Poor girl, she must be very clever, for she kept up her constant wooing of me while she also coquetted with Mr. Horne, being really, as her contemporaries declare, a much worse flirt than Metelill, but the temptation of the parasol threw her off her guard, and she was very jealous of my taking out Metelill and Avice.  I see now that it has been her effort to keep the others away from me.  This spiteful trick, if it be true that she meant it, seems to have been done on Metelill, as being supposed to be her only real rival.  Avice always yields to her, and besides, is too inoffensive to afford her any such opportunity.

When I talked to Mary, she said, “Oh yes, I always knew she was a horrid little treacherous puss.  Nature began it, and that governess worked on a ready soil.  We sent her to school, and hoped she was cured, but I have long seen that it has only shown her how to be more plausible.  But what can one do?  One could not turn out an orphan, and I did not see that she was doing our own girls any harm.  I’m sure I gave her every chance of marrying, for there was nothing I wished for so much, and I never told Martyn of her little manoeuvres, knowing he would not stand them; and now what he will do, I can’t think, unless you and Edward will take her off our hands.  I believe you might do her good.  She is an unfathomable mixture of sham and earnest, and she really likes you, and thinks much of you, as having a certain prestige, and being a woman of the world” (fancy that).  “Besides, she is really religious in a sort of a way; much good you’ll say it does her, but, as you know, there’s a certain sort of devotion which makes no difference to people’s conduct.”

It seems to be the general desire of the family that we should take this unfortunate Isabel off their hands.  Shall we?  Cruelly as I have been disappointed in the girl, I can’t help liking her; she is obliging, pleasant, ladylike in manners, very affectionate, and I can’t help thinking that with the respect and fear for you she would feel she might be restrained, and that we could be the saving of her, though at the same time I know that my having been so egregiously deceived may be a sign that I am not fit to deal with her.  I leave it to your decision altogether, and will say no more till I hear.  Metelill is a charming girl, and I fancy you prefer her, and that her mother knows it, and would send her for at least a winter; but she gets so entirely off her balance whenever a young man of any sort comes near, that I should not like to take charge of her.  It might be good for the worthy Jane, but as she would take a great deal of toning down and licking into shape, and as she would despise it all, refer everything to the Bourne Parva standard, and pine for home and village school, I don’t think she need be considered, especially as I am sure she would not go, and could not be spared.  Pica would absorb herself in languages and antiquities, and maintain the rights