“I had sufficient reason for surprise,” replied Caroline, impatiently, “I was not aware that my character was so weak, as to turn and change with every new acquaintance.”

“Are you then the same girl you were at Oakwood?” demanded Mrs. Hamilton, gravely yet sadly.

A sudden pang of conscience smote the heart of the mistaken girl at these words, a sob rose choking in her throat, and she longed to have given vent to the tears which pride, anger, and remorse were summoning, but she would not, and answered according to those evil whisperings, which before she had only indulged in secret.

“If I am changed,” she answered passionately, “it is because neither you nor papa are the same.  At Oakwood I was free, I had full liberty to act, speak, think as I pleased, while here a chain is thrown around my simplest action; my very words are turned into weapons against me; my friendship disapproved of, and in that at least surely I may have liberty to choose for myself.”

“You have,” replied Mrs. Hamilton mildly.  “I complain not, Caroline, of the pain you have inflicted upon me, in so completely withdrawing your confidence and friendship, to bestow them upon a young girl.  I control not your affection, but it is my duty, and I will obey it, to warn you when I see your favourite companion likely to lead you wrong.  Had your every thought and feeling been open to my inspection as at Oakwood, would you have trifled as you have with the most sacred feelings of a fellow-creature? would you have called forth love by every winning art, by marked preference to reject it, when acknowledged, with scorn, with triumph ill concealed? would you have sported thus with a heart whose affections would do honour to the favoured one on whom they were bestowed? would you have cast aside in this manner all that integrity and honour I hoped and believed were your own?  Caroline, you have disappointed and deceived your parents; you have blighted their fondest hopes, and destroyed, sinfully destroyed, the peace of a noble, virtuous, excellent young man, who loved you with all the deep fervour of an enthusiastic soul.  To have beheld him your husband would have fulfilled every wish, every hope entertained by your father and myself.  I would have intrusted your happiness to his care without one doubt arising within me; and you have spurned his offer, rejected him without reason, without regret, without sympathy for his wounded and disappointed feelings, without giving him one hope that in time his affection might be returned.  Caroline, why have you thus decidedly rejected him? what is there in the young man you see to bid you tremble for your future happiness?”

Caroline answered not; she had leaned her arms on the cushion of the couch, and buried her face upon them, while her mother spoke, and Mrs. Hamilton in vain waited for her reply.

“Caroline,” she continued, in a tone of such appealing affection, it seemed strange that it touched not the heart of her child, “Caroline, I will not intrude on your confidence, but one question I must ask, and I implore you to answer me truly—­do you love another?”