“If you knew,” said Fanny, “the meaning of what love was, you’d know that it cannot be given up in a moment, as you suppose; rooted out, as you choose to call it.  But, to tell you the truth, Selina, I don’t choose to root it out.  I gave my word to Frank not twelve months since, and that with the consent of every one belonging to me.  I owned that I loved him, and solemnly assured him I would always do so.  I cannot, and I ought not, and I will not break my word.  You would think of nothing but what you call your own dignity; I will not give up my own happiness, and, I firmly believe his, too, for anything so empty.”

“Don’t be angry with me, Fanny,” said Lady Selina; “my regard for your dignity arises only from my affection for you.  I should be sorry to see you lessen yourself in the eyes of those around you.  You must remember that you cannot act as another girl might, whose position was less exalted.  Miss O’Joscelyn might cry for her lost lover till she got him back again, or got another; and no one would be the wiser, and she would not be the worse; but you cannot do that.  Rank and station are in themselves benefits; but they require more rigid conduct, much more control over the feelings than is necessary in a humbler position.  You should always remember, Fanny, that much is expected from those to whom much is given.”

“And I’m to be miserable all my life because I’m not a parson’s daughter, like Miss O’Joscelyn!”

“God forbid, Fanny!  If you’d employ your time, engage your mind, and cease to think of Lord Ballindine, you’d soon cease to be miserable.  Yes; though you might never again feel the happiness of loving, you might still be far from miserable.”

“But I can’t cease to think of him, Selina;—­I won’t even try.”

“Then, Fanny, I truly pity you.”

“No, Selina; it’s I that pity you,” said Fanny, roused to energy as different thoughts crowded to her mind.  “You, who think more of your position as an earl’s daughter—­an aristocrat, than of your nature as a woman!  Thank Heaven, I’m not a queen, to be driven to have other feelings than those of my sex.  I do love Lord Ballindine, and if I had the power to cease to do so this moment, I’d sooner drown myself than exercise it.”

“Then why were you weak enough to reject him?”

“Because I was a weak, wretched, foolish girl.  I said it in a moment of passion, and my uncle acted on it at once, without giving me one minute for reflection—­without allowing me one short hour to look into my own heart, and find how I was deceiving myself in thinking that I ought to part from him.  I told Lord Cashel in the morning that I would give him up; and before I had time to think of what I had said, he had been here, and had been turned out of the house.  Oh, Selina! it was very, very cruel in your father to take me at my word so shortly!” And Fanny hid her face in her handkerchief, and burst into tears.

“That’s unfair, Fanny; it couldn’t be cruel in him to do for you that which he would have done for his own daughter.  He thought, and thinks, that Lord Ballindine would not make you happy.”