follow her and Maude-I meant to have written a great deal about her, but I must not to-day: if I once begin I shall certainly not leave off in time. She interests me though, that I must say; and frightens me too. We had a little quarrel the other day, a very tiny one, but still sufficient to make me feel what she might be if she were offended. I am afraid I am very proud: she rather ordered me, and my spirit rebelled, and I showed that I was annoyed. I thought perhaps she would have been angry with me a long time; but instead of that she came up to me afterwards, the first moment we were alone, and gave me a kiss, so kind! it made me ten times more vexed with myself than I was before. Yet the next moment she was just like her old self, and I do not feel I have advanced in the least with her. All this is sadly wandering from my first subject, but when I write to you I always do wander: so many things come to my mind which I long to say. will understand though that I lead a very unsettled, idle life, and that Eleanor leads a very useful, busy one; and when we meet to compare notes I become discontented with myself, and long to do better, but do not know how to set about it. My aunt said she would go with me to visit the poor people, and I know she would, if she could find a leisure day; but there is always some engagement. Poor Susannah has been very much neglected in consequence. Eleanor has promised to go when she can, but Dr. Wentworth trusted her particularly to me. She sent me a You You see I message the other day, asking to see me. tell you all my faults, as I used to do in the happy old times sometimes-is it wrong to say so?—I fancy they were happier than these. At any rate, I know that I never went to bed then with the same burden of unfulfilled duties upon my conscience. Some rules however I can keep, and some things I hope I do not forget. I can never be sufficiently thankful that I was confirmed when I was. Preparation would have been so much more difficult here, and I think I might have gone on in an unsettled way, fancying that confirmation would be a new starting-point, and work some great change in itself. Whereas, now I feel that all has been done for me which I could expect, and that if I do not advance steadily, I must go back without any prospect of being roused and warned again. Still I am uncomfortable and anxious. The very fact of bringing my present mode of life into a definite form, by writing about it, makes it assume a more serious aspect. I am sure it must be very faulty in some way; and what will it be when I go to London?" CHAPTER XVII. THE answer to this letter brought a sad disappointment to Blanche. The continued illness of Mrs. Howard's niece made her anticipate the probability of going abroad, and would at any rate interfere with the visit to Rutherford, which had so long been promised. Blanche had not realized before how much she had lived upon the thought of this visit,-how entirely she had looked forward to it as the means of making Mrs. Howard acquainted with the fears and uncertainties which she had never yet found courage to mention openly. A week spent together would have sufficed to show the loneliness of mind,—the absence of sympathy, the uncongeniality between herself and her father upon the one most important point, which caused her daily grief. There would have been no need of words: Mrs. Howard would have felt and understood all. Now that sinking, decaying isolation of heart must still remain, unless she could explain. But what was there to explain? What had she to say?-the loved, petted, idolized daughter of a man in whom the world agreed to see no fault except pride,-why was she not happy? "Read it, Eleanor," she said, putting the letter into her friend's hand, as they met that same afternoon at the parsonage, whilst tears, in spite of herself, rose to her eyes. "There is not a shadow of hope for months,-probably not before next year." Eleanor glanced at the full sheet. "Am I to read it all?" "If you will: it is in answer to mine. But I have scarcely thought of the advice in it yet." Eleanor took the letter, and Blanche walked up and down the gravel path, and very soon afterwards Mrs. Wentworth joined her. Blanche could not conceal that she was out of spirits, and there was real kindness in the tone in which Mrs. Wentworth addressed her, with a regret for the unpleasant news which she had only just heard. Poor Blanche was always very alive to sympathy. The tears, which had only glistened before, fell fast, and Mrs. Wentworth was touched by her distress; and opening the French window of a small room, which fronted the flower-garden, begged her to go in, and seat herself, and be alone if she liked it. "It was her own little room," she said; "and no one would come near to disturb her." Blanche was only too willing to hide herself from observation. She expected Mrs. Wentworth to follow her; but she did not; and Blanche leant back on the sofa, and for a time indulged her own sad, disappointed fancies. When she at last raised her eyes, it was to rest them upon an object which at once withdrew her thoughts from the present trial, and sent them far back into the past. On one side of the fireplace hung a small painting, the subject of which she recognised in an instant. It was her mother's likeness; but how different from the subdued, sorrowstricken countenance which dwelt in her memory as the only true resemblance of the lovely Countess of Rutherford. The picture before her represented a young lady, who could scarcely, so it seemed, have passed the age of twenty, standing on the steps of the castle, dressed in a riding-habit, and caressing a splendid horse, which she was evidently prepared to mount. The face was bright, even mirthful; the eyes sparkling with expectation; the mouth joyous in its expression of happiness. There was no striving for effect in the picture; nothing but the simple representation of what must actually have been witnessed. Blanche felt, as she looked upon it, that the artist who could so have portrayed her mother must have drawn her as she actually stood, without forethought or design. Five years afterwards, that fair, young creature had become the pale, serious, care-worn woman, whose beauty was overshadowed by a fixed, it might almost have been called, a stern melancholy; and whose fascination was the influence of that purity of mind which grief has prepared for heaven. The picture, and the thoughts that it called forth, struck a chord in the mind of Lady Blanche, which at that moment was peculiarly though painfully sensitive. If her mother had been spared, not even Mrs. Howard's friendship would have been needed. And again an undefined doubt, followed by a longing for a truer insight into that mother's history, arose within her. Her attention was so engrossed, that Mrs. Wentworth knocked at the door without being answered, and Blanche started when she came in, as if the privacy of her own apartment had been intruded upon. The attitude in which she was standing, leaning upon the mantelpiece and gazing upon the picture, told at once the subject of her thoughts. "I did not know you had it," she said, in a tone of gentle reproach, as Mrs. Wentworth came up to her. Mrs. Wentworth appeared at a loss for a reply. "And it must be like her," continued Blanche, still with the same manner, as if she was vexed at having long been deprived of a great pleasure. "It was like her once, for a short time," said Mrs. Wentworth, her voice sinking at the last words, |