And is he so much worse, Milicent, than Mr.Hattersley ?' 'Well, to give you my candid opinion, I think there is no comparison between them.

But you mustn't be offended, Helen, for you know I always speak my mind, and you may speak yours too.

I sha'n't care.' 'I am not offended, love; and my opinion is, that if there be a comparison made between the two, the difference, for the most part, is certainly in Hattersley's favour.' Milicent's own heart told her how much it cost me to make this acknowledgment; and, with a childlike impulse, she expressed her sympathy by suddenly kissing my cheek, without a word of reply, and then turning quickly away, caught up her baby, and hid her face in its frock.

How odd it is that we so often weep for each other's distresses, when we shed not a tear for our own! Her heart had been full enough of her own sorrows, but it overflowed at the idea of mine; and I, too, shed tears at the sight of her sympathetic emotion, though I had not wept for myself for many a week.
[Picture: Blake Hall--Side (Grassdale Manor)] It was one rainy day last week; most of the company were killing time in the billiard-room, but Milicent and I were with little Arthur and Helen in the library, and between our books, our children, and each other, we expected to make out a very agreeable morning.

We had not been thus secluded above two hours, however, when Mr.Hattersley came in, attracted, I suppose, by the voice of his child, as he was crossing the hall, for he is prodigiously fond of her, and she of him.
He was redolent of the stables, where he had been regaling himself with the company of his fellow-creatures the horses ever since breakfast.