"I don't know," said Mrs. Verrall. "That Charlotte would play them to the best of her ability, there's little doubt; but, as I say, she had no chance from the first. I think George did love Maria Hastings. I'm sure they have been together enough, he and Charlotte, and they have flirted enough: but, as to caring for Charlotte, I don't believe George cared for her any more than he cared for me. They have gone abroad for the winter: will be away six months or more." "I am sorry for that," quietly remarked Mr. Verrall. "I was in hopes to have made some use of Mr. George Godolphin." "Use?" cried Mrs. Verrall. "What use?" "Oh, nothing," carelessly replied Mr. Verrall. "A little matter of business that I was going to propose to him." "Won't it do when he comes home?" "I dare say it may," said Mr. Verrall. Mr. Rodolf Pain had walked to the right, and plunged into the grove of trees in search of Charlotte. He was not long in finding her. The noise made by her dogs was sufficient guide to him. In one respect Charlotte Pain was better off than her sister, Mrs. Verrall: she found more resources for killing time. Charlotte had no greater taste for books than Mrs. Verrall had: if she took one up, it was only to fling it down again: she did not draw, she did not work. For some reasons of her own, Charlotte kept an ornamental piece of work in hand, which never got finished. Once in a way, upon rare occasions, it was taken up, and a couple of stitches done to it; and then, like the book, it was flung down again. Charlotte played well; nay, brilliantly: but she never played to amuse herself, or for the love of music--always for display. The resources which Charlotte possessed above Mrs. Verrall, lay in her horsemanship and her dogs. Mrs. Verrall could ride, and sometimes did so; but it was always in a decorous manner. She did not gallop, helter-skelter, across country as Charlotte did, with half a dozen cavaliers barely keeping up with her: she took no pleasure in horses for themselves, and she would as soon have entered a pigsty as a stable. With all Mrs. Verrall's vanity, and her not over-strong intellect, she possessed more of the refinement of the gentlewoman than did Charlotte.