Eager to prove she was not the simple-minded being she was believed, Caroline confided her designs, with regard to St.Eval, to Miss Grahame, who, as may be supposed, heightened and encouraged them.

Had any one pointed out to Caroline she was acting with duplicity, departing from the line of truth to which, even in her childhood, in the midst of many other faults, she had beautifully and strictly adhered, she might have shrunk back in horror; but where was the harm of a little innocent flirtation?
Annie would repeatedly urge, if she fancied a doubt of the propriety of such conduct was rising in her friend's mind, and she was ready with examples of girls of high birth and exemplary virtues who practised it with impunity: it gave a finish to the character of a woman, proved she would sometimes act for herself, not always be in leading-strings; it gave a taste of power, gratified her ambition; in short, flirtation was the very acme of enjoyment, and gave a decided _ton_ before and after marriage.
St.Eval was not sanguine.

But it was in vain he tried to resist the fascinations of the girl he loved, he could not for an instant doubt but that she encouraged him; he even felt grateful, and loved her more for those little arts and kindnesses with which she ever endeavoured to draw him from his reserve, and chain him to her side.

Could that noble spirit imagine she only acted thus to afford herself amusement for the time, and prove her power to her companions?
Could she, the child of Mr.and Mrs.Hamilton, act otherwise than honourably?
We may pardon Lord St.
Eval for believing it impossible, but bitterly was he deceived.

Even her mother, her penetrating, confiding mother, was deceived, and no marvel then that such should be the case with a comparative stranger.
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.