Her mother was so indifferent to dress; she herself had found so many other ways of spending money!--but Evelyn was not now more philosophical than others of her age.

She turned from muslin to muslin--from the coloured to the white, from the white to the coloured--with pretty anxiety and sorrowful suspense.

At last she decided on the newest, and when it was on, and the single rose set in the lustrous and beautiful hair, Carson herself could not have added a charm.

Happy age! Who wants the arts of the milliner at seventeen?
"And here, miss; here's the fine necklace Lord Vargrave brought down when my lord came last; it will look so grand!" The emeralds glittered in their case; Evelyn looked at them irresolutely; then, as she looked, a shade came over her forehead, and she sighed, and closed the lid.
"No, Margaret, I do not want it; take it away." "Oh, dear, miss! what would my lord say if he were down! And they are so beautiful! they will look so fine! Deary me, how they sparkle! But you will wear much finer when you are my lady." "I hear Mamma's bell; go, Margaret, she wants you." Left alone, the young beauty sank down abstractedly, and though the looking-glass was opposite, it did not arrest her eye; she forgot her wardrobe, her muslin dress, her fears, and her guests.
"Ah," she thought, "what a weight of dread I feel here when I think of Lord Vargrave and this fatal engagement; and every day I feel it more and more.

To leave my dear, dear mother, the dear cottage--oh! I never can.