Emmeline will be doing her mother a real injury, by rendering my
character questionable, not only in the eyes of the world, but of my
most valued friends, will she not do all in her power to become her own
light-hearted self again?"

"Injuring your character, dearest mother!" I exclaimed, with much
surprise; "in what manner?"

"I will tell you, my love," she replied; "there are many, not only of my
acquaintances, but my friends, those whose opinions I really value, who
believe I have been acting very wrongly all these years, in never having
permitted you and Caroline to visit London. They think by this strict
retirement I have quite unfitted you both for the station your rank
demands you should fill. That by constantly living alone with us, and
never mingling in society, you have imbibed notions that, to say the
least, may be old-fashioned and romantic, and which will make you both
feel uncomfortable when you are introduced in London. These fears never
entered my mind; I wished you to receive ideas that were somewhat
different to the generality of Fashion's dictates, and I did not doubt
but that the uncomfortable feeling, against which the letters of my
friends often warned me, would very quickly be removed. But since we
have been here--I do not wish to grieve you more, my dear Emmeline--I
must confess your conduct has been productive to me of the most painful
self-reproach. I thought, indeed, my friends were right, and that for
years I had been acting on an injudicious plan, and that instead of my
measures tending to future happiness, they were only productive of pain
and misery, which, had I done as other mothers of my station, might have
been avoided."

"Oh! do not, pray do not think so," I exclaimed, for she had spoken so