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+Project Gutenberg's Dilemmas of Pride, (VOL 1 OF 3), by Margracia Loudon
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Dilemmas of Pride, (VOL 1 OF 3)
+
+Author: Margracia Loudon
+
+Release Date: April 4, 2011 [EBook #35769]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DILEMMAS OF PRIDE, (VOL 1 OF 3) ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Heather Clark and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                             DILEMMAS OF PRIDE.
+
+                        BY THE AUTHOR OF FIRST LOVE.
+
+                             IN THREE VOLUMES.
+
+                                  VOL. I.
+
+
+                                  LONDON:
+
+                       BULL AND CHURTON, HOLLES STREET.
+
+                                   1833.
+
+
+
+
+                             DILEMMAS OF PRIDE.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER I.
+
+
+The immense extent and beautiful irregularity of the grounds, the
+unfathomable depth of the woods, the picturesque ramifications of some
+of the most conspicuously situated of the very old trees, the hour, for
+it was almost midnight, the numerous bonfires scattered in all
+directions, the innumerable tenantry gathered round them, the crowd of
+moving forms extending as far as the eye could penetrate into the
+darkness; and, quite in the fore-ground, the figure of a blind old man
+who had been born in the family, and grown grey in its service, playing,
+with the most extravagant demonstrations of delight, on a rude harp,
+that instrument so surrounded with poetic associations; seated too
+beneath a spreading cedar, the trunk and undermost branches of which,
+together with his countenance and white hair, were strongly illuminated
+by an adjacent heap of blazing pine,--all gave to Arden Park a demesne
+of such unlimited magnificence, that it formed in itself a sort of
+sylvan empire, a powerful resemblance, at the moment of which we speak,
+to what our imaginations are prone to figure of the feasts of _Shells_,
+as described by that poet of ancient bards and burning oaks, the
+venerable Ossian.
+
+On an abrupt and rocky eminence, at some distance, but still within the
+park, stood the picturesque remains of Arden Castle, once the residence
+of the ancestors of the family. Its round towers of different
+dimensions, some still perfect, its perpendicular site, the trees and
+turn of the river at its base, were all rendered conspicuous by the
+clear light of the moon now about to set behind the ruins.
+
+In all the ancient deeds the landed property derived its designation
+from this castle, and it was still customary for the heir to take formal
+possession of the roofless walls, ere he was considered true Lord of the
+Manor; a ceremony which had in the course of the day just passed, been
+duly performed.
+
+A little removed from the old castle, emerging from the trees, appeared
+the square turret of another ruin, called the Grey Friary, once the
+residence of monks, to whom at that time a portion of the lands
+appertained, while along the verge of the horizon, the spires of several
+churches were just visible, breaking the dark line formed by seemingly
+interminable woods.
+
+The modern house, a magnificent structure, standing on a commanding
+eminence, the approach to which was gradual in the midst of a park and
+woodlands comprising above thirty thousand acres, now poured from every
+door and window streams of cheerful light.
+
+Figures were discernible within, some moving in the merry dance, others
+thronging to and from halls dedicated to hospitable cheer.
+
+We have already said it was near midnight: the day had been spent in
+festivities, held to celebrate the coming of age of Sir Willoughby
+Arden, now (his father having been sometime dead,) the head of the
+ancient family to whom the property belonged.
+
+The rejoicings, not only those going forward beneath the sheltering roof
+of the mansion but those also out of doors, were kept up thus late in
+compliment to Alfred Arden, the twin brother of the heir. The elder twin
+had been born about nine in the evening, the younger not till after
+twelve at night. To unite, therefore, the two distinct birth-days in the
+one festival, and thus preserve unsevered the more than brotherly tie,
+it had been resolved that no guest, of whatever denomination, should
+depart till the hour of midnight had been ushered in with every possible
+demonstration of joy.
+
+The county-town, though not above a quarter of a mile removed, was quite
+planted out: the spires already noticed, and which were highly
+ornamental to the landscape, being all pertaining of city scenery, which
+was visible over the tops of the trees.
+
+The clocks of some of the churches now began to strike. A spell at the
+instant seemed to fall upon all: the music ceased, the voices of
+revelry were hushed, and that peculiar stillness prevailed which seemed
+to indicate that every individual in the crowd was occupied in counting
+the solemn chimes. The nearest and loudest bell took the lead, and was
+quite distinct from the rest, while the others followed, like answering
+echoes, in the distance. A second after the number twelve was completed,
+one universal shout rent the air! The health of Alfred Arden was drank
+within the mansion, and arms might be seen waving above the heads of the
+guests: after which, Sir Willoughby, leading his brother forward, issued
+from the open door, and stood on the centre of the steps.
+
+Servants held up lighted flambeaux on either side, and the old butler,
+with hair as white as the harper's, presented a goblet of wine. Sir
+Willoughby announced his brother with enthusiasm, and then drank to the
+health of Alfred Arden. A simultaneous movement among the groups around
+the bonfires indicated that they were following his good example, and
+the next moment three times three resounded from the crowd.
+
+In about an hour after this all was still, save the solitary voice of a
+distant waterfall. Every light was quenched, and dying embers, which
+from time to time as they fell together flashed for an instant, were all
+that remained of the scattered bonfires. The merry crowd had sought
+their respective homes, and the inhabitants of the mansion had retired
+to rest, with the exception of Lady Arden, who sat at an open window,
+taking leave as it were of familiar scenes which, when the light of
+morning next dawned upon them, would no longer be her home.
+
+In marrying the late Sir Alfred, the then head of the family, in
+obedience to the wishes of her parents, she had sacrificed an early
+attachment to his youngest brother.
+
+Sir Alfred had, however, proved a very polite husband, and she had for
+years been the mistress, nay, the very princess of a princely mansion, a
+splendid establishment, and a magnificent demesne; she had possessed
+every luxury that art and wealth could procure, and at the same time had
+been surrounded by all the beauties of nature on the most extensive
+scale.
+
+All had now passed away! It was to her son, 'tis true, and he was
+dutiful and affectionate, and would always, she had no doubt, make her
+welcome, but of course as a visitor; and whenever her son should marry
+(which she certainly wished him to do), a stranger would be mistress of
+all; and to the courtesy of that stranger she must owe permission to
+cross the threshold of her long accustomed home.
+
+She did not mean absolutely to murmur; but there was something pensive,
+at least, if not melancholy in such thoughts.
+
+While her son was a minor, Arden Park had still been hers, at least the
+right of living there; but to-morrow she was to set out for town; she
+was to take her daughters from under the shelter of their father's roof,
+to become wanderers as it were, on the world's wide wilderness. She
+would have a house in town, 'tis true: a short season of each year would
+be spent there, and the remainder in temporary and probably agreeable
+homes in the various watering-places. But she felt a painful
+consciousness, that, of the adventitious rank which the mere
+_prejudices_ of society bestow, herself and daughters would now lose
+many steps; and that the latter must, whenever she should die, if they
+were not married, lose many more; nay, be probably reduced, at last, by
+the insufficiency of their portions as younger children, to the state of
+poor aunt Dorothea, whom she had herself often held up to them as a
+warning of the miseries attendant on remaining single.
+
+Aunt Dorothea's afflictions were not always of the tragic order, and the
+remembrance of some of them called up, at the moment, despite her solemn
+reflections, a faint smile on the countenance of Lady Arden; followed,
+however, by a sigh, for the subject now came home to her feelings in a
+manner it had never done before.
+
+So absorbing had been her reflections, that she had not noticed the
+gathering clouds which had gradually extinguished every star, and
+darkened the heavens, till all on which she still looked out had become
+one black and formless mass. At the instant, a vivid flash of lightning
+gave to her view, with the most minute distinctness of outline, not only
+the grand features of the landscape generally, but, prominent above all,
+the ruins of the castle, the rocky eminence on which they stood, the
+river at its foot, and the trees that surrounded its base. Thunder and
+violent rain followed, and the wind rose to a hurricane. There existed a
+superstitious belief among the country people that a tremendous tempest
+always preceded or accompanied any event fatal to a member of the Arden
+family. A remembrance of this crossed the mind of Lady Arden at the
+moment, but was of course rejected as silly to a degree. Besides, she
+added mentally, if an idea so absurd required refutation, the present
+occasion being one of rejoicing, would be quite sufficient to satisfy
+any reasonable mind. She retired to rest, however, with saddened
+feelings, while the castle, crowning its rocky site, as already
+described, floated before her eyes, even after their lids were closed;
+and when she slept, the vision still blended with her dreams, as did the
+forms of the Baron and his two sons, described in the legend of the
+castle, and all strangely mixed up with the festivities of the previous
+day, and the forms of her own happy blooming family.
