"Poor child!"—
The colour rose on Eleanor's cheek at that; she turned her eyes away.
"I think Mr. Carlisle's plan—and mamma's—was to make circumstances too strong for me; and to draw me by degrees. And they would, perhaps, but for all I learned here."
"For what you learned here, my dear?"
"Yes, aunty; if they could have got me into a whirl society—if they could have made me love dancing parties and theatres and the opera, and I had got bewildered and forgotten that a great worldly establishment not the best thing—perhaps temptation would have been too much for me.—Perhaps it would. I don't know."
There was a little more colour in Eleanor's cheeks than her words accounted for, as Mrs. Caxton noticed.
"Did you ever feel in danger from the temptation, Eleanor?"
"Never, aunty. I think it never so much as touched me."
"Then Mr. Carlisle has been at his own risk," said Mrs. Caxton. "Let us dismiss him, my love."
"Aunt Caxton, I have a strange homeless, forlorn feeling."