Page:Francesca Carrara 2.pdf/125

122 'Sorrow and early death are in those lines; never good came of the star under which ye were born.' Our two comrades thought not of the prophecy; but Lucy and I kept it in our hearts. As we grew up, the difference between us and our companion became more marked. I could aspire to none of the honours which his mother was for ever pointing out to the young Lord Avonleigh as the reward of his exertions; my sister had no share in the homage of the many noble lovers who flocked around the Lady Emmeline. Lady Avonleigh, who had by her lord been left sole guardian, seemed to consider it quite natural that we should sink back into our original station:—she forgot that we were now unfitted for it.

"It surprised many, none more than Lady Emmeline, when my sister married Lawrence Aylmer. They looked not into the secret recesses of a heart embittered by discontent, harassed by the petty jealousies of the Countess, and pained by the fancied neglect of Emmeline, who was just then in the early engrossment of her love for Sir Robert Evelyn, whom she soon afterwards married. In youth we deem any evil preferable to the one under which we are immediately suffering—any alteration seems for the better. Lucy said, 'I will return to the rank in which I was born; I will