‘Weep!’ exclaimed Lady Annabel, bitterly, ’ay! they can weep.  Sensibility is a luxury which they love to indulge.  Their very susceptibility is our bane.  They can weep; they can play upon our feelings; and our emotion, so easily excited, is an homage to their own power, in which they glory.

‘Look at Cadurcis,’ she suddenly resumed; ’bred with so much care; the soundest principles instilled into him with such sedulousness; imbibing them apparently with so much intelligence, ardour, and sincerity, with all that fervour, indeed, with which men of his temperament for the moment pursue every object; but a few years back, pious, dutiful, and moral, viewing perhaps with intolerance too youthful all that differed from the opinions and the conduct he had been educated to admire and follow.  And what is he now?  The most lawless of the wild; casting to the winds every salutary principle of restraint and social discipline, and glorying only in the abandoned energy of self.  Three years ago, you yourself confessed to me, he reproached you with your father’s conduct; now he emulates it.  There is a career which such men must run, and from which no influence can divert them; it is in their blood.  To-day Cadurcis may vow to you eternal devotion; but, if the world speak truth, Venetia, a month ago he was equally enamoured of another, and one, too, who cannot be his.  But grant that his sentiments towards you are for the moment sincere; his imagination broods upon your idea, it transfigures it with a halo which exists only to his vision.  Yield to him; become his bride; and you will have the mortification of finding that, before six mouths have elapsed, his restless spirit is already occupied with objects which may excite your mortification, your disgust, even your horror!’

’Ah, mother! it is not with Plantagenet as with my father; Plantagenet could not forget Cherbury, he could not forget our childhood,’ said Venetia.

’On the contrary, while you lived together these recollections would be wearisome, common-place to him; when you had separated, indeed, mellowed by distance, and the comparative vagueness with which your absence would invest them, they would become the objects of his muse, and he would insult you by making the public the confidant of all your most delicate domestic feelings.’

Lady Annabel rose from her seat, and walked up and down the room, speaking with an excitement very unusual with her.  ’To have all the soft secrets of your life revealed to the coarse wonder of the gloating multitude; to find yourself the object of the world’s curiosity, still worse, their pity, their sympathy; to have the sacred conduct of your hearth canvassed in every circle, and be the grand subject of the pros and cons of every paltry journal, ah, Venetia! you know not, you cannot understand, it is impossible you can comprehend, the bitterness of such a lot.’

‘My beloved mother!’ said Venetia, with streaming eyes, ’you cannot have a feeling that I do not share.’