CHAPTER XVI.LEADS TO A SMALL SKIRMISH BETWEEN ROSE AND EVAN.
Lady Jocelyn belonged properly to that order which the Sultans and the Roxalanas of earth combine to exclude from their little games, under the designation of blues, or strong-minded women: a kind, if genuine, the least dangerous and staunchest of the sex, as poor fellows learn when the flippant and the frail fair have made mummies of them. She had the frankness of her daughter, the same direct eyes and firm step: a face without shadows, though no longer bright with youth. It must be charged to her as one of the errors of her strong mind, that she believed friendship practicable between men and women, young or old. She knew the world pretty well, and was not amazed by extraordinary accidents; but as she herself continued to be an example of her faith, we must presume it natural that her delusion should cling to her. She welcomed Evan as her daughter’s friend, walked halfway across the room to meet him on his introduction to her, and with the simple words, “I have heard of you,” let him see that he stood upon his merits in her house. The young man’s spirit caught something of hers even in their first interview, and at once mounted to that level. Unconsciously he felt that she took, and would take, him for what he was, and he rose to his worth in the society she presided over. A youth like Evan could not perceive that in loving this lady’s daughter, and accepting the place she offered him, he was guilty of a breach of confidence; or reflect that her entire absence of suspicion imposed upon him a corresponding honesty towards her. He fell into a blindness. Without dreaming for a moment that she designed to encourage his passion for Rose, he yet beheld himself in the light she
