“I saw a man weeping and makin' sad moan,He was crying and grievin',For he knew their deceivingAn' rockin' a cradle for a child not his own.”
“Was fur katzen jammer! What for cats' music mak'st thou there?”
“Where 's the girls, Andy?” whispered Daltou in the old man's ear.
“They 're gone,” muttered he.
“Gone where? where did they go?”
“Fort mit ihm. Away with him. Leave him not stay. Mein head is heavy, and mein brain turn round!” screamed Hansel.
“Will ye tell me where they 're gone, I say?” cried Daiton, angrily.
“Hushoo! husho!” sang out the old man, as he fancied he was composing his charge to sleep; and then made signs to Dalton to be still and not awaken him.
With an angry muttering Dalton turned away and left the chamber, totally regardless of Hanserl's entreaties to take Andy along with him.
“You're just good company for each other!” said he, sulkily, to himself. “But where 's these girls, I wonder?”
“Oh, papa, I have found you at last!” cried Kate, as, bounding down the stairs half a dozen steps at a time, she threw her arm round him. “She's here! she's upstairs with us; and so delightful, and so kind, and so beautiful. I never believed any one could be so charming.”
“And who is she, when she's at home?” said Dalton, half sulkily.
“Lady Hester, of course, papa. She came while we were sitting with Hanserl, came quite alone to see him and us; and when she had talked to him for a while, so kindly and so sweetly, about his wound, and his fever, and his home in the Tyrol, and his mother, and everything, she turned to Nelly and said, 'Now, my dears, for a little conversation with yourselves. Where shall we go to be quite alone and uninterrupted?' We did n't know what to say, papa; for we knew that you and the strange gentleman were busy in the sitting-room, and while I was thinking what excuse to make, Nelly told her that our only room was occupied. 'Oh, I don't care for that in the least,' said she; 'let us shut ourselves up in your dressing-room.' Our dressing-room! I could have laughed and cried at the same moment she said it; but Nelly said that we had none, and invited her upstairs to her bedroom; and there she is now, papa, sitting on the little bed, and making Nelly tell her everything about who we are, and whence we came, and how we chanced to be living here.”
“I wonder Nelly had n't more sense,” said Dalton, angrily; “not as much as a curtain on the bed, nor a bit of carpet on the floor. What 'll she think of us all?”
“Oh, papa, you're quite mistaken; she called it a dear little snuggery; said she envied Nelly so much that lovely view over Eberstein and the Schloss, and said what would she not give to lead our happy and peaceful life, away from that great world she despises so heartily. How sad to think her duties tie her down to a servitude so distasteful and repulsive!”
“Isn't my Lady the least taste in life of a humbug, Kitty?” whispered Dalton, as his eyes twinkled with malicious drollery.
“Papa, papa! you cannot mean—”
“No harm if she is, darling. I'm sure the pleasantest, ay, and some of the worthiest people ever I knew were humbugs, that is, they were always doing their best to be agreeable to the company; and if they strained their consciences a bit, small blame to them for that same.”
“Lady Hester is far above such arts, papa; but you shall judge for yourself. Come in now, for she is so anxious to know you.”
Kate, as she spoke, had opened the door of the little bedroom, and, drawing her arm within her father's, gently led him forward to where Lady Hester was seated upon the humble settle.
“It's a nice place they showed you into, my Lady,” said Dalton, after the ceremony of introduction was gone through; “and there was the drawing-room, or the library, and the breakfast-parlor, all ready to receive you.”
“We heard that you were engaged with a gentleman on business, papa.”
“Well, and if I was, Nelly, transacting a small matter about my estates in Ireland, sure it was in my own study we were.”
“I must be permitted to say that I am very grateful for any accident which has given me the privilege of an intimate with my dear young friends,” said Lady Hester, in her very sweetest of manners; “and as to the dear little room itself, it is positively charming.”
“I wish you 'd see Mount Dalton, my Lady. There '& a window, and it is n't bigger than that there, and you can see seven baronies out of it and a part of three counties, Killikelly's flour-mills, and the town of Drumcoolaghan in the distance; not to speak of the Shannon winding for miles through as elegant a bog as ever you set eyes upon.”
“Indeed!” smiled her Ladyship, with a glance of deep interest.
“'T is truth, I 'm telling you, my Lady,” continued he; “and, what's more, 'twas our own, every stick and stone of it. From Crishnamuck to Ballymodereena on one side, and from the chapel at Dooras down to Drumcoolaghan, 'twas the Dalton estate.”
“What a princely territory!”
“And why not? Weren't they kings once, or the same as kings? Did n't my grandfather, Pearce, hold a court for life and death in his own parlor? Them was the happy and the good times, too,” sighed he, plaintively.
“But I trust your late news from Ireland is favorable?”
“Ah! there isn't much to boast about. The old families is dying out fast, and the properties changing hands. A set of English rogues and banker-fellows that made their money in dirty lanes and alleys.”
A sort of imploring, beseeching anxiety from his daughter Kate here brought Dalton to a dead stop, and he pulled up as suddenly as if on the brink of a precipice.
“Pray, go on, Mr. Dalton,” said Lady Hester, with a winning smile; “you cannot think how much you have interested me. You are aware that we really know nothing about poor dear Ireland; and I am so delighted to learn from one so competent to teach.”
“I did n't mean any offence, my Lady,” stammered out Dalton, in confusion. “There 's good and bad everywhere; but I wish to the Lord the cotton-spinners would n't come among us, and their steam-engines, and their black chimneys, and their big factories; and they say we are not far from that now.”
A gentle tap at the door which communicated with the sitting-room was heard at this moment, and Dalton exclaimed,
“Come in!” but, not suffering the interruption to stop the current of his discourse, he was about to resume, when Mr. Prichard's well-powdered head appeared at the door.
“I began to suspect you had forgotten me, Mr. Dalton,” said he; but suddenly catching a glimpse of Lady Hester, he stopped to ask pardon for the intrusion.
“Faith, and I just did,” said Dalton, laughing; “couldn't you contrive to step in in the morning, and we 'll talk that little matter over again?”
“Yes, Prichard; pray don't interrupt us now,” said Lady Hester, in a tone of half-peevishness. “I cannot possibly spare you, Mr. Dalton, at this moment;” and the man of law withdrew, with a most respectful obeisance.
“You'll forgive me, won't you?” said she, addressing Dalton, with a glance whose blandishment had often succeeded in a more difficult case.
“And now, papa, we'll adjourn to the drawing-room,” said Kate, who somehow continued to notice a hundred deficiencies in the furniture of a little chamber she had often before deemed perfect.
