't have her health injured. She shall go into the world more. She will be
presented at Court, and if it 's necessary to give her a dose or two to
counteract her vanity, I don't object. This will wear off, or, si c'est
véritablement une grande passion, eh bien! we must take what Providence sends
us.«
    »And which we might have prevented if we had condescended to listen to the
plainest worldly wisdom,« added Mrs. Shorne.
    »Yes,« said Lady Jocelyn, equably, »you know, you and I, Julia, argue from
two distinct points. Girls may be shut up, as you propose. I don't think nature
intended to have them the obverse of men. I 'm sure their mothers never designed
that they should run away with footmen, riding-masters, chance curates, as they
occasionally do, and wouldn't if they had points of comparison. My opinion is
that Prospero was just saved by the Prince of Naples being wrecked on his
island, from a shocking mis-alliance between his daughter and the son of
Sycorax. I see it clearly. Poetry conceals the extreme probability, but from
what I know of my sex, I should have no hesitation in turning prophet also, as
to that.«
    What could Mrs. Shorne do with a mother who talked in this manner? Mrs.
Melville, when she arrived to take part in the conference, which gradually
swelled to a family one, was equally unable to make Lady Jocelyn perceive that
her plan of bringing up Rose was, in the present result of it, other than
unlucky.
    Now the two Generals - Rose Jocelyn and the Countess de Saldar - had brought
matters to this pass; and from the two tactical extremes: the former by openness
and dash; the latter by subtlety, and her own interpretations of the means
extended to her by Providence. I will not be so bold as to state which of the
two I think right. Good and evil work together in this world. If the Countess
had not woven the tangle, and gained Evan time, Rose would never have seen his
blood, - never have had her spirit hurried out of all shows and forms and habits
of thought, up to the gates of existence, as it were, where she took him simply
as God created him and her, and clave to him. Again, had Rose been secret, when
this turn in her nature came, she would have forfeited the strange power she
received from it, and which endowed her
