Pray, dearest Eleanor, does that good aunt of yours--now don't frown,
I am not going to speak disrespectfully of her--ever take a liking to
young gentlemen whom you detest, and insist upon the fallacy of your
opinion and the unerring rectitude of hers? If so, you can pity and
comprehend my grief. Mamma has formed quite an attachment to a very
disagreeable person! He is Lord Borodaile, the eldest, and I believe,
the only son of Lord Ulswater. Perhaps you may have met him abroad,
for he has been a great traveller: his family is among the most
ancient in England, and his father's estate covers half a county. All
this Mamma tells me, with the most earnest air in the world, whenever
I declaim upon his impertinence or disagreeability (is there such a
word? there ought to be). "Well," said I to-day, "what's that to me?"
"It may be a great deal to you," replied Mamma, significantly, and the
blood rushed from my face to my heart. She could not, Eleanor, she
could not mean, after all her kindness to Clarence, and in spite of
all her penetration into my heart,--oh, no, no,--she could not. How
terribly suspicious this love makes one!

But if I disliked Lord Borodaile at first, I have hated him of late;
for, somehow or other, he is always in the way. If I see Clarence
hastening through the crowd to ask me to dance, at that very instant
up steps Lord Borodaile with his cold, changeless face, and his
haughty old-fashioned bow, and his abominable dark complexion; and
Mamma smiles; and he hopes he finds me disengaged; and I am hurried
off; and poor Clarence looks so disappointed and so wretched! You
have no idea how ill-tempered this makes me. I could not help asking
Lord Borodaile yesterday if he was never going abroad again, and the
hateful creature played with his cravat, and answered "Never!" I was
in hopes that my sullenness would drive his lordship away: tout au