Dalton accordingly offered his arm to Lady Hester, who accepted the courtesy in all form, and the little party moved into the sitting-room; Nelly following, with an expression of sadness in her pale features, very unlike the triumphant glances of her father and sister.
“I 'm certain of your pardon, Mr. Dalton, and of yours, too, my dear child,” said Lady Hester, turning towards Kate, as she seated herself on the stiff old sofa, “when I avow that I have come here determined to pass the evening with you. I 'm not quite so sure that my dear Miss Dalton's forgiveness will be so readily accorded me. I see that she already looks gravely at the prospect of listening to my fiddle-faddle instead of following out her own charming fancies.”
“Oh, how you wrong me, my Lady!” broke in Nelly, eagerly. “If it were not for my fears of our unfitness our inability,” she stammered in confusion and shame; and old Dalton broke in,
“Don't mind her, my Lady; we 're as well used to company as any family in the country; but, you see, we don't generally mix with the people one meets abroad; and why should we? God knows who they are. There was chaps here last summer at the tables you would n't let into the servants' hall. There was one I seen myself, with an elegant pair of horses, as nice steppers as ever you looked at, and a groom behind with a leather strap round him,” and here Mr. Dalton performed a pantomime, by extending the fingers of his open hand at the side of his head, to represent a cockade “what d' ye call it in his hat; and who was he, did you think? 'Billy Rogers,' of Muck; his father was in the canal—”
“In the canal!” exclaimed Lady Hester, in affright.
“Yes, my Lady; in the Grand Canal, an inspector at forty pounds a year, the devil a farthin' more; and if you seen the son here, with two pins in his cravat, and a gold chain twisting and turning over his waistcoat, with his hat on one side, and yellow gloves, new every morning, throwing down the 'Naps' at that thieving game they call 'Red and Black,' you'd say he was the Duke of Leinster!”
“Was he so like his Grace?” asked Lady Hester, with a delightful simplicity.
“No; but grander!” replied Dalton, with a wave of his hand.
“It is really, as you remark, very true,” resumed her Ladyship. “It is quite impossible to venture upon an acquaintance out of England; and I cordially concur in the caution you practise.”
“So I 'm always telling the girls, 'better no company than trumpery!' not that I don't like a bit of sociality as well as ever I did, a snug little party of one's own, people whose mothers and fathers had names, the real old stock of the land. But to be taken up with every chance rapscallion you meet on the cross-roads, to be hand and glove with this, that, and the other, them never was my sentiments.”
It is but justice to confess there was less of hypocrisy in the bland smile Lady Hester returned to this speech than might be suspected; for, what between the rapidity of Daiton's utterance, and the peculiar accentuation he gave to certain words, she did not really comprehend one syllable of what he said. Meanwhile the two girls sat silent and motionless. Nelly, in all the suffering of shame at the absurdity of her father's tone, the vulgarity of an assumption she had fondly hoped years of poverty might have tamed down, if not obliterated; Kate, in mute admiration of their lovely visitor, of whose graces she never wearied. Nor did Lady Hester make any effort to include them in the conversation; she had come out expressly for one sole object, to captivate Mr. Dalton; and she would suffer nothing to interfere with her project. To this end she heard his long and tiresome monologues about Irish misery and distress, narrated with an adherence to minute and local details that made the whole incomprehensible; she listened to him with well-feigned interest, in his narratives of the Daltons of times long past, of their riotous and extravagant living, their lawlessness, and their daring; nor did she permit her attention to flag while he recounted scenes and passages of domestic annals that might almost have filled a page of savage history.
“How sorry you must have felt to leave a country so dear by all its associations and habits!” sighed she, as he finished a narrative of more than ordinary horrors.
“Ain't I breaking my heart over it? Ain't I fretting myself to mere skin and bone?” said he, with a glance of condolence over his portly figure. “But what could I do? I was forced to come out here for the education of the children bother it for education! but it ruins everybody nowadays. When I was a boy, reading and writing, with a trifle of figures, was enough for any one. If you could tell what twenty bullocks cost, at two pounds four-and-sixpence a beast, and what was the price of a score of hoggets, at fifteen shillings a head, and wrote your name and address in a good round hand, 'twas seldom you needed more; but now you have to learn everything, ay, sorrow bit, but it 's learning the way to do what every one knows by nature; riding, dancing, no, but even walking, I 'm told, they teach too! Then there's French you must learn for talking! and Italian to sing! and German, upon my soul, I believe it's to snore in! and what with music, dancing, and drawing, everybody is brought up like a play-actor.”
“There is, as you remark, far too much display in modern education, Mr. Dalton; but you would seem fortunate enough to have avoided the error. A young lady whose genius can accomplish such a work as this—”
“'Tis one of Nelly's, sure enough,” said he, looking at the group to which she pointed, but feeling even more shame than pride in the avowal.
The sound of voices a very unusual noise from the door without, now broke in upon the conversation, and Andy's cracked treble could be distinctly heard in loud altercation.
“Nelly! Kitty! I say,” cried Dalton, “see what's the matter with that old devil. There's something come over him to-day, I think, for he won't be quiet for two minutes together.”
Kate accordingly hastened to discover the cause of a tumult in which now the sound of laughter mingled.
As we, however, enjoy the prerogative of knowing the facts before they could reach her, we may as well inform the reader that Andy, whose intelligence seemed to have been preternaturally awakened by the sight of an attorney, had been struck by seeing two strangers enter the house-door and leisurely ascend the stairs. At such a moment, and with his weak brain filled with its latest impression, the old man at once set them down as bailiffs come to arrest his master. He hobbled after them, therefore, as well as he could, and just reached the landing as Mr. Jekyl, with his friend Onslow, had arrived at the door.
“Mr. Dalton lives here, I believe?” said Jekyl.
“Anan,” muttered Andy, who, although he heard the question, affected not to have done so, and made this an excuse for inserting himself between them and the door.
“I was asking if Mr. Dalton lived here!” cried Jekyl, louder, and staring with some astonishment at the old fellow's manoeuvre.
“Who said he did, eh?” said Andy, with an effort at fierceness.
“Perhaps it 's on the lower story?” asked Onslow.
“Maybe it is, and maybe it isn't, then!” was the answer.
“We wish to see him, my good man,” said Jekyl; “or, at least, to send a message to him.”
“Sure! I know well enough what ye want,” said Andy, with a wave of his hand. “'T is n't the first of yer like I seen!”
“And what may that be?” asked Onslow, not a little amused by the blended silliness and shrewdness of the old man's face.
