with which Elvira's favours were conferred, Rosabella could not forget that they were favours, and hers was not a mind to brook dependence. Her hatred for her cousin thus increased with the weight of her obligations, whilst that of Elvira had vanished with the occasion that gave it birth. It is, indeed, scarcely possible for a proud, haughty temper, like that of Rosabella, to love the person to whom it owes every thing. Such dispositions find infinitely more pleasure in obliging, than in being obliged--pride being gratified in one case and humbled in the other. People are thus often devotedly attached to their protégées, as they seem, in some measure, creations of their own, and lavish favours upon them with a profuse hand; but they often expect such devotion in return, that love withers into slavery, or changes into hatred, and what was once gratitude, soon becomes mortification. Elvira had an arduous part to sustain. It was difficult to find the medium between giving too much or too little; and more difficult still, to discover a means of giving at all, without hurting the feelings of Rosabella. The sense she had of this, rendered the manner of Elvira towards her cousin, occasionally, cold and restrained, and Rosabella felt acutely the slightest change. She, indeed, saw every thing with a jaundiced eye: she imagined insults, where none were intended; she shrank from the slightest observation, that could be supposed to allude to her present situation; and she appeared to feel so much pain whenever she was in the society of Elvira, that the intercourse between the cousins gradually dwindled to a mere formal interchange of visits, and the customary ceremonials of court etiquette. The cousins thus completely estranged from each other, Rosabella's palace became the resort of the discontented. The King of Ireland had died soon after the departure of the Duke of Cornwall for the country, and those malcontents, formerly in his pay, being repulsed by his son, now crowded round Rosabella. Men of talents, but of dissolute habits; daring spirits that preyed upon themselves for want of employment; and desperate characters, to whom every change was agreeable, as they had nothing to lose, and every thing to hope for by a revolution, vied with each other in devoting themselves to her service. It was often grating to Rosabella's feelings to associate with wretches such as these; but to what cannot proud spirits sometimes submit, to gain the determined purpose of their souls! Every thing is swallowed up in one vast overwhelming passion, and minor difficulties are neither seen, thought of, nor felt.