kindly, but with a certain restraint; and the loftiness of manner, common
to the countess with all but Harley, had awed and chilled the diffident
orphan. Lady Lansmere's very interest in Harley's choice, her attempts
to draw Helen out of her reserve, her watchful eyes whenever Helen shyly
spoke or shyly moved, frightened the poor child, and made her unjust to
herself.

The very servants, though staid, grave, and respectful, as suited a
dignified, old-fashioned household, painfully contrasted the bright
welcoming smiles and free talk of Italian domestics. Her recollections
of the happy, warm Continental manner, which so sets the bashful at their
ease, made the stately and cold precision of all around her doubly awful
and dispiriting. Lord Lansmere himself, who did not as yet know the
views of Harley, and little dreamed that he was to anticipate a daughter-
in-law in the ward, whom he understood Harley, in a freak of generous
roinance, had adopted, was familiar and courteous, as became a host; but
he looked upon Helen as a mere child, and naturally left her to the
countess. The dim sense of her equivocal position, of her comparative
humbleness of birth and fortunes, oppressed and pained her; and even her
gratitude to Harley was made burdensome by a sentiment of helplessness.
The grateful long to requite. And what could she ever do for him?

Thus musing, she wandered alone through the curving walks; and this sort
of mock-country landscape--London loud, and even visible, beyond the high
gloomy walls, and no escape from the windows of the square formal house--
seemed a type of the prison bounds of Rank to one whose soul yearns for
simple loving Nature.

Helen's revery was interrupted by Nero's joyous bark. He had caught
sight of her, and came bounding up, and thrust his large head into her