“Ay eh! I know yez well,” rejoined he, shaking his head. “Be off, then, and don't provoke the house! Away wid yez, before the servants sees ye.”
“This is a rare fellow,” said Onslow, who, less interested than his companion about the visit, was quite satisfied to amuse himself with old Andy. “So you 'll not even permit us to send our respects, and ask how your master is?”
“I'm certain you'll be more reasonable,” simpered Jekyl, as he drew a very weighty-looking purse from his pocket, and, with a considerable degree of ostentation, seemed preparing to open it.
The notion of bribery, and in such a cause, was too much for Andy's feelings; and with a sudden jerk of his hand, he dashed the purse out of Jekyl's fingers, and scattered the contents all over the landing and stairs. “Ha, ha!” cried he, wildly, “'t is only ha'pence he has, after all!” And the taunt was so far true that the ground was strewn with kreutzers and other copper coins of the very smallest value.
As for Onslow, the scene was too ludicrous for him any longer to restrain his laughter; and although Jekyl laughed too, and seemed to relish the absurdity of his mistake, as he called it, having put in his pocket a collection of rare and curious coins, his cheek, as he bent to gather them up, was suffused with a deeper flush than the mere act of stooping should occasion. It was precisely at this moment that Kate Dalton made her appearance.
“What is the matter, Andy?” asked she, turning to the old man, who appeared, by his air and attitude, as if determined to guard the doorway.
“Two spalpeens, that want to take the master; that's what it is,” said he, in a voice of passion.
“Your excellent old servant has much mistaken us, Miss Dalton,” said Jekyl, with his most deferential of manners. “My friend, Captain Onslow,” here he moved his hand towards George, who bowed, “and myself, having planned a day's shooting in the 'Moorg,' have come to request the pleasure of Mr. Dalton's company.”
“Oh, the thievin' villains!” muttered Andy; “that's the way they 'll catch him.”
Meanwhile Kate, having promised to convey their polite invitation, expressed her fears that her father's health might be unequal to the exertion. Jekyl immediately took issue upon the point, and hoped, and wondered, and fancied, and “flattered himself” so much, that Kate at last discovered she had been drawn into a little discussion, when she simply meant to have returned a brief answer; and while she was hesitating how to put an end to an interview that had already lasted too long, Dalton himself appeared.
“Is it with me these gentlemen have their business?” said he, angrily, while he rudely resisted all Andy's endeavors to hold him back.
“Oh, my dear Mr. Dalton,” said Jekyl, warmly, “it is such a pleasure to see you quite restored to health again! Here we are Captain Onslow, Mr. Dalton thinking of a little excursion after the woodcocks down the Moorg Thai; and I have been indulging the hope that you 'll come along with us.”
The very hint of an attention, the merest suggestion that bordered on a civility, struck a chord in old Dalton's nature that moved all his sympathies. It was at once a recognition of himself and his ancestry for generations back. It was a rehabilitation of all the Dal tons of Mount Dalton for centuries past; and as he extended a hand to each, and invited them to walk in, he half felt himself at home again, doing the honors of his house, and extending those hospitalities that had brought him to beggary.
“Are you serious about the shooting-party?” whispered Onslow to Jekyl, as he walked forward.
“Of course not. It's only a 'Grecian horse,' to get inside the citadel.”
“My daughter, Miss Dalton; Mr. Jekyl Miss Kate Dalton. Your friend's name, I believe, is—”
“Captain Onslow.”
Lady Hester started at the name, and, rising, at once said,
“Oh, George, I must introduce you to my fair friends. Miss Dalton, this gentleman calls me 'mamma;' or, at least, if he does not, it is from politeness. Captain Onslow Mr. Dalton. Now, by what fortunate event came you here?”
“Ought I not to ask the same question of your Ladyship?” said George, archly.
“If you like; only that, as I asked first—”
“You shall be answered first. Lady Hester Onslow, allow me to present Mr. Albert Jekyl.”
“Oh, indeed!” drawled out Lady Hester, as, with her very coldest bow, she surveyed Mr. Jekyl through her glass, and then turned away to finish her conversation with Ellen.
Jekyl was not the man to feel a slight repulse as a defeat; but, at the same time, saw that the present was not the moment to risk an engagement. He saw, besides, that, by engaging Dalton in conversation, he should leave Lady Hester and Onslow at liberty to converse with the two sisters, and, by this act of generosity, entitle himself to gratitude on all sides. And, after all, among the smaller martyrdoms of this life, what self-sacrifice exceeds his who, out of pure philanthropy, devotes himself to the “bore” of the party. Honor to him who can lead the forlorn hope of this stronghold of weariness. Great be his praises who can turn from the seductive smiles of beauty, and the soft voices of youth, and only give eye and ear to the tiresome and uninteresting. High among the achievements of unobtrusive heroism should this claim rank; and if you doubt it, my dear reader, if you feel disposed to hold cheaply such darings, try it, try even for once. Take your place beside that deaf old lady in the light auburn wig, or draw your chair near to that elderly gentleman, whose twinkling gray eyes and tremulous lip bespeak an endless volubility on the score of personal reminiscences. Do this, too, within earshot of pleasant voices and merry laughter, of that tinkling ripple that tells of conversation flowing lightly on, like a summer stream, clear where shallow, and reflective where deep! Listen to the wearisome bead-roll of family fortunes, the births, deaths, and marriages of those you never saw, and hoped never to see, hear the long narratives of past events, garbled, mistaken, and misstated, with praise and censure ever misapplied, and then, I say, you will feel that, although such actions are not rewarded with red ribbons or blue, they yet demand a moral courage and a perseverance that in wider fields win high distinction.
00166
Albert Jekyl was a proficient in this great art; indeed, his powers developed themselves according to the exigency, so that the more insufferably tiresome his companion, the more seemingly attentive and interested did he become. His features were, in fact, a kind of “bore-ometer,” in which, from the liveliness of the expression, you might calculate the stupidity of the tormentor; and the mercury of his nature rose, not fell, under pressure. And so you would have said had you but seen him that evening, as, seated beside Dalton, he heard, for hours long, how Irish gentlemen were ruined and their fortunes squandered. What jolly times they were when men resisted the law and never feared a debt! Not that, while devouring all the “rapparee” experiences of the father, he had no eye for the daughters, and did not see what was passing around him. Ay, that did he, and mark well how Lady Hester attached herself to Kate Dalton, flattered by every sign of her unbought admiration, and delighted with the wondering homage of the artless girl. He watched Onslow, too, turn from the inanimate charms of Nelly's sculptured figures, to gaze upon the long dark lashes and brilliant complexion of her sister. He saw all the little comedy that went on around him, even to poor Nelly's confusion, as she assisted Andy to arrange a tea-table, and, for the first time since their arrival, proceed to make use of that little service of white and gold which, placed on a marble table for show, constitutes the invariable decoration of every humble German drawing-room. He even overheard her, as she left the room, giving Andy her directions a dozen times over, how he was to procure the tea, and the sugar, and the milk, extravagances she did not syllable without a sigh. He saw and heard everything, and rapidly drew his own inferences, not alone of their poverty, but of their unfitness to struggle with it.
