CHAPTER VI.
"Malison, dear Malison, congratulate me; the game is in my own hands!" exclaimed Miss Grahame one morning as she entered the private room of her confidant, about a week after the receipt of the letters we have mentioned, with every feature expressing triumphant yet malignant glee.
"That has been the case some weeks, has it not ?" replied Miss Malison.
"Yes; but not so completely as at present.

Caroline has just left me; she was afraid of imparting in writing the important intelligence she had to give me, important indeed, for it saves me a world of trouble: though did I allow myself to think on her present situation of suffering, I believe that I should repent her perfect and innocent confidence in me.

Her defence of my character, whenever it is attacked, almost touches my heart; but her mother, her intrusive mother, that would-be paragon of her sex, rises before me and continually urges me on; she shall learn, to her cost, that her carefully-trained children are not better than others." "She has learned it partly already, by your account," remarked Miss Malison, concealing under a calm exterior her detestation of Mrs.
Hamilton.
"She has.

That rejection of St.Eval assisted me most agreeably; I did not expect that Caroline's own spirit and self-will would have aided me so effectually.

That disappointment with St.Eval has affected Mrs.
Hamilton more deeply than she chooses to make visible.