"Would it not be a good thing to talk to Julius Charnock? You would not be betraying anything." "No! I can't seem to make up to the good clergyman! Certainly not. Besides, I've heard Camilla talking to his wife!" "Talking?" "Admiring that dress, which she had been sneering at to your mother, don't you remember? It was one of her honey-cups with venom below-- only happily, Lady Rosamond saw through the flattery. I'm ashamed whenever I see her!" "I don't think that need cut you off from Julius." "Tell me _truly_," again broke in Lenore, "what Mrs. Poynsett really is. She is a standing proverb with us for tyranny over her sons; not with Camilla alone, but with papa." "See how they love her!" cried Jenny, hotly. "Camilla thinks that abject; but I can't forget how Frank talked of her in those happy Rockpier days." "When you first knew him?" said Jenny. They must have come at length to the real point, for Eleonora began at once--"Yes; he was with his sick friend, and we were so happy; and now he is being shamefully used, and I don't know what to do!" "Indeed, Lenore," said Jenny, in her downright way, "I do not understand. You do not seem to care for him." "Of course I am wrong," said the poor girl; "but I hoped I was doing the best thing for him." Then, as Jenny made an indignant sound, "See, Jenny, when he came to Rockpier, Camilla had been a widow about three months. She never had been very sad, for Lord Tyrrell had been quite imbecile for a year, poor man! And when Frank came, she could not make enough of him; and he and I both thought the two families had been devotedly fond of each other, and that she was only too glad to meet one of them." "I suppose that was true." "So do I, as things stood then. She meant Frank to be a sort of connecting link, against the time when she could come back here; but we, poor children, never thought of that, and went on together, not exactly saying anything, but quite understanding how much we cared. Indeed, I know Camilla impressed on him that, for his mother's sake, it must go no farther then, while he was still so young; and next came our journey on the Continent, ending in our coming back here last July." Jenny remembered that Raymond's engagement had not been made known till August, and Frank had only returned from a grouse-shooting holiday a week or two before the arrival of the brides. "Now," added Eleonora, "Camilla has made me understand that nothing will induce her to let papa consent; and though I know he would, if he were left to himself, I also see how all this family must hate and loathe the connection." "May I ask, has Frank ever spoken?" "Oh no! I think he implied it all to Camilla when she bade him wait till our return, fancying, I suppose, that one could forget the other." "But why does she seem so friendly with him?"