“And yet, I'd wager these people,” said he to himself, “are revelling in superfluities; at least, as compared to me! But, so it is, the rock that one man ties round his neck, another would make a stepping-stone of!” This satisfactory conclusion gave additional sweetness to the bland smile with which he took his teacup from Nelly's hand, while he pronounced the beverage the very best he had ever tasted out of Moscow. And so we must leave the party.
“So you think, Grounsell, I may be able to leave this in a day or two?” said Sir Stafford, as, on the day following the events we have just related, he slowly walked up and down his dressing-room.
“By the end of the week, if the weather only continue fine, we may be on the road again.”
“I'm glad of it, heartily glad of it! Not that, as regarded myself, it mattered much where I was laid up in dock; but I find that this isolation, instead of drawing the members of my family more closely together, has but served to widen the breach between them. Lady Hester and Sydney rarely meet; George sees neither of them, and rarely comes near me, so that the sooner we go hence the better for all of us.”
Grounsell gave a dry nod of assent, without speaking.
“Sydney is very anxious to go and pass some time with her aunt Conway; but I foresee that, if I consent, the difference between Lady Hester and her will then become an irreconcilable quarrel. You don't agree with me, Grounsell?”
“I do not. I never knew the ends of a fractured bone unite by grating them eternally against each other.”
“And, as for George, the lounging habits of his service and cigars have steeped him in an indolence from which there is no emerging. I scarcely know what to do with him.”
“It's hard enough to decide upon,” rejoined Grounsell; “he has some pursuits, but not one ambition.”
“He has very fair abilities, certainly,” said Sir Stafford, half peevishly.
“Very fair!” nodded Grounsell.
“A good memory, a quick apprehension.”
“He has one immense deficiency, for which nothing can compensate,” said the doctor, solemnly.
“Application, industry?”
“No, with his opportunities a great deal is often acquired with comparatively light labor. I mean a greater and more important element.”
“He wants steadiness, you think?”
“No; I 'll tell you what he wants, he wants pluck!”
Sir Stafford's cheek became suddenly crimson, and his blue eyes grew almost black in the angry expression of the moment.
“Pluck, sir? My son deficient in courage?”
“Not as you understand it now,” resumed Grouusell, calmly. “He has enough, and more than enough, to shoot me or anybody else that would impugn it. The quality I mean is of a very different order. It is the daring to do a thing badly to-day in the certain confidence that you, will do it better to-morrow, and succeed perfectly in it this day twelvemonth. He has not pluck to encounter repeated failures, and yet return every morning to the attack; he has not pluck to be bullied by mediocrity in the sure and certain confidence that he will live to surpass it; in a word, he has not that pluck which resists the dictation of inferior minds, and inspires self-reliance through self-respect.”
“I confess I cannot see that in the station he is likely to occupy such qualities are at all essential,” said Sir Stafford, almost haughtily.
“Twenty thousand a year is a fine thing, and may dispense with a great many gifts in its possessor; and a man like myself, who never owned a twentieth of the amount, may be a precious bad judge of the requisites to spend it suitably; but I 'll tell you one thing, Onslow, that organ the phrenologists call 'Combativeness' is the best in the whole skull.”
“I think your Irish friend Dalton must have been imparting some of his native prejudices to you,” said Onslow, smiling; “and, by the way, when have you seen him?”
“I went to call there last night, but I found a tea-party, and did n't go in. Only think of these people, with beggary staring them on every side, sending out for 'Caravan' tea at I don't know how many florins a pound.”
“I heard of it; but then, once and away—”
“Once and away! Ay, but once is ruin.”
“Well, I hope Prichard has arranged everything by this time. He has gone over this morning to complete the business; so that I trust, when we leave Baden, these worthy people will be m the enjoyment of easier circumstances.”
“I see him crossing over the street now. I'll leave you together.”
“No, no, Grounsell; wait and hear his report; we may want your advice besides, for I 'm not quite clear that this large sum of arrears should be left at Dalton's untrammelled disposal, as Mr. Prichard intended it should be a test of that excellent gentleman's prudence.”
Mr. Prichard's knock was now heard at the door, and next moment he entered. His pale countenance was slightly flushed, and in the expression of his face it might be read that he had come from a scene of unusual excitement.
“I have failed, completely failed, Sir Stafford,” said he, with a sigh, as he seated himself, and threw a heavy roll of paper on the table before him.
As Sir Stafford did not break the pause that followed these words, Prichard resumed,
“I told you last night that Mr. Dalton, not being able clearly to understand my communication, which I own, to prevent any searching scrutiny on his part, I did my best to envelop in a covering of technicalities, referred me to his eldest daughter, in whose acuteness he reposes much confidence. If I was not impressed with the difficulty of engaging such an adversary from his description, still less was I on meeting with the young lady this morning. A very quietly mannered, unassuming person, with considerable good looks, which once upon a time must have been actual beauty, was seated alone in the drawing-room awaiting me. Her dress was studiously plain; and were it not for an air of great neatness throughout, I should perhaps call it even poor. I mention all these matters with a certain prolixity, because they bear upon what ensued.
“Without waiting for me to open my communication, she began by a slight apology for her presence there, occasioned, as she said, by her father's ill-health and consequent incapacity to transact business; after which she added a few words expressive of a hope that I would make my statement in the most simple and intelligible form, divested so far as might be of technical phraseology, and such as, to use her own words, a very unlettered person like herself might comprehend.
“This opening, I confess, somewhat startled me; I scarcely expected so much from her father's daughter; but I acquiesced and went on. As we concocted the whole plot together here, Sir Stafford, it is needless that I should weary you by a repetition of it. It is enough that I say I omitted nothing of plausibility, either in proof of the bequest, or in the description of the feeling that prompted its fulfilment. I descanted upon the happy event which, in the course of what seemed an accident, had brought the two families together, and prefaced their business intercourse by a friendship. I adverted to the good influence increased comforts would exercise upon her father's health. I spoke of her sister and her brother in the fuller enjoyment of all that became their name and birth. She heard me to the very end with deep attention, never once interrupting, nor even by a look or gesture expressing dissent.
