She liked Mr.Carlyle much; she experienced pleasure in conversing with him; she liked to be with him; in short, but for that other ill-omened fancy which had crept over her, there would have been danger of her falling in love with Mr.Carlyle.
And oh! to be removed forever from the bitter dependence on Lady Mount Severn--East Lynne would in truth, after that, seem what she had called it: Eden.
"So far it looks favorable," mentally exclaimed poor Isabel, "but there is the other side of the question.

It is not only that I do not love Mr.
Carlyle, but I fear I do love, or very nearly love, Francis Levison.

I wish _he_ would ask me to be his wife!--or that I had never seen him." Isabel's soliloquy was interrupted by the entrance of Mrs.Levison and the countess.

What the latter had said to the old lady to win her to the cause, was best known to herself, but she was eloquent in it.

They both used every possible argument to induce her to accept Mr.Carlyle: the old lady declaring that she had never been introduced to any one she was so much taken with, and Mrs.Levison was incapable of asserting what was not true; that he was worth a dozen empty-headed men of the great world.
Isabel listened, now swayed one way, now the other, and when afternoon came, her head was aching with perplexity.