+
+The legend alluded to, and which had given rise to the superstition we
+have mentioned, ran thus.
+
+Some centuries ago, the Baron had two sons, who, when boys, had climbed,
+one day, during a fearful thunder storm to the topmost turret of the
+castle, which was at the time enveloped in clouds.
+
+When, however, the storm was over, their bodies were found, locked in
+each other's arms, laying in the river at the foot of the rock on which
+the castle stands. The old Baron died of grief, and the property went to
+a distant relative, who, it was vaguely hinted, had followed the youths
+unseen, and while they stood gazing at the storm, had treacherously
+drawn the coping-stone from beneath their feet; others maintained the
+only grounds for this foul suspicion to be, that the said stone was
+certainly found on the inner side the parapet, while the bodies of the
+youths lay below.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER II.
+
+
+When Lady Arden arose in the morning all was calm and sunshine.
+
+The storm of the night might have seemed a dream but for the still
+visible traces of its ravages. The river was greatly swollen, and
+several of the largest and finest of a range of magnificent old trees
+which had grown on the brow of a sloping bank, forming a beautiful
+feature in the landscape, now lay on the ground, literally uprooted by
+the violence of the tempest. Their fate, however, was soon forgotten in
+that of two young oaks, which had been planted beside each other on the
+lawn, on the joint birth-day of her two sons. The lightning had
+shattered both: Lady Arden viewed them for the moment with a shuddering
+sensation of superstitious dread, the influence of which it required all
+her good sense to resist.
+
+Geoffery Arden, the only nephew of the late Sir Alfred, was standing on
+the grass, with his arms folded, and looking rather askance than
+directly at the remains of the blasted trees, while his eye-brows were
+drawn up contemptuously, and a somewhat scornful smile curled his lip,
+as he marked blind Lewin the Harper, his countenance full of woe,
+feeling, with visibly trembling hands, each shattered branch of the
+uprooted oaks, while the large tears were falling from his sightless
+eyes.
+
+The brothers Willoughby and Alfred, and their three sisters, all
+seemingly attracted by the same object, issued one by one, from the
+open glass door of the breakfast room, and gathered round the spot; each
+looked playfully dismal for a moment, and the next uttered some laughing
+remark. They were soon joined by their mother; and the group would have
+formed a striking family picture. Lady Arden was still a very fine
+woman: from her mild temper the sweetness of her countenance was yet
+unimpaired, while the expression of maternal tenderness,--and this from
+the late tenor of her thoughts was unconsciously mingled with something
+of solicitude,--with which she viewed her children, her sons now
+especially, and Alfred in particular, her favourite son, gave additional
+interest to her appearance.
+
+Alfred's sparkling eye and blooming cheek did not, however, seem to
+justify much anxiety on his account; his brother too, though he had
+always been more delicate, seemed at present in excellent health and
+spirits, while the three sisters were young, handsome, and happy
+looking. Geoffery Arden still stood apart, as though there were but
+little fellowship of feeling between him and the rest of the group.
+
+He was a lad of eighteen or nineteen before the marriage of his uncle,
+the late Sir Alfred; and from a child had been in the habit of hearing
+his father and mother, and such of their particular friends as sought to
+flatter their secret wishes, speculate on the possibility of his uncle's
+never marrying, and his being consequently heir to the Arden estates,
+which were strictly entailed in the male line. Nay, his very nursemaid's
+usual threat was, that if he cried when his face was being washed, he
+should never be Sir Geoffery. At school, all the boys at play hours had
+somehow or other acquired the habit of calling him Sir Geoffery; and at
+college his companions, particularly those who wished to flatter him
+into idle extravagance, constantly joked and complimented him about his
+great _expectations_. Thus had those expectations, unjustly founded as
+they were, grown with his growth and strengthened with his strength;
+till, when his uncle did marry, he could scarcely help thinking himself
+an injured, robbed, and very ill-treated person. Hope however revived a
+little, on the first three children chancing to be daughters, and his
+mother began again to say, he might have the Arden estates
+yet:--stranger things had happened. "And you might marry one of the
+girls, you know, Geoffery," she would continue,--"it would be some
+compensation to poor Sir Alfred for having no son."
+
+"Indeed I should do no such thing," he would reply. "I should just
+please myself. It's not to oblige me, I suppose, that my uncle has no
+son."
+
+The birth of the twin brothers, immediately after this, put an end to
+all further speculations on the subject; except, indeed, that Mrs. Arden
+could not help observing that, "after all, the lives of two weakly
+infants, as twins of course must be, with the measles, hooping-cough,
+and all other infantile diseases before them, were not worth much."
+
+Geoffery became sulky under his disappointment, and said very little;
+but silently he hated the twins for having been born. Of what use were
+they, he thought; for what purpose had they been brought into the world,
+except indeed to ruin his prospects.
+
+Had they never been born, they would not have wanted the property, and
+he might have enjoyed it. Now he must go and drudge at a profession,
+the very idea of which, after his imagination had been so long dazzled
+by false hopes, he absolutely loathed.
+
+He had been educated for the Bar, but had neglected his studies. He had
+been dissipated without gaiety of heart, and a gambler from avarice. His
+hopes had made him proud, while his fears had made him gloomy. In short,
+he had contrived to extract the evil from every thing, while he had
+avoided all that was good. As to his legal studies, he had never read
+any portion with interest or attention but the law of male entail.
+
+He was a bachelor, and likely to remain such: for he could not afford to
+marry, unless he obtained a much larger fortune than he was entitled to
+expect.
+
+There was nothing he could exactly dare to do to injure his cousins;
+but he hated them both, and kept an evil eye upon them. As for his
+female cousins, he did not take the trouble of actively hating them, he
+merely despised them as beings shut out from all possibility of
+inheriting the property. Beautiful and high born as they were, he would
+not have accepted the hand of any one of them had it been offered to
+him.
+
+Sir Willoughby was goodnaturedly weak, and very vain;--his was a vanity
+however which, when it happened to be gratified, made him extremely
+happy, by keeping him in the highest good humour with himself. From him
+Geoffery won large sums at billiards, by flattering him on his play,
+'till he induced him to give him, habitually, such odds as amounted, in
+point of fact, to giving him the game, or, in other words, the sum
+staked upon it.
+
+Lady Arden often endeavoured to dissuade her son from acquiring so bad a
+habit as that of gambling, but in vain; for Willoughby, like all weak
+men, was obstinate to excess: he had besides a marvellous respect for
+the salique law, and that jealousy of being guided, which unhappily
+always forms a leading feature in the characters of those who stand most
+in need of guidance. Yet he was fondly attached to his mother; his
+greatest delight was to devise something for her pleasure or her
+accommodation; he was always ready to make her munificent presents; in
+short, he would do any thing to oblige her, with the exception of
+following her suggestions.
+
+Not that he always ungraciously refused requests that contained in them
+nothing prohibitory; he had no particular objection sometimes to do a
+thing he was asked to do; but a thing he was asked not to do, he was
+always sure to do! And if it happened to be a thing which Geoffery
+Arden wished should be done, he could always decide the point, by
+artfully complimenting his cousin on the _firmness_ of his character.
+
+Of Alfred, Geoffery could make nothing. He was frank, kind, and
+open-hearted; yet clear-seeing and decided. With him his mother's
+slightest wish but guessed at was a law: his sisters, too, could always
+coax him out of any plan of pleasure of his own, and get him to go with
+them. Not so those for whom he had no particular affection; he had never
+yet been known, in any one instance, to sacrifice his opinion of what
+was right, respectable, or amiable, to the persuasions of idle
+companions; so that he was already respected as well as regarded by
+thinking and discerning men much older than himself; some of them too,
+men who had bought their experience dearly enough and who were surprised
+into involuntary admiration of so young a person, who seemed to have his
+intuitively.