“At last, when I had concluded, she said, 'This, then, is a bequest?'
“I replied affirmatively.
“'In that case,' said she, 'the terms on which it is conveyed will solve all the difficulty of our position. If my uncle Godfrey intended this legacy to be a peace-offering, however late it has been in coming, we should have no hesitation in accepting it; if he meant that his generosity should be trammelled by conditions, or subject in any way to the good pleasure of a third party, the matter will have a different aspect. Which is the truth?'
“I hesitated at this point-blank appeal, so different from what I looked for, and she at once asked to see the will. Disconcerted still more, I now prevaricated, stating that I had not brought the document with me; that a memorandum of its provisions would, I had supposed, prove sufficient; and finally assured her that acceptance of the bequest involved neither a condition nor a pledge.
“'It may, however, involve an obligation, sir,' said she, firmly. 'Let us learn if such be the case.'
“'Are you so proud, Miss Dalton,' said I, 'that you cannot even submit to an obligation?'
“She blushed deeply, and with a weak voice answered,
“'We are too poor to incur a debt.'
“Seeing it was useless to dwell longer on this part of the subject, I adverted to her father's increasing age, his breaking health, and the necessity of affording him a greater share of comforts; but she suddenly stopped me, saying, “'You may make my refusal of this favor for such it is, and nothing less a more painful duty than I deemed it, but you cannot alter my resolution, sir. Poverty, so long as it is honorable, has nothing mean nor undeserving about it, but dependence can never bestow happiness. It is true, as you say, that my dear father might have around him many of those little luxuries that he once was used to; but with what changed hearts would not his children minister them to him? Where would be that high prompting sense of duty that every self-sacrifice is met by now? Where that rich reward of an approving spirit that lightens toil and makes even weariness blessed? Our humble fortunes have linked us closer together; the storms of the world have made us draw nearer to each other, have given us one heart, hope, and love alike. Leave us, then, to struggle on, nor cast the gloom of dependence over days that all the ills of poverty could not darken. We are happy now; who can tell what we should become hereafter?'
“I tried to turn her thoughts upon her brother, but she quickly stopped me, saying,
“'Frank is a soldier; the rewards in his career are never withheld from the deserving; at all events, wealth would be unsuitable to him. He never knew but narrow fortunes, and the spirit that becomes a more exalted condition is not the growth of a day.'
“I next ventured, but with every caution and delicacy, to inquire whether your aid and influence might not avail them in any future plans of life they might form?
“'We have no plans,” said she, simply; 'or, rather, we have had so many that they all resolve themselves into mere castle-building. My dear father longs for Ireland again, for home as he still calls it, forgetting that we have no longer a home there. He fancies warm-hearted friends and neighbors, an affectionate people, attached to the very traditions of his name; but it is now wiser to feed this delusion than destroy it, by telling him that few, scarcely one, of his old companions still live, that other influences, other fortunes, other names, have replaced ours; we should go back there as strangers, and without even the stranger's claim to kind acceptance. Then, we had thought of the new world beyond seas; but these are the lauds of the young, the ardent, and the enterprising, high in hope and resolute of heart; and so, at last, we deemed it wisest to seek out some quiet spot, in some quiet country, where our poverty would, at least, present nothing remarkable, and there to live for each other; and we are happy, so happy that, save the passing dread that this delicious calm of life may not be lasting, we have few sorrows.'
“Again and again I tried to persuade her to recall her decision, but in vain. Once only did she show any sign of hesitation. It was when I charged her with pride as the reason of refusal. Then suddenly her eyes filled up, and her lip trembled, and such a change came over her features that I grew shocked at my own words.
“'Pride!' cried she. 'If you mean that inordinate self-esteem that prefers isolation to sympathy, that rejects an obligation from mere haughtiness, I know not the feeling. Our pride is not in our self-sufficiency, for every step in life teaches us how much we owe to others; but in this, that low in lot, and humble in means, we have kept, and hope still to keep, the motives and principles that guided us in happier fortunes. Yes, you may call us proud, for we are so, proud that our poverty has not made us mean; proud that in a strange land we have inspired sentiments of kindness, and even of affection; proud that, without any of the gifts or graces which attract, we have drawn towards us this instance of noble generosity of which you are now the messenger. I am not ashamed to own pride in all these.'
“To press her further was useless; and only asking, that if by any future change of circumstances she might be induced to alter her resolve, she would still consider the proposition as open to her acceptance, I took my leave.”
“This is most provoking,” exclaimed Onslow.
“Provoking!” cried Grounsell; “you call it provoking! That where you sought to confer a benefit you discover a spirit greater than all the favors wealth ever gave, or ever will give! A noble nature, that soars above every accident of fortune, provoking!”
“I spoke with reference to myself,” replied Onslow, tartly; “and I repeat, it is most provoking that I am unable to make a recompense where I have unquestionably inflicted a wrong!”
“Rather thank God that in this age of money-seeking and gold-hunting there lives one whose heart is uncorrupted and incorruptible,” cried Grouusell.
“If I had not seen it I could not have believed it!” said Prichard.
“Of course not, sir,” chimed in Grounsell, bluntly. “Yours is not the trade where such instances are frequently met with; nor have I met with many myself!”
“I beg to observe,” said Prichard, mildly, “that even in my career I have encountered many acts of high generosity.”
“Generosity! Yes, I know what that means. A sister who surrenders her legacy to a spendthrift brother; a childless widow that denies herself the humblest means of comfort to help the ruined brother of her lost husband; a wife who places in a reckless husband's hand the last little remnant of fortune that was hoarded against the day of utter destitution; and they are always women who do these things, saving, scraping, careful creatures, full of self-denial and small economies. Not like your generous men, as the world calls them, whose free-heartedness is nothing but selfishness, whose liberality is the bait to catch flattery. But it is not of generosity I speak here. To give, even to one's last farthing, is far easier than to refuse help when you are needy. To draw the rags of poverty closer, to make their folds drape decently, and hide the penury within, that is the victory, indeed.”
“Mark you,” cried Onslow, laughing, “it is an old bachelor says all this.”
Grounsell's face became scarlet, and as suddenly pale as death; and although he made an effort to speak, not a sound issued from his lips. For an instant the pause which ensued was unbroken, when a tap was heard at the door. It was a message from Lady Hester, requesting, if Sir Stafford were disengaged, to be permitted to speak with him.
“You're not going, Grounsell?” cried Sir Stafford, as he saw the doctor seize his hat; but he hastened out of the room without speaking, while the lawyer, gathering up his papers, prepared to follow him.
