 with an unique
flavour of sentiment, so that mirth from her never resembled the crackling of
thorns under a pot.
    »What do you mean by not coming to see me this afternoon, as you promised?«
was her address to Caroline as she entered the room.
    »I was not in the humour,« replied Miss Helstone, very truly.
    Shirley had already fixed on her a penetrating eye.
    »No,« she said; »I see you are not in the humour for loving me: you are in
one of your sunless, inclement moods, when one feels a fellow-creature's
presence is not welcome to you. You have such moods: are you aware of it?«
    »Do you mean to stay long, Shirley?«
    »Yes: I am come to have my tea, and must have it before I go. I shall take
the liberty then of removing my bonnet, without being asked.«
    And this she did, and then stood on the rug with her hands behind her.
    »A pretty expression you have in your countenance,« she went on, still
gazing keenly, though not inimically, rather indeed pityingly at Caroline.
»Wonderfully self-supported you look, you solitude-seeking, wounded deer. Are
you afraid Shirley will worry you, if she discovers that you are hurt, and that
you bleed?«
    »I never do fear Shirley.«
    »But sometimes you dislike her: often you avoid her. Shirley can feel when
she is slighted and shunned. If you had not walked home in the company you did
last night, you would have been a different girl to-day. What time did you reach
the Rectory?«
    »By ten.«
    »Humph! You took three-quarters of an hour to walk a mile. Was it you, or
Moore, who lingered so?«
    »Shirley, you talk nonsense.«
    »He talked nonsense - that I doubt not; or he looked it, which is a thousand
times worse: I see the reflection of his eyes on your forehead at this moment. I
feel disposed to call him out, if I could only get a trustworthy second: I feel
desperately irritated: I felt so last night, and have felt it all day.
    You don't ask me why,« she proceeded, after a pause, »you little, silent,
over-modest thing; and you don't deserve that I should pour out my secrets into
your lap without an invitation. Upon my word, I could have found it in