+
+His brother loved him in the most enthusiastic manner; more than he did
+his mother, or any one else in the world; yet, strange to say, such was
+Willoughby's dread of being governed, that even the brother whom he
+loved so much, had not the slightest influence over him; nay, Alfred was
+afraid to use persuasion of any kind, lest it should have a contrary
+effect; and yet, if he ever let it appear that he was in the slightest
+degree hurt or offended by this unmeaning and dogged obstinacy on the
+part of his brother, Willoughby's despair would sometimes, though but
+for a moment or two, manifest itself in a way perfectly terrifying; he
+would rush towards a window, or a river side, and threaten to fling
+himself out or in; so that Alfred, though he knew himself to be his
+brother's sole confidant, and the first object of his affections, was
+obliged, with great pain of course, to see him led away by designing
+people, especially his cousin Geoffery, into many practices far from
+prudent, yet not interfere; and even be thankful, when by refraining
+from so doing, he could avoid the recurrence of the distressing scenes
+alluded to. Willoughby had received a blow on the head when a child,
+which had not then exhibited any serious consequences; whether this
+circumstance had any connection with the occasional strangeness of his
+temper or not, it was impossible to say, but Alfred sometimes secretly
+feared it had. It was a thought, however, which he did not communicate
+even to his mother. Such was the family, which on the morning we have
+described, quitted Arden Park for London.
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER III.
+
+
+While the Arden family are on their way to town, we shall take a peep at
+the High-street in Cheltenham. Strings of carriages were driving
+backward and forward, from turnpike to turnpike, while the open
+barouches, filled with bonnets of every colour in the rainbow, flaunting
+and waving to and fro, looked like so many moving beds of full blown
+tulips. Foot-passengers too of all classes thronged the flag-ways.
+
+Among these was distinguishable a tall, large, and still handsome woman,
+apparently upwards of fifty. There was something aristocratic about
+both her countenance and carriage, although she was closely followed by
+a trollopy looking maid-servant, who carried a bandbox under each arm, a
+dressing-box in one hand, and a work-box in the other.
+
+Mistress and maid entered the private door or _genteel_ separate
+ingress, appropriated to lodgers, of a music-shop; and having the door
+at the further end of the passage opened, for the purpose of throwing
+light on the subject, stumbled up a still dark and very narrow
+staircase, at the top of which they turned abruptly into a small sunny
+drawing-room, furnished with chintz hangings, lined and draperied with
+faded pink calico. The carpet was a stamped cloth, of a showy pattern.
+It was a recent purchase, and therefore not yet faded; so that it
+secured to these lodgings, as being _superiorly_ furnished, a great
+preference over their competitors. In the centre of the room stood a
+table covered with a very dingy green baize, and round the walls were
+ranged some half dozen small mock rosewood chairs, accommodated with
+little square inclined planes, covered with pink calico, and called
+cushions. Either for want of strings at the back, or in consequence of
+such strings being out of repair, these said inclined planes, whenever
+you attempted to help yourself or any one else to a chair, flew off,
+either into the middle of the floor, or if it was the fire you had
+wished to approach, perchance under the grate. Over the mantelpiece was
+placed what the landlady considered _a very handsome_ chimney-glass, a
+_foot and half_ high, and about three wide; its gilt frame carefully
+covered with transparent yellow gauze. On the mantelpiece stood two
+bronze chimney lights, with cutglass drops, only it must be confessed
+there were but three of the drops remaining on one, and the other wanted
+two. The woman of the house, however, had promised faithfully to find
+the rest of the drops, and so restore to these embellishers of her
+establishment the whole of their pendant honours.
+
+"I wouldn't give much for their promises," answered Sarah, the maid,
+when, in reply to a comment of hers on the subject, she was told so by
+Mrs. Dorothea Arden, her mistress.
+
+"And here's no sofa, ma'am," she continued; "how are you to be sitting,
+the length of an evening, stuck upright on one of these here _ricketty_
+bits of chairs, I'd be glad to know."
+
+"Why, it will not be very comfortable, to be sure," answered Mrs.
+Dorothea, "so long as it lasts; but she has promised faithfully, that as
+soon as the sick lady goes away, which will be in about a week, she will
+let me have the sofa out of the next drawing-room."
+
+"A bird in the hand's worth two in the bush!" replied Sarah. "I dare say
+if the truth was known, they're not worth a sofa; or, if they are,
+they'll keep it in the next room, when it is vacant, to be a decoy-duck
+to another lodger. They're not going to let you have it, I promise you,
+now that they have got you fast for a month certain."
+
+"Well, if they don't, I can't help it," said Mrs. Dorothea; "one can't
+have every thing you know; and the new carpet certainly gives the room a
+very respectable appearance. And then there is a chiffonier; that's a
+great comfort to put one's groceries in; or a few biskets; or a bottle
+of wine, if one should be obliged to open one. The doors, to be sure,
+are lined with blue and they should have been pink."
+
+"And here's no key," said Sarah, examining the chiffonier; "and I
+declare if the lock _ante_ broke."
+
+"That is provoking," said Mrs. Dorothea, "she must get me a lock."
+
+Sarah was now dispatched with her bandboxes, and ordered to hurry the
+dinner and unpack the things.
+
+In about half an hour, Aunt Dorothea becoming hungry and impatient, rang
+her bell. Sarah reappeared, with a countenance of the utmost discontent,
+declaring she was never in such a place in her life; that there was no
+getting any thing done, and that as to unpacking, there was no use in
+attempting it, in a place where they should never be able to stop. When
+the dinner was asked for, she replied, that she believed it had been
+done some time, but that she supposed there was no one to bring it up,
+for all they had engaged to do the waiting. "But there's sixteen of
+themselves, shop boys and all; and they _gets_ their own tea the while
+your dinner's a cooking it seems."
+
+When the dinner did come up, it was cold, and consisted of mutton-chops,
+which had evidently been upset into the ashes. Poor Aunt Dorothea
+consequently made but a slender repast.
+
+The next day, while engaged in the labours of the toilet, she thus
+addressed Sarah; for people who live quite alone, are too apt to get
+into a way of gossiping with their servants.
+
+"It's a very long time since the Salters have called; is it not,
+Sarah?"
+
+"A very long time indeed ma'am," replied the abigail, "they was a saying
+to their own maid the other day (they don't know I suppose as she is a
+friend of mine), for they was a saying, as I said, that they didn't
+think as they should call any more; for that nobody never knew where to
+find you, as you was always a changing your lodgings; and that as to
+your having a sister that was a lady, they didn't believe a word of it;
+for though you was always a talking of Lady Arden coming, she never
+come."
+
+"What impertinence! Well, Lady Arden will be here this season to a
+certainty. She is to come direct from London; and I'll take care they
+shall not be introduced to her. Was there ever such ingratitude! People
+that had not a creature to speak to, till I introduced them to every one
+they know. I even made so particular a request of my friends that they
+would call on them, that I quite laid myself under obligations to
+people. They could find out my lodgings fast enough, when they were
+coming to my little sociable parties five nights out of the seven;
+declaring they did not know what was to become of them, were it not for
+my kindness; and that the more they saw how differently others behaved
+to them, the more were they obliged to me; and then making such a vulgar
+noise about the number of invitations they were in my debt and their
+grief at not having it in their power as yet to make any return."
+
+"Then I can tell you ma'am," said Sarah, "they are to have a grand party
+this very night at the rooms, and never had the manners to ask you."
+
+"I know their cards have been out for some time. And who are they to
+have, did you hear?"
+
+"Oh, titles without end, they say; and generals and baronets, and all
+sorts of fine people. Mrs. Johnson _sais_, as the young ladies should
+say, they were determined as their party should _exist_ entirely of
+_excuses_."
+
+"Exclusives you mean, I suppose; but did you hear any of the names?"
+
+"Why yes ma'am; they are to have Sir Matthias and Lady Whaleworthy."
+
+"Sir Matthias indeed!" repeated Mrs. Dorothea, "an alderman
+cheesemonger, knighted only the other day; and as for his poor
+goodnatured, vulgar wife, she has been fattened on whey, I suppose, till
+no reasonable door can admit her."
+
+"Well to be sure!" exclaimed the abigail, "and then they are to have Sir
+Henry and Lady Shawbridge."
