too sudden. They sometimes pass in such very little
time from reserve to quite the opposite--to confidence!
_That_ is the faulty part of the present system.
One does not like to see a girl of eighteen or nineteen
so immediately up to every thing--and perhaps when one
has seen her hardly able to speak the year before.
Mr. Bertram, I dare say _you_ have sometimes met with
such changes."

"I believe I have, but this is hardly fair; I see what you
are at. You are quizzing me and Miss Anderson."

"No, indeed. Miss Anderson! I do not know who or what
you mean. I am quite in the dark. But I _will_ quiz you
with a great deal of pleasure, if you will tell me what about."

"Ah! you carry it off very well, but I cannot be quite
so far imposed on. You must have had Miss Anderson
in your eye, in describing an altered young lady.
You paint too accurately for mistake. It was exactly so.
The Andersons of Baker Street. We were speaking of them
the other day, you know. Edmund, you have heard me mention
Charles Anderson. The circumstance was precisely as this
lady has represented it. When Anderson first introduced
me to his family, about two years ago, his sister was
not _out_, and I could not get her to speak to me.
I sat there an hour one morning waiting for Anderson,
with only her and a little girl or two in the room,
the governess being sick or run away, and the mother
in and out every moment with letters of business, and I