“We shall see you at dinner, Prichard?” said Sir Stafford. “I have some hope of joining the party myself to-day.”
Mr. Prichard bowed his acknowledgments and departed.
And now the old baronet sat down to ponder in his mind the reasons for so strange an event as a visit in the forenoon from Lady Hester. “What can it mean? She can't want money,” thought he; “'t is but the other day I sent her a large check. Is she desirous of going back to England again? Are there any new disagreements at work?” This last thought reminded him of those of whom he had been so lately hearing, of those whose narrow fortunes had drawn them nearer to each other, rendering them more tolerant and more attached, while in his own family, where affluence prevailed, he saw nothing but dissension.
As he sat pondering over this not too pleasant problem, a tall and serious-looking footman entered the room, rolling before him an armchair. Another and not less dignified functionary followed, with cushions and a foot-warmer, signs which Sir Stafford at once read as indicative of a long interview; for her Ladyship's preparations were always adopted with a degree of forethought and care that she very rarely exhibited in matters of real consequence.
Sir Stafford was contemplating these august demonstrations, when the solemn voice of an upper servant announced Lady Hester; and, after a second's pause, she swept into the room in all that gauzy amplitude of costume that gives to the wearer a seeming necessity of inhabiting the most spacious apartments of a palace.
“How d'ye do?” said she, languidly, as she sank down into her chair. “I had not the least notion how far this room was off; if Clements has not been taking me a tour of the whole house.”
Mr. Clements, who was still busily engaged in disposing and arranging the cushions, blandly assured her Ladyship that they had come by the most direct way.
“I'm sorry for it,” said she, peevishly, “for I shall have the more fatigue in going back again. There, you 're only making it worse. You never can learn that I don't want to be propped up like an invalid. That will do; you may leave the room. Sir Stafford, would you be good enough to draw that blind a little lower? the sun is directly in my eyes. Dear me, how yellow you are! or is it the light in this horrid room? Am I so dreadfully bilious-looking?”
“On the contrary,” said he, smiling, “I should pronounce you in the most perfect enjoyment of health.”
“Oh, of course, I have no doubt of that. I only wonder you didn't call it 'rude health.' I cannot conceive anything more thoroughly provoking than the habit of estimating one's sufferings by the very efforts made to suppress them.”
“Sufferings, my dear? I really was not aware that you had sufferings.”
“I am quite sure of that; nor is it my habit to afflict others with complaint. I 'm sure your friend, Mr. Grounsell, would be equally unable to acknowledge their existence. How I do hate that man! and I know, Stafford, he hates us. Oh, you smile, as if to say, 'Only some of us; 'but I tell you he detests us all, and his old school-fellow, as he vulgarly persists in calling you, as much as the others.”
“I sincerely hope you are mistaken.”
“Polite, certainly; you trust that his dislike is limited to myself. Not that, for my own part, I have the least objection to any amount of detestation with which he may honor me; it is the tribute the low and obscure invariably render the well-born, and I am quite ready to accept it; but I own it is a little hard that I must submit to the infliction beneath my own roof.”
“My dear Hester, how often have I assured you that you were mistaken; and that what you regard as disrespect to yourself is the roughness of an unpolished but sterling nature. The ties which have grown up between him and me since we were boys together ought not to be snapped for the sake of a mere misunderstanding; and if you cannot or will not estimate him for the good qualities he unquestionably possesses, at least bear with him for my sake.”
“So I should, so I strive to do; but the evil does not end there; he inspires everybody with the same habits of disrespect and indifference. Did you remark Clements, a few moments since, when I spoke to him about that cushion?”
“No, I can't say that I did.”
“Why should you? nobody ever does trouble his head about anything that relates to my happiness! Well, I remarked it, and saw the supercilious smile he assumed when I told him that the pillow was wrong. He looked over at you, too, as though to say, 'You see how impossible it is to please her'.”
“I certainly saw nothing of that.”
“Even Prichard, that formerly was the most diffident of men, is now so much at his ease, so very much at home in my presence, it is quite amusing. It was but yesterday he asked me to take wine with him at dinner. The anachronism was bad enough, but only fancy the liberty!”
“And what did you do?” asked Sir Stafford, with difficulty repressing a smile.
“I affected not to hear, hoping he would not expose himself before the servants by a repetition of the request. But he went on, 'Will your Ladyship' I assure you he said that 'will your Ladyship do me the honor to drink wine with me?' I merely stared at him, but never took any notice of his speech. Would you believe it? he returned to the charge again, and with his hand on his wine-glass, began, 'I have taken the liberty' I could n't hear more; so I turned to George, and said, 'George, will you tell that man not to do that?'”
Sir Stafford could not restrain himself any longer, but broke out into a burst of hearty laughter. “Poor Prichard,” said he, at last, “I almost think I see him before me!”
“You never think of saying, 'Poor Hester, these are not the associates you have been accustomed to live with!' But I could be indifferent to all these if my own family treated me with proper deference. As for Sydney and George, however, they have actually coventried me; and although I anticipated many sacrifices when I married, this I certainly never speculated upon. Lady Wallingcroft, indeed, warned me to a certain extent of what I should meet with; but I fondly hoped that disparity of years and certain differences, the fruits of early prejudices and habits, would be the only drawbacks on my happiness; but I have lived to see my error!”
“The event has, indeed, not fulfilled what was expected from it,” said Sir Stafford, with a slow and deliberate emphasis on each word.
“Oh, I comprehend you perfectly,” said she, coloring slightly, and for the first time displaying any trait of animation in her features. “You have been as much disappointed as I have. Just what my aunt Wallingcroft prophesied. 'Remember,' said she, and I 'm sure I have had good cause to remember it, 'their ideas are not our ideas; they have not the same hopes, ambitions, or objects that we have; their very morality is not our morality!'”
“Of what people or nation was her Ladyship speaking?” asked Sir Stafford, mildly.
“Of the City, generally,” replied Lady Hester, proudly.
“Not in ignorance, either,” rejoined Sir Stafford; “her own father was a merchant in Lombard Street.”
“But the family are of the best blood in Lancashire, Sir Stafford.”
“It may be so; but I remember Walter Crofts himself boasting that he had danced to warm his feet on the very steps of the door in Grosvenor Square which afterwards acknowledged him as the master; and as he owed his wealth and station to honest industry and successful enterprise, none heard the speech without thinking the better of him.”
“The anecdote is new to me,” said Lady Hester, superciliously; “and I have little doubt that the worthy man was merely embellishing an incident to suit the tastes of his company.”
