But there is no need for us to follow the hateful story through its various stages. If by chance any of the readers of this history are curious about them, let them go and study from the life. Such cases exist around them, and, so far as the victims are concerned, there is a painful monotony in the development of their details and their conclusion. And so it came to pass that one afternoon in the early summer, Florence, coming in from walking, found Mr. Plowden and her sister together in the little drawing-room. The latter was very pale, and shrinking with scared eyes and trembling limbs up against the mantelpiece, near which she was standing. The former, looking big and vulgar, was standing over her and trying to take her hand. “Congratulate me, Miss Florence,” he said. “Eva has promised to be mine.” “Has she?” said Florence, coldly. “How glad you must be that Mr. Jones is out of the way!” It was not a kind speech, but the fact was there were few people in the world for whom Florence had such a complete contempt, or whom she regarded with such intense dislike, as she did Mr. Plowden. The mere presence of the man irritated her beyond all bearing. He was an instrument suited to her purposes, so she used him; but she could find it in her heart to regret that the instrument was not more pleasant to handle. Mr. Plowden turned pale at her taunt, and even in the midst of her fear and misery Eva smiled, and thought to herself that it was lucky for her hateful lover that somebody else was “out of the way.” Poor Eva! “Poor Eva!” you think to yourself, my reader. “There was nothing poor about her. She was weak; she was wicked and contemptible.” O, pause awhile before you say so! Remember that circumstances were against her; remember that the ideas of duty and of gain drilled into her breast and the breasts of her ancestresses from generation to generation, and fated as often as not to prove more of a bane than a blessing, were against her; remember that her sister’s ever-present influence overshadowed her, and that her suitor’s vulgar vitality crushed her to the ground.