THE
OLD
STONE
MANSION.
l eould not avoid stealing a glance at his usual eest, and blushing, guiltily, when I caught my aunt’s eye fixed severely on me. “I wish to see you in my room,” said my annt, coldly, as we rose from the table. I followed her up stairs. She told me to lock the door.
“A pretty state of things!” she exclaimed. “Bo you think you can wheedle Mr. Talbot into marrying you.”’
I made no reply. But I felt the blood rush to wy forebead: then leave me pale as ashes, but trembling with suppressed indignation.
“As if he would ever do more than amuse himself with one like you,” she continued. ‘Oh! you needn’t look in that way. I always told Mr. Elliott you were a treacherous, uograteful minx. I declare you make me ashamed of my sex, to eee how impudently you throw yourself into this gentleman's way.”
“I am not treacherous,” I said, rallying to defend myself, ‘‘I am not ungrate——”
“Stop! Iwon't havea word. Suoh unblush- ing effrontery I never saw. You will make your- self the talk of the whole place, if you haven't already done it! If you've a right to disgrace yourself, you’ve no right to disgrace us. Mr. Tal- bot sees you are throwing yourself into his arms, and no doubt laughs about it to the other young men. The idea of going of walking, alone, up the beach, with him; of sitting out in the arbor, late at night; of following him witb your eyes; of always keeping s place for him, by you, on the sofa.”
Ace this last allusion, the color rose to my eheeks, for I felt partly guilty. She had paused for breatb, but when she saw my embarrassment, she resumed,
“Oh! you admit it, do you? You're not so brazen but what you blash for it. And remem- ber, Miss, what I see, others see. I know that your conduct was remarked on, last night. There, not aword; but gonow. I want no explanations, but only more prudent behavior. Get him, if you can; I’m sure your uncle and dear Georgiana, as well as I, .will rejoice at your good luck; but don’t disgrace us by indelicate behavior.”
1 left the room abashed and humiliated. I knew well that it was envy and rage that made my aunt speak in this way. But I could not avoid fearing, for ali that, that my conduct had been such as to cause remark. I felt guilty of having loved Mr. Talbot. What if I had betrayed wyeelf, ss my aunt snid?
Seach a possibility almost maddened me. Be- yoad ell things else I loathed scheming in a young gir. ‘Yo me it was inexpressibly un- maidenly. To be accused of it by atrangers, to have given even the faintest cause for the nccusation—oh! it was degrading. I hated, for the time, Mr. Talbot; I hated my aunt for her injustice; I hated Georgiana for having been the cause of it; but I hated most myself. Bit- terly 1 resolved that neither she, nor others, should ever have it to sey again that I courted his society: and in this mood I tock a book and walked angrily down to the arbor overlooking the beach.
CHAPTER VIII.
I had been reading for a little while only, when I heard a familiar footstep; and Mr. Talbot approached. Still smarting from what my aunt had said, and determined to afford no cause for such remarks again, I gave him a curt reception.
He seemed astonished: then offended: then appeared to think it was absurd to get angry. But having made one or two further efforts to draw me into conversation, which I answered only in monosyllables, he was about to go, when Georgiana came up. I had left her reading a sentimental novel in her room, where she declared she would stay till dinner; but I have no doubt she had seen Mr. Talbot join me, for her window overlooked the sea, and that she had come down purposely to interrupt us.
To do her justice she was looking charmingly. She pretended to explain her presence, by ssying she had been searching for me all the morning; and sinking languidly into s seat, she glided into conversation with Mr. Talbot. He doubtless mentally contrasted her affability with my sullenness, for his manner changed immediately, he grew animated, he devoted himself almost entirely to her. She, on her part, played off all her pretty, coquettish arts on him. In my ex- isting temper, I smiled, ironically, at this, behind my book. ‘Even tho most sensible men,” I said, scornfully, “are victims to vanity, and so fall a prey to these poor feminine tricks.”
I was in no improved mood, therefore, to an- awer a question which Mr. Talbot suddenly ad- dressed to me.
“What do you think of it, Mies Margaret?” he said. ‘*I see you have been reading, and not listening; and I don’t wonder,” he continued, glancing at my book, ‘‘for ‘Undine’ is a story to entrance one. But pray, forget Hildebrand and hie water-nymph, for awhile; and be umpire between Miss Elliott and myself.”
“T haven't the first qualification for the task, sir,” I saswered, coldly.
But he was not to be rebuffed.
‘+ At any rate,” he said, ‘hear the point. Your