“It was the company around his table, as Lord Mayor of London!”
“I could have sworn it,” said she, laughing; “but what has all this to do with what I wished to speak about if I could but remember what it was! These eternal digressions have made me forget everything.”
Although the appeal was palpably directed to Sir Stafford, he sat silent and motionless, patiently awaiting the moment when recollection might enable her to resume.
“Dear me! how tiresome it is! I cannot think of what I came about, and you will not assist me in the least.”
“Up to this moment you have given me no clew to it,” said Sir Stafford, with a smile. “It was not to speak of Grounsell?”
“Of course not. I hate even to think of him!”
“Of Prichard, perhaps?” he said, with a half-sly twinkle of the eye.
“Just as little!”
“Possibly your friend Colonel Haggerstone was in your thoughts?”
“Pray do not call him my friend. I know very little of the gentleman; I intend even to know less. I declined to receive him this morning, when he sent up his card.”
“An attention I fear he has not shown that poor creature he wounded, Grounsell tells me.”
“Oh, I have it!” said she, suddenly; the allusion to Hans at once recalling the Daltons, and bringing to mind the circumstances she desired to remember. “It was exactly of these poor people I came to speak. You must know, Sir Stafford, that I have made the acquaintance of a most interesting family here, a father and two daughters named Dalton.”
“Grounsell has already told me so,” interrupted Sir Stafford.
“Of course, then, every step I have taken in this intimacy has been represented in the most odious light. The amiable doctor will have, doubtless, imputed to me the least worthy motives for knowing persons in their station?”
“On the contrary, Hester. If he expressed any qualification to the circumstance, it was in the form of a fear lest the charms of your society and the graces of your manner might indispose them to return with patience to the dull round of their daily privations.”
“Indeed!” said she, superciliously. “A weak dose of his own acquaintance would be, then, the best antidote he could advise them! But, really, I must not speak of this man; any allusion to him is certain to jar my nerves, and irritate my feelings for the whole day after. I want to interest you about these Daltons.”
“Nothing more easy, my dear, since I already know something about them.”
“The doctor being your informant,” said she, snappishly.
“No, no, Hester; many, many years ago, certain relations existed between us, and I grieve to say that Mr. Dalton has reason to regard me in no favorable light; and it was but the very moment I received your message I was learning from Prichard the failure of an effort I had made to repair a wrong. I will not weary you with a long and a sad story, but briefly mention that Mr. Dalton's late wife was a distant relative of my own.”
“Yes, yes; I see it all. There was a little love in the business, an old flame revived in after life; nothing serious, of course but jealousies and misconstructions to any extent. Dear me, and that was the reason she died of a broken heart!” It was hard to say if Sir Stafford was more amused at the absurdity of this imputation, or stung by the cool indifference with which she uttered it; nor was it easy to know how the struggle, within him would terminate, when she went on: “It does appear so silly to see a pair of elderly gentlemen raking up a difference out of an amourette of the past century. You are very fortunate to have so quiet a spot to exhibit in!”
“I am sorry to destroy an illusion so very full of amusement, Lady Hester; but I owe it to all parties to say that your pleasant fancy has not even the shadow of a color. I never even saw Mrs. Dalton; never have yet met her husband. The event to which I was about to allude, when you interrupted me, related to a bequest—”
“Oh, I know the whole business, now! It was at your suit that dreadful mortgage was foreclosed, and these dear people were driven away from their ancient seat of Mount Dalton. I 'm sure I 've heard the story at least ten times over, but never suspected that your name was mixed up with it. I do assure you, Sir Stafford, that they have never dropped the most distant hint of you in connection with that sad episode.”
“They have been but just, Lady Hester,” said he, gravely. “I never did hold a mortgage over this property; still less exercised the severe right you speak of. But it is quite needless to pursue a narrative that taxes your patience so severely; enough to say, that through Prichard's mediation I have endeavored to persuade Mr. Dalton that I was the trustee, under a will, of a small annuity on his life. He has peremptorily refused to accept it, although, as I am informed, living in circumstances of great poverty.”
“Poor they must be, certainly. The house is wretchedly furnished, and the girls wear such clothes as I never saw before; not that they are even the worn and faded finery of better days, but actually the coarse stuffs such as the peasants wear!”
“So I have heard.”
“Not even an edging of cheap lace round their collars; not a bow of ribbon; not an ornament of the humblest kind about them.”
“And both handsome, I am told?”
“The younger, beautiful! the deepest blue eyes in the world, with long fringed lashes, and the most perfect mouth you can imagine. The elder very pretty, too, but sad-looking, for she has a fearful lameness, poor thing! They say it came from a fall off a horse, but I suspect it must have begun in infancy; one of those dreadful things they call 'spine.' Like all persons in her condition, she is monstrously clever; carves the most beautiful little groups in boxwood, and models in clay and plaster. She is a dear, mild, gentle thing; but I suspect with all that infirmity of temper that comes of long illness at least, she is seldom in high spirits like her sister. Kate, the younger girl, is my favorite; a fine, generous, warm-hearted creature, full of life and animation, and so fond of me already.”
If Sir Stafford did not smile at the undue emphasis laid upon the last few words, it was not that he had not read their full significance.
“And Mr. Dalton himself, what is he like?”
“Like nothing I ever met before; the oddest mixture of right sentiments and wrong inferences; of benevolence, cruelty, roughness, gentleness; the most refined consideration, and the most utter disregard for other people and their feelings, that ever existed. You never can guess what will be his sentiments at any moment, or on any subject, except on the question of family, when his pride almost savors of insanity. I believe, in his own country, he would be nothing strange nor singular; but out of it, he is a figure unsuited to any landscape.”
“It is hard to say how much of this peculiarity may have come of adverse fortune,” said Sir Stafford, thoughtfully.
“I 'm certain he was always the same; at least, it would be impossible to imagine him anything different. But I have not come to speak of him, but of his daughter Kate, in whom I am deeply interested. You must know, Sir Stafford, that I have formed a little plan, for which I want your aid and concurrence. It is to take this dear girl along with us to Italy.”
“Take her to Italy! In what position, Lady Hester? You surely never intended any menial station?”
“Of course not; a kind of humble friend what they call a 'companion' in the newspapers to have always with one. She is exactly the creature to dissipate low spirits and banish ennui, and, with the advantages of training and teaching, will become a most attractive girl. As it is, she has not been quite neglected. Her French accent is very pure; German, I conclude, she talks fluently, she plays prettily, at least, as well as one can judge on that vile tinkling old harpsichord, whose legs dance every time it is touched, and sings very pleasingly those little German ballads that are now getting into fashion. In fact, it is the tone of society that mannerism of the world she is deficient in more than anything else.”
