"I suppose it is some secret. I think, whatever it may be, Charlotte, you might trust _me_." He spoke significantly, a stress on the last word. Charlotte rose from her seat. "So I would," she said, "were there anything to confide. Just look at me! My dress is ruined." "You should take it up if you go amidst clumsy trees, whose rough trunks nearly meet." "I had it up--until you came," returned Charlotte, jumping upon a chair that she might survey it in one of the side glasses. "You startled me so that I dropped it. I might have it joined, and a lace flounce put upon it," she mused. "It cost a great deal of money, did this dress, I can tell you, Mr. George." She jumped off the chair again, and George produced the packet confided to him by Mrs. Verrall. "I promised her that you should have it to-night," he said. "Hence my unfortunate appearance here, which it seems has so startled you." "Oh, that's over now. When did you get back again?" "By the seven o'clock train. I saw Verrall." "Well?" "It's not well. It's ill. Do you know what I begin to suspect at times?--That Verrall and every one else is playing me false. I am sick of the world." "No, he is not, George. If I thought he were, I'd tell you so. I would, on my sacred word of honour. It is not likely that he is. When we are in a bilious mood, everything wears to us a jaundiced tinge. You are in one to-night." CHAPTER VIII. THE TRADITION OF THE DARK PLAIN. It is the province of little demoiselles to be naughty: it is their delight to make promises and then break them, all false and fearless--as they may do over other affairs in later life. Miss Meta Godolphin was no exception to the rule. She had gravely promised her uncle Thomas to be a good girl, and not run away to be lost in unfrequented passages; yet no sooner had the young lady arrived at Ashlydyat that morning, and been released of her out-door things by Margery, than with a joyously defiant laugh that would have rejoiced the heart of Charlotte Pain, she flew off to that forbidden spot--the unused passages. Had the little lady's motive been laid bare, it might have been found to consist simply in the enjoyment of a thing forbidden. Truth to say, Miss Meta was very prone to be disobedient to all persons, excepting one. That one was her mother. Maria had never spoken a sharp word to the child in her life, or used a sharp tone: but she had contrived to train the little one to obey, as well as to love. George, Margery, Mrs. Hastings, Miss Meta would openly disobey, and laugh in their faces while she did it: her mother, never. Meta remembered a scolding she received on the last visit she had paid to Ashlydyat, touching the remote passages--she had never found them out until then--and apparently the reminiscence of the scolding was so agreeable that she was longing to have it repeated. "Now," said Margery, as she concluded the young lady's toilette, "you'll not go up to those old rooms and passages to-day, mind, Miss Meta!"