+
+"Sir Henry, poor man," said Mrs. Dorothea, "was only knighted by
+mistake. I don't know what he was himself, but they say he had just
+married his cook-maid; and her ladyship certainly has all the
+fiery-faced fierceness of that order about her."
+
+"A cook-maid, ma'am! why I am a step above that myself. And let me see,
+who else--oh, there's to be Lady Flamborough."
+
+"She is a woman of rank certainly, or rather the widow of a man of rank;
+for she is of very low birth herself; and what is much worse, she is a
+woman of bad character, which of course prevents her being visited, so
+that she is glad to go any where. And who else pray?"
+
+"Sir William Orm, that Mrs. Johnson _sais_ is such a fine gentleman."
+
+"Sir William Orm," repeated Mrs. Dorothea, "he is a known black-leg; a
+man shut out from all good society; he may do very well for the Salters,
+however, if he can endure their vulgarity."
+
+"There is another title," said Sarah, "let me see--Sir--Sir--Sir Francis
+Beerton, or Brierton, I think."
+
+"Poor little man," said Mrs. Dorothea, "there is no particular harm in
+him; but his wife is so sanctified, that she will neither go any where,
+nor see any one at home; so that he is glad of any thing for variety.
+Strange notions some people have of duty! in my opinion, if a woman will
+not make a man's home comfortable and agreeable to him, she becomes
+accountable for all the sins he may commit abroad, although she should
+be praying for his conversion the whole time. Well, who comes next on
+your list?"
+
+"I don't think as I remember any more, excepting General Powel."
+
+"He, poor old man, is mere lumber; neither useful nor ornamental, nobody
+will be troubled with him who can get anybody else to fill up their
+rooms; so that I should suppose he is not incumbered with many
+invitations."
+
+"Well who would a thought of their being such a _despisable_ set; and so
+many titles among them too; why to have heard Mrs. Johnson talk o' them,
+you'd supposed they had been so many kings and queens."
+
+"It was a set I should not have joined certainly; but quite good enough
+for the Salters, whom I should never have visited, had the friend who
+wrote to me about them been sufficiently explicit as to who and what
+they were. The daughters, I suppose, would be excessively indignant if
+they thought it was known that their father had made his fortune
+somewhere in Devonshire, by a contract for supplying the navy with
+beef."
+
+"Supplying beef, ma'am! Why isn't that all as one as being a butcher?"
+
+"Not unlike it, certainly," replied Mrs. Dorothea.
+
+"Well, who would have thought, and they so proud: but it's always them
+there upstartish sort that's the impudentst and most unbearable."
+
+"It is in general the way those sort of people betray themselves. If
+they behaved in a modest unpretending manner, very possible no questions
+might be asked. After their ingratitude and impertinence to me, I for
+one shall make no secret of the circumstance. And the very young men
+that eat Mr. Salter's roast beef now, washed down too with his champaign
+and his claret, will not be the less ready to jeer at the time he sold
+the same commodity raw. When my sister, Lady Arden, comes, and her three
+beautiful daughters, they will of course have all the young men in
+Cheltenham about them; so that I shall be acquainted with them all; and
+I shall take care they shall not be in the dark about the Misses Salter,
+who shall find that I am not to be insulted with impunity."
+
+"And I shall have some fun with our butcher about it," said Sarah; "I
+shall tell him to be particular what sort of meat he sends to such a
+good judge as Mr. Salter. Perhaps you could spare me for a couple of
+hours this evening, ma'am?" she added, when her mistress was attired.
+
+"What for, Sarah? you are always asking leave to go out. I must say you
+are very idly inclined. How are my summer things ever to be ready at
+this rate. This mulberry silk has been looking quite out of season, ever
+since the sunny weather came in."
+
+"I am sure, ma'am, there is not a young person in Cheltenham sits as
+close to their needle as what I do; but this evening Mrs. Johnson has,
+of course, the privilege of the music-gallery, and she has offered me a
+place. I thought you might like, perhaps, to hear how the party went
+off?"
+
+"Oh, certainly I should!" replied Mrs. Dorothea. "Well, Sarah, you may
+go, and mind you have all your eyes about you, and bring me a full
+account of every thing. And notice if there is any body there that I
+know--and how the people are dressed--and how often the refreshment
+trays come in--and whether they attempt a supper--and who begins the
+dancing. The Miss Salters will get partners for once in their lives, I
+suppose! And I dare say they will contrive to have a tolerably full
+room; for I hear they have been getting all their acquaintance to give
+away cards, right and left; Lady Matthias alone boasts that she has
+disposed of three dozen."
+
+Sarah promised strict compliance with all the directions she had
+received, and disappeared in great haste, to pin new bows in her bonnet,
+and slip stiffeners into the large sleeves of her best silk dress;
+determining to complete her costume for the occasion, by lending herself
+her mistress's pea-green china crape shawl and black lace veil.
+
+Mrs. Dorothea Arden, as soon as she was alone, sighed unconsciously; for
+visions of her early days presented themselves suddenly and unbidden,
+forming a violent contrast with the whole class of petty and degrading
+thoughts and interests, to which circumstances had gradually habituated,
+at least, if not reconciled her.
+
+Ere she had quitted the pedestal of her youthful pride, beneath the
+shelter of her father's roof, with what appalling horror would she have
+thought of the chance-collected mob, about whose movements she was now
+capable of feeling an idle curiosity.
+
+Vague recollections, too, passed with the quickness of a momentary
+glance, through her mind, of eligible establishments rejected with
+scorn, of comfort and respectability cast away, for dreams of ambition
+it had never been her fate to realize.
+
+She paused, and some seconds were given to a remembrance apart from
+every other, which, though now but faintly seen amid the haze of
+distance, still seemed a little illumined speck, on which a sun-beam,
+piercing some aperture in a cloudy sky had chanced to fall.
+
+But it was too late, quite too late for such thoughts, so she went out
+to pay some morning visits, to send in a veal cutlet for her dinner, and
+find out, more particularly, who were to be at the Salter's party.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+Mr. Salter and his two daughters, the former equipped in a new wig, the
+latter in two new dresses, expressly for the occasion, were parading up
+and down the yet vacant public ballroom.
+
+The lights were burning, the waiters in attendance, and the orchestra
+playing; while, peeping over the shoulder of the double bass, appeared a
+particularly smart bonnet, decorated with numerous bows of quite new
+ribbon, and further graced by a very handsome black lace veil.
+
+"What can all the people be thinking of?" said Mr. Salter at last; "I
+have a mind to order the lights to be put out, and go away home to my
+bed. It would be just a proper punishment for them all. And pray," he
+added, looking at his daughters' dresses, "what are these gig-meries to
+cost?" At this crisis resounded the welcome sounds, "Sir Matthias and
+Lady Whaleworthy:" with quickened steps and delighted countenances, our
+trio hastened towards the bottom of the room, to receive their guests,
+now, as by magic, flowing in altogether.
+
+Introductions were endless; every leading bird was followed by a flock,
+which neither host nor hostess had ever seen before; while, from time to
+time, the promised titles, those stars which were to give brilliancy to
+the night, made their appearance, sprinkling the common herd with
+consequence. Lady Flamborough! Sir William Orm! Sir Henry and Lady
+Shawbridge! Next appeared poor old General Powel and half blind Sir
+Francis Brierton, poking his little sharp nose into everybody's face,
+and smirking his recognition, when by so doing he had discovered who
+they were; and though last not least, Sir James Lindsey; least in
+consequence we mean, for he was a very little, very ugly man, the
+express image of the knave of spades. He was, however, a vastly
+important personage, a bachelor baronet, with fifteen thousand a-year,
+and a man of good family too, so that there was no objection whatever to
+him, except that he was a fool, and that when he danced he so capered
+and kicked up behind, and rounded his elbows, and, in short, made
+himself so completely the butt and laughing-stock of the whole room, it
+was with difficulty that even his fifteen thousand per annum could
+procure him a partner.
+
+We rather suspect, however, that there were ladies who, though they
+shrank from sharing with Sir James the unprofitable ridicule of the
+hour, would have had no objection to share with him for life his fifteen
+thousand a-year, for, in that case, they could afford to be laughed at.