“She certainly could not study in a better school than yours, Lady Hester; but I see some very great objections to the whole scheme, and without alluding to such as relate to ourselves, but simply those that regard the young lady herself. Would it be a kindness to withdraw her from the sphere wherein she is happy and contented, to mingle for a season or so in another and very different rank, contracting new habits of thought, new ideas, new associations, learning each day to look down upon that humble lot to which she must eventually return?”
“She need not return to it. She is certain to marry, and marry well. A girl with so many attractions as she will possess may aspire to a very high match indeed!”
“This is too hazardous a game of life to please my fancy,” said Sir Stafford, dubiously. “We ought to look every contingency in the face in such a matter as this.”
“I have given the subject the very deepest consideration,” replied Lady Hester, authoritatively. “I have turned the question over and over in my mind, and have not seen a single difficulty for which there is not an easy remedy.”
“Sydney certainly ought to be consulted.”
“I have done so already. She is charmed with the project. She sees, perhaps, how few companionable qualities she herself possesses, and anticipates that Miss Dalton will supply that place towards me that she is too indolent and too indifferent to fill.”
“How would the family receive such a proposition? They seem to be very proud. Is it likely that they would listen to a project of this nature?”
“There lies the only difficulty; nor need it be an insuperable one, if we manage cleverly. The affair will require delicate treatment, because if we merely invite her to accompany us, they will naturally enough decline an invitation, to comply with which would involve a costly outlay in dress and ornament, quite impossible in their circumstances. This must be a matter of diplomacy, of which the first step is, however, already taken.”
“The first step! How do you mean?”
“Simply, that I have already, but in the deepest confidence, hinted the possibility of the project to Kate Dalton, and she is wild with delight at the bare thought of it. The dear child! with what rapture she heard me speak of the balls, and fetes, and theatres of the great world! of the thousand fascinations society has in store for all who have a rightful claim to its homage, the tribute rendered to beauty, greater than that conceded to rank or genius itself! I told her of all these, and I showed her my diamonds!”
Sir Stafford made, involuntarily, a slight gesture with his hand, as though to say, “This last was the coup de grace.”
“So far, then, as Kate is concerned, she will be a willing ally; nor do I anticipate any opposition from her quiet, submissive sister, who seems to dote upon her. The papa, indeed, is like to prove refractory; but this must be our business to overcome.”
Lady Hester, who at the opening of the interview had spoken with all the listlessness of ennui, had gradually worked herself up to a species of ardor that made her words flow rapidly, a sign well known to Sir Stafford that her mind was bent upon an object that would not admit of gainsay. Some experience had taught him the impolicy of absolute resistance, and trained him to a tactic of waiting and watching for eventualities, which, whether the campaign be civil, military, or conjugal, is not without a certain degree of merit. In the present case there were several escape-valves. The Daltons were three in number, and should be unanimous. All the difficulties of the plan should be arranged, not alone to their perfect satisfaction, but without a wound to their delicacy. Grounsell was certain to be a determined opponent to the measure, and would, of course, be consulted upon it. And, lastly, if everything worked well and favorably, Lady Hester herself was by no means certain to wish for it the day after she had conquered all opposition.
These, and many similar reasons, showed Sir Stafford that he might safely concede a concurrence that need never become practical, and making a merit of his necessity, he affected to yield to arguments that had no value in his eyes.
“How do you propose to open the campaign, Hester?” asked he, after a pause.
“I have arranged it all,” said she, with animation. “We must visit the Daltons together, or better still you shall go alone. No, no; a letter will be the right thing, a very carefully written letter, that shall refute by anticipation every possible objection to the plan, and show the Daltons the enormous advantages they must derive from it.”
“As, for instance?” said Sir Stafford, with apparent anxiety to be instructed.
“Enormous they certainly will be!” exclaimed she. “First of all, Kate, as I have said, is certain to marry well, and will be thus in a position to benefit the others, who, poor things, can do nothing for themselves.”
“Very true, my dear, very true. You see all these things far more rapidly and more clearly than I do.”
“I have thought so long and so much about it, I suppose there are few contingencies of the case have escaped me; and now that I learn how you once knew and were attached to the poor girl's mother—”
“I am sorry to rob you of so harmless an illusion,” interrupted he, smiling; “but I have already said I never saw her.”
“Oh, you did say so! I forget all about it. Well, there was something or other that brought the families in relation, no matter what, and it must be a great satisfaction to you to see the breach restored, and through my intervention, too; for I must needs say, Sir Stafford, there are many women who would entertain a silly jealousy respecting one who once occupied the first place in their husband's esteem.”
“Must I once more assure you that this whole assumption is groundless; that I never—”
“Quite enough; more than I ask for, more than I have any right to ask for,” broke she in. “If you did not interrupt me, and pardon me if I say that this habit of yours is calculated to produce innumerable misconceptions, I say that, if I had not been interrupted, I would have told you that I regard such jealousies as most mean and unworthy. We cannot be the arbiters of our affections any more than of our fortunes; and if in early life we may have formed attachments imprudent attachments.” Here her Ladyship, who had unwittingly glided from the consideration of Sir Stafford's case to that of her own, became confused and flurried, her cheek flushing and her chest heaving. She looked overwhelmed with embarrassment, and it was only after a long struggle to regain the lost clew to her discourse she could falteringly say, “Don't you agree with me? I 'm sure you agree with me.”
“I 'm certain I should if I only understood you aright,” said he, good-naturedly, and by his voice and look at once reassuring her.
“Well, so far, all is settled,” said she, rising from her chair. “And now for this letter; I conclude the sooner it be done the better. When may we hope to get away from this dreary place?”
“Grounsell tells me, by Friday or Saturday next I shall be able for the journey.”
“If it had not been to provoke me, I 'm certain he would have pronounced you quite well ten days ago.”
“You forget, Hester, my own sensations not to say sufferings could scarcely deceive me.”
“On the contrary, Dr. Clarus assured me there is nothing in the world so very deceptive; that pain is only referred to the diseased part by the brain, and has no existence whatever, and that there is no such thing as pain at all. He explained it perfectly, and I understood it all at the time. He is so clever, Dr. Clarus, and gives people such insight into the nature of their malady, that it really becomes quite interesting to be ill under his care. I remember when William, the footman, broke his arm, Clarus used to see him every day; and to show that no union, as it is called, could take place so long as motion continued, he would gently grate the fractured ends of the bone together.”