as the young lady’s hostess, did not acquiesce in the Countess’s views till she had consulted Juliana; and then apologies for giving trouble were breathed on the one hand; sympathy, condolences, and professions of esteem, on the other.  Juliana said, she was but slightly ill, would soon recover.  Entreated not to leave them before she was thoroughly re-established, and to consent to be looked on as one of the family, she sighed, and said it was the utmost she could hope.  Of course the ladies took this compliment to themselves, but Evan began to wax in importance.  The Countess thought it nearly time to acknowledge him, and supported the idea by a citation of the doctrine, that to forgive is Christian.  It happened, however, that Harriet, who had less art and more will than her sisters, was inflexible.  She, living in a society but a few steps above Tailordom, however magnificent in expenditure and resources, abhorred it solemnly.  From motives of prudence, as well as personal disgust, she continued firm in declining to receive her brother.  She would not relent when the Countess pointed out a dim, a dazzling prospect, growing out of Evan’s proximity to the heiress of Beckley Court; she was not to be moved when Caroline suggested that the specific for the frail invalid was Evan’s presence.  As to this, Juliana was sufficiently open, though, as she conceived, her art was extreme.

‘Do you know why I stay to vex and trouble you?’ she asked Caroline.  ’Well, then, it is that I may see your brother united to you all:  and then I shall go, happy.’

The pretext served also to make him the subject of many conversations.  Twice a week a bunch of the best flowers that could be got were sorted and arranged by her, and sent namelessly to brighten Evan’s chamber.

‘I may do such a thing as this, you know, without incurring blame,’ she said.

The sight of a love so humble in its strength and affluence, sent Caroline to Evan on a fruitless errand.  What availed it, that accused of giving lead to his pride in refusing the heiress, Evan should declare that he did not love her?  He did not, Caroline admitted as possible, but he might.  He might learn to love her, and therefore he was wrong in wounding her heart.  She related flattering anecdotes.  She drew tearful pictures of Juliana’s love for him:  and noticing how he seemed to prize his bouquet of flowers, said: 

‘Do you love them for themselves, or the hand that sent them?’

Evan blushed, for it had been a struggle for him to receive them, as he thought, from Rose in secret.  The flowers lost their value; the song that had arisen out of them, ‘Thou livest in my memory,’ ceased.  But they came still.  How many degrees from love gratitude may be, I have not reckoned.  I rather fear it lies on the opposite shore.  From a youth to a girl, it may yet be very tender; the more so, because their ages commonly exclude such a sentiment, and nature seems willing to make a transition stage of it.  Evan wrote to Juliana.  Incidentally he expressed a wish to see her.  Juliana was under doctor’s interdict:  but she was not to be prevented from going when Evan wished her to go.  They met in the park, as before, and he talked to her five minutes through the carriage window.