+
+Sir James had a brother, a very fine young man, remarkably handsome and
+equally clever; perhaps a little too hot-headed, but warm-hearted
+withal; an enthusiast in beauty, painting, music, scenery, every thing
+in short at which a glowing imagination takes fire; the very material
+for a frantic lover, yet condemned by his circumstances, either to lead
+a single life, or possibly at least contract a marriage with the purse
+of some old rich widow, fitter to be his mother than his wife. For Henry
+Lindsey was one of the many living sacrifices hourly immolated on the
+altars of _pride_, and how many a holocaust has been offered up upon
+those altars!
+
+How often have we heard persons, who could argue rationally enough on
+other subjects, gravely assert, in reply to every argument which good
+feeling or justice could urge, "A family must have a head."
+
+In this particular instance the head, or _pride_ of the family, had
+proved its disgrace, yet standing laws and previously made settlements
+could not be altered. Fifteen thousand per annum, therefore, must be
+melted down, to make a golden image of poor little silly Sir James,
+while Henry, with the pittance which as a younger child was his portion,
+was obliged to purchase the privilege of being shot at; for the younger
+brother of an old baronet _could not disgrace his family_ by doing any
+thing likely to provide _comfortably for himself_.
+
+Thus do the _prejudices_ of society seem to have been invented for the
+express purpose of hunting down and crushing those whom its laws have
+robbed and oppressed.
+
+Children of the same parents must be defrauded of the birthright, by
+natural justice theirs, to heap all on one brother! And for what
+purpose? That he may keep alive, by being its living representative,
+that _pride_, that _curse_, which forbids to those so defrauded, the use
+of honest means for earning honest bread!
+
+If, instead of this, all property which had been a father's, were, at
+his death, equally divided among his offspring, without revolution or
+confiscation, extravagant disparity of station would gradually
+disappear, and with it _pride_, that destroys the happiness, with its
+whole array of _prejudices_, waging eternal warfare against rational
+contentment.
+
+How many are there who might still, even as the world now is, dwell
+within a very garden of Eden, of peaceful and natural delights, and yet
+who virtually turn themselves out of the same; and, at the mere mandate
+of some _prejudice_ of society--some _by-law_ of _pride_, become
+wanderers through the thistle-grown wildernesses of discontent, or weary
+pilgrims amid the thorny paths of petty mortification.
+
+But to return to our ball: by this time so fair a proportion of the
+company had arrived, that it was thought advisable to commence dancing.
+For this purpose Mr. Salter, with a feeling of exultation which made him
+forget, for the time, what the whole entertainment was likely to cost,
+led Lady Flamborough to the head of the room. Her ladyship had evidently
+been pretty in her youth; but though the remains of a fine woman may
+sometimes be viewed with a blending of admiration with our veneration,
+mere prettiness seldom grows old gracefully. In Lady Flamborough's case
+it certainly did not. Her once nicely rounded little figure had now
+outgrown all bounds, not excepting those of the drapery which ought to
+have concealed its exuberance. Her once infantine features were now
+nearly lost in the midst of a countenance disproportionally increased in
+its general dimensions; while in manner she still played off numberless
+once becoming, but now disgusting, airs of artless innocence;
+languishing, lisping, and rolling her eyes; and childishly twisting her
+fingers through the ringlets of her hair, while looking up in her
+partner's face, and saying silly things.
+
+Had it been possible to have checked coquetry in Lady Flamborough, the
+sight of the senseless bloated countenance on which she was thus casting
+away those interesting appeals of her visual orbs, one would have
+thought might have done so.
+
+Mr. Salter's head was in shape something like a sugar loaf: the region
+denominated fore-head, and appropriated by phrenologists to the
+intellectual faculties, being so confined, that it nearly came to a
+point, while the descent widened as it approached the organs of
+gustativeness, and all that called itself face, concluded without any
+distinct line of demarcation, in a jole, much resembling that of a
+cod-fish.
+
+The eyes were colourless, and owed all the brilliancy they possessed to
+an inflammation of the lids, which never forsook them. The efforts of
+their owner, on the present occasion, to give them a languishing roll,
+that should correspond with that of her ladyship's, was truly ludicrous.
+As to his mouth, it bisected his countenance from ear to ear, which
+rendered his endeavours to spread it wider by that bland movement
+designated a smile, nearly abortive.
+
+A few additional lines of circular or spherical trigonometry were
+conspicuously marked upon cheeks that yielded in carnation hue to nought
+save the nose; while this rallying point of the vital powers, like
+certain well-known altars of the ancients, never allowed the flame to
+go out.
+
+Mr. Salter was exceedingly proud of his legs, (not that he had seen them
+himself for the last ten years), and though short for his body, which
+by-the-by had precisely the appearance of a Brobdingnag melon on
+castors, the legs themselves, when you were distant enough to have a
+view of them beneath the inflated balloon that otherwise concealed them,
+were certainly formed according to the rules of beauty; that is to say,
+they had very large calves, and very small ankles.
+
+We suppose it must have been the combined effect of the personal charms
+and the elevated rank of his partner, which raised Mr. Salter's spirits
+to so inconvenient a degree, as to produce in his mind a most frisky
+longing to behold, once more, this long remembered attraction of his
+own--his said handsome legs. Accordingly, while setting to the lady, he
+made several kicks out in front, with accompanying jerks forward of the
+head, in the vain hope of catching a glimpse; but, alas, in one
+unfortunate effort more strenuous than the rest, he lost his balance;
+out flew his feet, and down he came on his back, so much to the
+amusement of the whole room that no one for a time had the presence of
+mind to pick him up: while there he lay, sprawling and puffing, his own
+endeavours to rise being quite as fruitless as those of a beetle usually
+are, when placed in the same reversed position by a mischievous
+school-boy. Neither was the evening by any means one of unmixed delight
+to the Misses Salter. It was but too evident that even on the present
+occasion, when, if ever compliment was due to them, that the gentlemen
+evinced any thing but impatience to secure the felicity of being their
+partners. On the contrary, it was generally when a quadrille was nearly
+made up, and the last added couple were in great distress for a
+_vis-à-vis_, that some one who had previously made up his mind not to
+dance, was pressed into the service, and given a hint that one of the
+Miss Salters was sitting down.
+
+Even Sir James, though he did dance a set with each sister, did not do
+so till he had been shaken off by nearly every other woman in the room.
+
+The Scotch proverb says, "It's a lucky lass that's like her father."
+
+But we must confess, we never could discover that it was any advantage
+to Miss Salter to be so strikingly like her father as she certainly
+was. Miss Grace Salter was altogether of a different style; she was
+under-sized, pitiably thin, and extremely dark, with an expression of
+countenance as if she had just swallowed something unseasonably bitter,
+and was making a face at its disagreeable flavour. The set with Sir
+James could not much sooth the vanity of either sister, for no sooner
+did he commence operations, than a ring was immediately formed for the
+avowed purpose of laughing at him; while he, mistaking the general
+attention he drew for admiration, seemed gratefully determined to spare
+no pains to give the greatest possible satisfaction to his numerous
+spectators.
+
+The Misses Salter had also another source of uneasiness this evening. At
+all times their greatest earthly apprehension, next to that of not
+getting husbands themselves, was, lest their father should marry, and
+cut them out of a small sum, which not having been swallowed up in the
+purchase of the estate for John, he had promised to divide between them
+unless indeed he married again. His doing so seemed this evening more
+probable than ever it had done before. The roll of his eye, while
+looking at Lady Flamborough, had become quite ominous, while her
+ladyship's air of condescension was truly alarming.
+
+"Now it would be too bad, would it not?" said Miss Salter to Miss Grace
+Salter, as they were undressing, "if after all, this ball that we have
+been so long teazing at my father to give, and that he thinks so much
+about the expense of, should turn out to be our own ruin in the end."
+
+"Why, I am afraid, to be sure," replied her sister, "if he marries he
+won't leave us the money, or else it would be a grand connection!
+wouldn't it? We'd be sure to be visited by every body then."
+
+"That we should, no doubt," said Miss Salter, "but what of that, we
+shouldn't have a shilling in the world, comparatively speaking, when my
+father dies--and as for John--"
+
+"He wouldn't give us a shilling if we were starving!" observed Miss
+Grace.
+
+By John, they meant their brother. And, by-the-by, one of the reasons,
+in addition to their want of beauty, why these ladies were paid so
+little attention to by the gentlemen, was, that it was well known, Mr.
