Had Caroline’s manner been more generally coquettish, Mrs. Hamilton’s eyes might have been opened; but her behaviour in general was such as rather to diminish than increase those fears which, before her child had joined the world, had very frequently occupied her anxious heart.  To strangers even, her encouragement of St. Eval might not have been observable, though it was clearly so to the watchful eyes of her parents, whose confidence in their daughter’s integrity was such as entirely to exonerate her in their minds from any intention of coquetry.  In this instance, perhaps, their regard for the young Earl himself, and their mutual but secret wishes might have heightened their belief, that not only was St. Eval attracted but that Caroline encouraged him, and feeling this they regretted that Lord Alphingham should continue his attentions, which Caroline never appeared to receive with any particular pleasure.

Anxious as had been Mrs. Hamilton’s feelings with regard to the friendship subsisting between her daughter and Annie Grahame, she little imagined how painfully the influence of the latter had already tarnished the character of the former.  Few are aware of the danger arising from those very intimate connections which young women are so fond of forming.  Every mother should study, almost as carefully as those of her own, the character of her children’s intimate friends.  Mrs. Hamilton had done so, and as we know, never approved of Caroline’s intimacy with Annie, but yet she could not check their intercourse while such intimate friendship existed between her husband and Montrose Grahame.  She knew, too, that the latter felt pleasure in beholding Caroline the chosen friend of his daughter; and though she could never hope as Grahame did, that the influence of her child would improve the character of his, she had yet sufficient confidence in Caroline at one time to believe that she would still consider her mother her dearest and truest friend, and thus counteract the effects of Annie’s ill-directed eloquence.  In this hope she had already found herself disappointed; but still, though Caroline refused her sympathy, and bestowed it, as so many other girls did, on a companion of her own age, she relied perhaps too fondly on those principles she had so carefully instilled in early life, and believed that no stain would sully the career of her much-loved child.  If Mrs. Hamilton’s affection in this instance completely blinded her, if she acted too weakly in not at once breaking this closely woven chain of intimacy, her feelings, when she knew all, were more than sufficient chastisement.  Could the noble, the honourable, the truth-loving mother for one instant imagine that Caroline, the child whose early years had caused her so much pain, had called forth so many tearful prayers—­the child whose dawning youth had been so fair, that her heart had nearly lost its tremblings—­that her Caroline should encourage one young man merely to indulge in love of power, and what was even worse,