72 ‘ALL IS NOT GOLD THAT GLITTERS.

poor thing! Not that Helen is handsome—
don’t look in the glass, Helen, child! My
grandmother always said that Old Nick stood
behind every young lady’s shoulder when she
looked in the glass, with a rouge-pot all ready to
make her look handsomer in her own eyes than
she really was; which shows how wicked it is
to look much in a glass. Only a little some-
times, Nell, darling—we’ll forgive her for look-
ing a little ; but certainly when I looked at the
new beauty in church the other day, and then
looked, I know where, I thought—but no mat-
ter, Helen, no matter—I don’t want to make
either of my girls vain.”

Why Mrs. Myles so decidedly preferred Helen
to Rose, appeared a mystery to all who did not
know the secret sympathy, the silent unsatisfied
ambition, that lurked in the bosoms of both the
old and the young. Mrs. Myles had lived for a
long time upon the reputation of her own beauty ;
and whenever she needed sympathy (a food
which the weak-minded devour rapidly,) she la-
mented to one or two intimates, while indulging
in the luxury of tea, that she was an ill-used
person, simply because she had not been a baro-
net’s lady at the very least. Helen’s ambition
echoed that of her grandmother ; it was not the
longing of a village lass for a new bonnet or a
brilliant dress—it was an ambition of sufficient
strength to have sprung up inacastle. She
resolved to be something beyond what she was;