“You want to know what, Rosa?” returned Mrs. Steerforth. “Pray, pray, Rosa, do not be mysterious.”

“Mysterious!” she cried. “Oh! really? Do you consider me so?”

“Do I constantly entreat you,” said Mrs. Steerforth, “to speak plainly, in your own natural manner?”

“Oh! then, this is not my natural manner?” she rejoined. “Now you must really bear with me, because I ask for information. We never know ourselves.”

“It has become a second nature,” said Mrs. Steerforth, without any displeasure; “but I remember,—and so must you, I think,—when your manner was different, Rosa; when it was not so guarded, and was more trustful.”

“I am sure you are right,” she returned; “and so it is that bad habits grow upon one! Really? Less guarded and more trustful? How can I, imperceptibly, have changed, I wonder! Well, that’s very odd! I must study to regain my former self.”

“I wish you would,” said Mrs. Steerforth, with a smile.

“Oh! I really will, you know!” she answered. “I will learn frankness from—let me see—from James.”

“You cannot learn frankness, Rosa,” said Mrs. Steerforth, quickly—for there was always some effect of sarcasm in what Rosa Dartle said, though it was said, as this was, in the most unconscious manner in the world—“in a better school.”

“That I am sure of,” she answered, with uncommon fervour. “If I am sure of anything, of course, you know, I am sure of that.”

Mrs. Steerforth appeared to me to regret having been a little nettled; for she presently said, in a kind tone—

“Well, my dear Rosa, we have not heard what it is that you want to be satisfied about?”

“That I want to be satisfied about?” she replied, with provoking coldness. “Oh! It was only whether people, who are like each other in their moral constitution—is that the phrase?”

“It’s as good a phrase as another,” said Steerforth.

“Thank you:—whether people, who are like each other in their moral constitution, are in greater danger than people not so circumstanced, supposing any serious cause of variance to arise between them, of being divided angrily and deeply?”

“I should say yes,” said Steerforth.

“Should you?” she retorted. “Dear me! Supposing then, for instance—any unlikely thing will do for a supposition—that you and your mother were to have a serious quarrel.”

“My dear Rosa,” interposed Mrs. Steerforth, laughing good-naturedly, “suggest some other supposition! James and I know our duty to each other better, I pray Heaven!”

“Oh!” said Miss Dartle, nodding her head thoughtfully. “To be sure. That would prevent it? Why, of course it would. Ex-actly. Now, I am glad I have been so foolish as to put the case, for it is so very good to know that your duty to each other would prevent it! Thank you very much.”

One other little circumstance connected with Miss Dartle I must not omit; for I had reason to remember it thereafter, when all the irremediable past was rendered plain. During the whole of this day, but especially