It happened one day as she entered the drawing-room, Mrs. Lennox was, as usual, assailing the heart of her son in her behalf.  A large Indian screen divided the room, and Mary’s entrance was neither seen nor heard till she was close by them.

“Oh, certainly, Miss Douglas is all that you say—­very pretty—­very amiable—­and very accomplished, said Colonel Lennox, with a sort of half-suppressed yawn, in answer to a eulogium of his mother’s.

“Then why not love her?  Ah!  Charles, promise me that you will at least try!” said the good old lady, laying her hand upon his with the greatest earnestness.

This was said when Mary was actually standing before her.  To hear the words, and to feel their application, was a flash of lightning; and for a moment she felt as if her brain were on fire.  She was alive but to one idea, and that the most painful that could be suggested to a delicate mind.  She had heard herself recommended to the love of a man who was indifferent to her.  Could there be such a humiliation—­such a degradation?  Colonel Lennox’s embarrassment was scarcely less; but his mother saw not the mischief she had done, and she continued to speak without his having the power to interrupt her.  But her words fell unheeded on Mary’s ear—­she could hear nothing but what she had already heard.  Colonel Lennox rose and respectfully placed a chair for her, but the action was unnoticed—­she saw only herself a suppliant for his love; and, insensible to everything but her own feelings, she turned and hastily quitted the room without uttering a syllable.  To fly from Rose Hall, never again to enter it, was her first resolution; yet how was she to do so without coming to an explanation, worse even than the cause itself:  for she had that very morning yielded to the solicitations of Mrs. Lennox, and consented to remain till the following day.

“Oh!” thought she, as the scalding tears of shame for the first time dropped from her eyes, “what a situation am I placed in!  To continue to live under the same roof with the man whom I have heard solicited to love me; and how mean—­how despicable must I appear in his eyes—­thus offered—­rejected!  How shall I ever be able to convince him that I care not for his love—­that I wished it not—­that I would, refuse, scorn it to-morrow were it offered to me.  Oh! could I but tell him so; but he must ever remain, stranger to my real sentiments—­he might reject—­but I cannot disavow!  And yet to have him think that I have all this while been laying snares for him—­that all this parade of my acquirements was for the purpose of gaining his affections!  Oh how blind and stupid I was not to see through the injudicious praises of Mrs. Lennox!  I should not then have suffered this degradation in the eyes of her son!”

Hours passed away unheeded by Mary, while she was giving way to the wounded sensibility of a naturally high spirit and acute feelings, thus violently excited in all their first ardour.  At length she was recalled to herself by hearing the sound of a carriage, as it passed under her window; and immediately after she received a message to repair to the drawing-room to her cousin, Lady Emily.