+Salter had a cub of a son, on whom he meant, in imitation of his
+betters, to heap the earnings and savings of his life, for the purpose,
+as he himself expressed it, of making a family: and, for that matter he
+didn't see why a man mightn't be prouder of being the first of his name
+to do so, than if he was come of a family ready made to his hand a
+thousand years ago! for sure, they must all have had a beginning one
+time or other.
+
+But as to being the first of his name to have a rise in the world, he
+was not so clear of that neither: he had often heard talk of a Lord
+Salter or Salisbury, or something beginning with an S; and he might
+become a lord, one time or other, for any thing he knew to the contrary.
+
+But be that as it may, "he wasn't going to have his money, that he had
+been a lifetime scraping together, squandered by idle fellows that were
+nothing at all akin to him, but would just come and marry his daughters
+to get hold of the cash."
+
+"But supposing, Sir, we shouldn't get married at all," said Miss Salter
+one day.
+
+"Nothing more likely," replied her father. "As for Grace, she is
+certainly as plain a girl as I'd desire to see any day. And I don't know
+how it is, you're not very handsome neither, tho' you're thought so like
+me."
+
+These observations of Mr. Salter's about being the first of his family
+were, by the particular desire of his daughters, strictly confined to
+his own fireside. There was no occasion, they argued, to make any such
+confession in a place like Cheltenham, where nobody knew anything about
+people, but what they choose to say of themselves. Accordingly, they
+made family their constant theme; and inquired with the most
+consequential airs about the connections of every one they heard named;
+always winding up their harangue by observing, that of course it was
+very natural for a man like their father, of such an ancient and highly
+respectable family, to be very particular about who they visited,
+particularly in those sorts of places where people of every description
+congregated.
+
+"It's no harm, you know," said Miss Salter to her sister, "to have the
+name of being particular, it makes people of consequence; at the same
+time I'd have us get acquainted with every creature we can, and go
+everywhere; there's no knowing where one might find one's luck."
+
+"Talking of luck," answered Grace, "I read in one of the new novels the
+other day, that 'luck knocks once at every one's door;' I wish it would
+knock once at mine, I know, and it shouldn't have to knock again."
+
+"And, by-the-by, was it quite prudent of us, on your plan, to cut Mrs.
+Dorothea Arden as we have done?"
+
+"Oh, yes; what's the use of an old maid, she can have no sons, you know;
+besides, we didn't cut her till Lady Whaleworthy, and Lady Flamborough,
+and Lady Shawbridge, and all of them, had called; and then I thought we
+could spare such old lumber as Mrs. Dorothea."
+
+"Why, to be sure, as you say, she can have no sons; indeed I never even
+heard her speak of a brother or a nephew; and as to her expecting this
+Lady Arden that she is always talking about, I am sure its nothing but a
+boast."
+
+"Nothing more you may be certain! And then I was afraid my father would
+have taken a fancy to her at last, for he was always saying, she was a
+fine woman for her years."
+
+"She was very useful however at first," said Grace.
+
+"Oh yes she was, certainly," replied Miss Salter, "but now you know we
+don't want her."
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER V.
+
+
+Lady Arden, leaning on her son Alfred, her eldest daughter on the other
+side, her two younger following, had just entered the ballroom at
+Almacks.
+
+The sisters, we have already said, were beautiful. They were all above
+the middle height, and finely formed; remarkably fair, with brilliant
+complexions, and very beautiful light brown hair.
+
+Jane, the eldest, had her mother's amiable, mild, regular features, and
+soft, modest, hazel eyes.
+
+Louisa, the second, much resembled her sister in the form of her
+features, except that her mouth was a very little larger, the lips
+fuller, and of a more vivid red, and the smile more conscious. Her eyes
+were of a grey colour, clear and sparkling; but in their expression
+there was too much of triumph, while her very blush had something in it
+of the same character; you felt, you knew not why, that it did not arise
+altogether from timidity.
+
+Her beauty, however, was perfectly exquisite; there was a rich
+luxuriance, a beaming lustre about her whole appearance, which seemed to
+gain by contrast with others, whom, while viewed separately, you had
+thought as handsome. It was like the undefinable distinction between
+the brilliant and its best imitations, most clearly seen when subjected
+to the ordeal of comparison.
+
+Madeline, the youngest, had a rounder face than her sisters, the
+features not quite so fine, yet lovely in their own perfectly innocent
+joyousness; while beautifying dimples accompanied her smiles, and fairy
+cupids danced in her laughing eyes.
+
+The sisters always dressed alike: on the present occasion, they all wore
+white lace over white satin; the lighter or outer drapery looped up on
+one side with a bunch of white roses, mixed with lilies of the valley:
+and a few of the same flowers in the hair on the contrary side. A set of
+diamonds each, unusually costly for girls, but which, by a whim of their
+maternal grandfather, they happened to possess, were their only
+ornaments.
+
+Lady Arden had never, since her widowhood, returned to colours; her
+invariable costume was black velvet; her diamonds, however, yielded in
+magnificence to those of royalty only. So that, what with the faces
+being quite new, and the appearance of the group altogether, not
+forgetting the handsome Alfred, was such as to excite considerable
+attention, even amid an assembly like the present, where youth, beauty,
+fashion, and splendour, habitually congregate.
+
+Willoughby was too important a personage to form one of the family
+picture. He was in the room, however, having just arrived in attendance
+on a party with whom he had dined.
+
+A young lady of remarkable beauty was leaning on his arm. He addressed
+her from time to time with great animation; while she appeared to listen
+with the most languid indifference. Young Lord Nelthorpe, one of their
+nearest neighbours at Arden, now approached our party. Jane had noticed
+him for some time, and, on first doing so, had coloured deeply. They had
+not met before since their arrival in town. He came up to our party, was
+very polite, and even friendly, but not quite as cordial as might have
+been expected. He conversed with Lady Arden for a little time. Music
+commenced, he made a slight bow, and moving quickly towards a lady at a
+little distance, led her to the quadrille. Jane had been so perfectly
+certain that he intended to dance with her, that when the music began,
+she had instinctively drawn her arm half way from within her mother's.
+Her disappointment was bitter, and arose from a feeling much deeper than
+the mere loss of a partner for the dance could have excited.
+
+From her earliest childhood she had been in the habit of hearing her own
+family speak of Lord Nelthorpe as a very suitable match. As children
+together, they had been quite little lovers. Public schools and colleges
+had broken off this familiarity of intercourse. He had, however, since
+arriving at the age of manhood, often paid her a good deal of attention
+in the country, where he had nothing else to do; and in some of the
+summer evening walks of the young people, a declaration had more than
+once seemed to tremble on his lips; still nothing decided had passed;
+and poor Jane's heart had been given away, some couple of years before
+she had begun to doubt the sincerity of his attachment, or the certainty
+of their future union. And why was Jane mistaken? Because, society being
+artificially constituted, the language of nature cannot explain the
+motives which govern its members; nor our own feelings, till we too
+become sophisticated, teach us to calculate upon those of others.
+
+The attention of Alfred was just at this moment attracted by the
+appearance of the younger of two ladies, who were standing at a little
+distance. They were evidently, from their striking resemblance, mother
+and daughter. The stature of both was rather above the middle height;
+that of the elder, from its queen-like carriage, and its being a little
+disposed to embonpoint, had a strikingly imposing and majestic effect;
+while that of the younger, though perfectly formed and beautifully
+rounded, was so delicate in its proportions, and so timid in its air, as
+to require comparison to convince the eye that the actual elevation was
+the same. The features of both were so regular, that it would be
+impossible for the scrutiny of the nicest artist, to discover a defect;
+but those of the elder were of a lustrous, conspicuous white, as though
+chiseled in Parian marble; those of the younger of a stainless
+transparency, as if modelled in the purest wax; the lips only of both
+were of a lively red; those of the elder, perhaps, a little too thin,
+but boasting the glossy scarlet of the coral; while those of the
+younger, full and bewitching in their expression, were of the tender
+tint of the rose's ambrosial centre. The hair, eye-brows, and eye-lashes
+of both were absolute jet; but while the firm braiding of the elder
+lady's tresses betrayed the usual defect of black hair--strength of
+texture--the raven ringlets of the younger rivalled the flaxen locks of
+childhood in their silken softness. The line of her eye-brow, too, was
+the most delicately penciled, and her eye-lashes the longest, or they
+seemed so, her eyes being cast down; while those of the elder lady were
+raised and fully visible. They were dark, large, and brilliant; but the
+supercilious vanity with which they moved slowly round, courting the
+universal admiration they drew towards them, without once shrinking from
+its glare, made it impossible for their lustre, splendid as it was, to
+reach any heart.
