CHAPTER XXIII.

AMANDA--DOROTHY--LORD HERBERT.





So also did Amanda; but not the less did she cherish feelings of
revenge against her whom she more than suspected of having been the
contriver of her harmful discomfiture. She felt certain that Dorothy
had laid the snare into which they had fallen, with the hope if not
the certainty of catching just themselves two in it, and she read in
her, therefore, jealousy and cruelty as well as coldness and
treachery. Rowland on the other hand was inclined to attribute the
mishap to the displeasure of lord Herbert, whose supernatural
acquirements, he thought, had enabled him both to discover and
punish their intrusion. Amanda, nevertheless, kept her own opinion,
and made herself henceforth all eyes and ears for Dorothy, hoping
ever to find a chance of retaliating, if not in kind yet in
plentiful measure of vengeance. Dorothy's odd ways, lawless
movements, and what the rest of the ladies counted her vulgar
tastes, had for some time been the subject of remark to the
gossiping portion of the castle community; and it seemed to Amanda
that in watching and discovering what she was about when she