+
+Alfred observed an elderly gentleman with whom he was acquainted join
+the two ladies, and converse for a time with the air of an old intimate
+of the elder. As soon as he quitted them Alfred joined him; and with as
+much circumlocution, preparation, and management, as though he had in
+view nothing less than the place of prime minister, demanded if he
+could venture to introduce him to his fair friends, as a candidate for
+the hand of the younger lady for the next quadrille. Nothing could be
+easier: Lord Darlingford was intimate with the parties; accordingly, he
+presented our hero to Lady Palliser and her daughter, Lady Caroline
+Montague.
+
+The eyes of the latter were, at the moment of introduction, of necessity
+lifted to Alfred's face. In colour, size, and liquid lustre they
+resembled her mother's; but oh, how unlike were they in their mild,
+beseeching expression; and in the tremulous movement of the lids; which,
+as if weighed down by their sable veil of silken lashes, hastened again
+to overshadow them. The transparent cheek too, at the same instant that
+the eyes were raised, had been visited by a deep blush; gifting, though
+but for a fleeting instant, this beautiful, this almost too unearthly
+being with the warm glow of life.
+
+The effect on Alfred of the momentary vision was decisive of his fate.
+
+During the dance, to which this introduction led, the snatches of most
+exquisite pleasure experienced by our hero were when, by directly
+addressing his partner, he could again induce her to look up. On each
+such occasion, the beseeching expression already described, excited,
+despite the cooler suggestions of reason, a feeling as though the gentle
+appeal were addressed to him in particular. What was there so entreated
+that he would not have undertaken? The most difficult feats of ancient
+chivalry, nay, the impossibilities of necromancy itself, would have
+seemed tasks of easy performance in such a cause! His beautiful partner
+said very little; yet, from her general demeanour, and the fluttering
+frequency with which her changing colour came and went, it might be
+inferred that her reserve was neither that of haughtiness, nor of cold
+calculation, but rather an excess of almost painful timidity. This
+reserve, however, did not affect her performance of the quadrille, which
+was perfect; it was the harmony of motion realized. The absolute
+accordance was such that it seemed to be the influence of the musical
+sounds on the undulating air, which wafted the light form, "like the
+thistle-down floating on the breeze," through each evolution of the
+dance. Or when called upon to quit her original position in the
+quadrille for a few seconds and again return to it, such was the quiet
+grace with which she executed the task, that it seemed as though the
+delicate vision, fading away like Scott's White Lady of the Mist, had
+but ceased for a moment to be visible, and, in a moment more, again
+became palpable to sight.
+
+From time to time she looked at Lady Palliser; not, however, as though
+it were there she sought a refuge; for, on the contrary, there was an
+indescribable something in the manner of the glance, which conveyed the
+idea that her ladyship was the principal object of her daughter's fears.
+Yet again, the moment the quadrille was concluded, Lady Caroline
+expressed a wish to rejoin her mother. Lady Palliser received our hero
+with a coldness that very soon made him feel obliged to take himself
+off. At once captivated and mortified, he felt disinclined to dance any
+more, and rather disposed to indulge in reveries, while pursuing with
+his eyes the form of his new acquaintance through the moving crowd.
+Instead, however, of reclining indolently on a sofa, or lounging about
+with other men, he devoted himself, in the most amiable manner possible,
+to his mother and sisters for the remainder of the evening; and though
+they found him somewhat deaf, performed, when they did make him hear,
+any little service they required of him with great alacrity.
+Notwithstanding which, ere the evening was over, each of his sisters had
+severally informed him that he was already in love. Such secrets are
+generally discovered by others before they are known to the parties
+themselves.
+
+A friend of Lady Arden's, forgetful that her ladyship objected on
+principle to all younger sons, _except her own_, had introduced Henry
+Lindsey to Louisa. Her exquisite beauty dazzled and delighted him, while
+her gratified vanity, at the enthusiasm of his admiration, made her
+manner so encouraging, that he believed himself well received, and gave
+himself up to hopes and feelings destined to cost him many a bitter
+pang.
+
+Lord Darlingford, though a widower and a man, by his own account upwards
+of fifty, was much disposed, on the strength of his rank, to be a
+serious admirer of Jane Arden. This evening he found himself better
+received than usual; he did not deem it necessary to make a fool of
+himself by dancing, but was sitting apart with the lady, conversing very
+earnestly, and was just beginning to weigh the propriety of availing
+himself of so favourable an opportunity for making her an offer of
+marriage, when Lord Nelthorpe came up and asked her to dance. The moment
+before she had determined, if he did do so at this late period of the
+evening, to reject his offer. As soon, however, as he approached, and
+preferred his request, her spirited resolve vanished: with one of her
+sweetest smiles she rose and took his arm, and in the flurry of her
+spirits, forgetting to make even a parting bow to poor Lord Darlingford,
+left him sitting alone, looking what he was, quite forsaken, and cursing
+himself for an old fool.
+
+Lord Nelthorpe now took pains to be particularly agreeable, and either
+from vanity or lingering attachment, was evidently anxious to discover
+if he still retained the power he knew he had long possessed over the
+feelings of his fair partner. He made allusions to her late companion,
+and half jest, half earnest, ventured several whispered comments, almost
+amounting to tender reproaches, watching her countenance while he did
+so. As he handed her into the carriage, he secretly wished, with
+something like a sigh, that he had no brothers and sisters to pay off.
+She went home in high spirits.
+
+"I wish, Jane," said Lady Arden, as they drove from the door, "you would
+make up your mind to marry Lord Darlingford."
+
+Jane made no reply.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+The next morning Willoughby confided to his brother the determination he
+had come to on the last evening, of proposing for Lady Anne Armadale,
+the daughter of Lord Selby.
+
+He described with great exultation how much attached the lady had been
+to a gentleman of whom her friends disapproved, and whom she was
+notwithstanding determined to marry up to the time he had become his
+rival; but that he had not been long in driving the former lover from
+the field, and securing the preference of the lady.
+
+Alfred, in his anxiety for his brother's happiness, forgot for the
+moment his usual dread of offering advice.
+
+"For heaven sake," he said, "Willoughby, pause! Be _quite_ certain that
+you have secured her real preference!"
+
+"I _am_ quite certain," said Willoughby, taking up his hat impatiently.
+
+"Nay, do not be hasty either with the lady or with me."
+
+"You think it is impossible for any woman to prefer me, I suppose. I
+have, I confess, no pretensions to be an Adonis," he added with a sneer,
+for he knew that Alfred was considered remarkably handsome; "at the same
+time all people's taste are fortunately not alike!"
+
+"Nay, my dear Willoughby, do not be childish! Is it not wiser to use a
+little caution? Have you no fear of finding yourself, when too late, the
+husband of a woman capable of sacrificing her feelings to her interest?"
+
+Willoughby abruptly quitted the room. He went directly to Lord Selby's,
+and in less than an hour had proposed for, and been accepted by Lady
+Anne Armadale.
+
+Unhappily for Willoughby, the slender share of sense he possessed was
+not only at all times hoodwinked by vanity, but in general superseded in
+its operations by temper. For if any friend happened to offer him the
+slightest advice, so jealous was he of having it supposed his judgment
+required assistance, that, without waiting to consider if any offence
+was intended, he would feel perhaps but a momentary resentment, yet,
+while under its dominion, as the readiest and most appropriate revenge,
+would resolve hastily on an opposite line of conduct to that suggested
+by his adviser; and having once so resolved, obstinacy would put its
+seal on a determination which in fact had never been examined by his
+understanding, while had there been no interference, he would at least
+have considered the subject, and might, possibly, have come to a just
+conclusion.
+
+A man of a decidedly superior mind, on the contrary, having no private
+misgivings respecting his own capacity, is always well pleased to take
+under consideration any new views of a subject, which the suggestions of
+a friend, or indeed of any one, may present. It is of course his own
+judgment which finally decides, but like a just judge, after first
+hearing every witness, that is to say every argument which can be
+brought to bear upon the subject. Acuteness in prejudging is the boast
+of the fool. Discrimination to give its due weight to every part of the
+evidence, the privilege of the man of sense. The fool is always telling
+you he can see with half an eye. We would request such persons to employ
+in future the whole of both orbs, and possibly with a vision so
+extraordinary, they might be enabled to pierce even to the bottom of
+that far-famed well, in which it is said that truth has hitherto lain
+hid from the researches of mankind.
+
+Certainly no claim to merit or distinction can be more absurd than that
+which is founded on the wilfully limited means employed for producing
+the desired end.
+
+Excellence, to challenge admiration, should be excellence in the
+abstract; while he who would be even a respectable candidate for the
+prize, should use every power that Providence has given to man, avail
+himself of every ray of light that the experience of past ages has
+elicited, and bringing all to a focus, pour the concentrated beam on the
+path to be explored.
+
+Thus only can each generation hope to gain some step on the road towards
+perfection unattained by its predecessor.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+Gloucester Villa, the residence of Mr. Salter, at Cheltenham, was in a
+state of high preparation for a dinner to be given to Lady Flamborough.
+
+Mrs. Johnson had no leisure to assist the _young_ ladies to dress, they
+were therefore left to perform that office for each other.
+
+"By-the-by, I have been so much hurried, I forgot to tell you," said
+Grace, "but Lady Arden is now really coming: Mrs. Dorothea's maid has
+been telling Johnson all about it."
+
+"Oh, I dare say it's just talk as usual," said Miss Salter.
+
+"No, no, it's quite certain now," persisted her sister, "for Violet Bank
+is taken for her ladyship for six months certain, and the adjoining
+villa, Jessamine Bower, for another titled lady; and I daresay they'll
+be acquainted, so you see what we've lost!"
+
+"Well, that is really provoking!" exclaimed Miss Salter. "I wonder would
+there be any use in sending her an invitation for this evening?"
+
+"Sending who an invitation?" said Grace. "Mrs. Dorothea do you mean? Oh,
+quite ridiculous at this late hour; and after leaving her out of the
+ball too!"
+
+"I know all that," replied Miss Salter; "but let me see, I'll write her
+a long apology about having sent a card for our ball to her old lodging
+in mistake! and for the short notice I'll say, that I know she likes
+friendly invitations better than formal ones, and that our party this
+evening is to be so particularly select, just what I know she likes; and
+then I'll give a list of the titles, and that I think will decide her,
+even if she does see through the excuses."
+
+Accordingly Miss Salter, in great triumph at her own diplomatic
+abilities, wrote and dispatched her note.
+
+"After all," she added, as she resumed her toilette, "these are
+sorrowful rejoicings for us, for I suppose with this fine lady coming to
+dinner, and being so gracious, and all that, she means to marry my
+father; and if she does, though to be sure it'ill bring fine
+acquaintance, I suppose, but will it bring us husbands?--on the
+contrary, if it gets abroad that we're not to have a shilling--"
+
+"We'll have but a poor chance, I'm afraid," interrupted Grace.
+
+"But I'll tell you what I have done to endeavour to obviate that," said
+her sister; "I have been telling Johnson, and I have told her too that
+she may tell it where she pleases, for it's no harm that the truth
+should be known, that our mother's fortune was a hundred thousand
+pounds, and was so settled upon us that my father can't keep it from us;
+and she has begun already with Sir William Orm's man, and he has told
+his master, and Sir William is full of it; so we shall see how he
+behaves to-day."
+
+"But what a shocking lie!" said Grace.
+
+"Lie! Nonsense!" replied her sister, "Who tells the truth, I'd be glad
+to know?"
+
+Here the answer to the note interrupted the conversation. It was of
+course a formal apology. Mrs. Dorothea had not been at a loss to see
+through the motives of her _friends_ the Salters.
+
+The _young_ ladies now descended to the drawing-room, where Mr. Salter
+was already standing at a window, in high dress; with the bright white,
+angular points of a fresh put on collar, contrasting finely with the
+shining ruby of his cheeks. A carriage with a coronet drove up to the
+door; bless me, how fine! thought the Misses Salter; it was almost
+enough to reconcile their father's marrying again.
+
+Lady Flamborough was announced. Her ladyship entered; her round, fat,
+rosy face, smiling in a round wreath of red roses. Her dress, a colour
+de rose satin, her ornaments, necklace and earrings of pink topaz.
+
+The broad daylight, or rather sunshine, of the first day in May, in
+weather unusually fine, and even hot for the season, in a three
+windowed, south-west drawing room, at six o'clock, did ample justice to
+the glow of her ladyship's appearance, which nothing less than the
+entrance, immediately after, of Lady Whaleworthy, in a crimson velvet,
+could have at all subdued.
+
+Lady Shawbridge arrived next. Her dress was a gold coloured velvet, and
+gold tissue turban, the wide circumference of which displayed the fiery
+countenance hinted at by Mrs. Dorothea to great advantage. Indeed the
+whole assembly was of a fiery order; although being, as we have said,
+hot weather, there was no occasion for fire. But the very furniture of
+the room, unluckily for the day and aspect, was crimson, while in
+addition to the red and reddish countenances already enumerated, Miss
+Salter's face, on all warm occasions like the present, was much too apt
+to emulate the glow of her father's. While even poor Miss Grace, though
+in general, from hardness and thinness, a chilly object, was subject
+with peculiar provocation, to a dullish red knob, like a winter cherry,
+just at the end of her nose.
+
+The rest of the party having arrived, and among them Sir William Orm,
+Sir James Lindsey, Sir Francis Brierton, and the general, dinner was
+announced. Mr. Salter gave his arm to Lady Flamborough, and leading the
+way, was followed by the rest of the company, to the dining-room; which,
+having the same aspect as the drawing-room, and being, besides over the
+kitchen, was by no means calculated to cool the already heated guests.
+The two turtles, we mean Mr. Salter and Lady Flamborough, every way so
+well _entitled_ to the _title_, being in their forms turtles, and in
+their present dispositions towards each other turtle doves, took their
+loving seats side by side, opposite to the turtle-soup, at the head of
+the table. (Men who have no wives of course head their own tables.)
+
+The dinner having been entirely provided at so much a-head, by a
+pastrycook, who was to remove its remains, was of course only too good,
+we mean too fine, too much ornamented, too technical; in fact the
+display of each course resembled more a confectioner's counter than a
+gentleman's table. Every thing, in short, was so befrosted, and so
+beglazed, that if one had been at all absent, one might have put one's
+hand in one's pocket, and asked what was to pay.
+
+It is an acknowledged fact, that to act the gentleman is impossible. It
+is equally impossible for people, though possessed of the purse of
+Fortunatus, to ape successfully, on special occasions, a style of living
+not habitual to them.
+
+We hope we have not cooled the turtle-soup by our digression. Poor Mr.
+Salter, instead of quietly conveying ladles of soup to soup-plates, till
+the demand ceased, was most unnecessarily prolonging his own labours,
+and delaying the progress of the feast, by deliberately inquiring of
+every several member of the assembly by name, if they chose turtle-soup,
+and poising the while, his insignia of office over the tureen, till
+their ear caught the question and his the reply.
+
+By the time similar rites had been performed over every steaming remove,
+it may be believed that the countenance of our host had lost nothing of
+its brilliancy. During the dessert he had more leisure to turn its
+lustre, adorned with smiles, on his fair companion; whose uplifted eyes
+languishingly met his, till there wanted but the pipe to make the pair
+an excellent study for a painter of the Dutch school. The attitude too,
+leaning back at their ease in their chairs, so favourably displayed
+their forms, that the couple in this particular very much resembled a
+_pair of globes_; though we must confess that, except in courtesy to the
+lady, we should not have been disposed to designate either the
+celestial.
+
+Sir William Orm, who had handed in Miss Salter, was descanting with
+much feeling on the interested motives which governed the matrimonial
+views of but too many men in the world, and declaring that such must
+ever be secondary considerations with him. Miss Salter confessed that
+amiable sentiments like his were very rare now a days, and consequently
+the more to be admired. On the opposite side, Sir James Lindsey was
+giggling with silly self-satisfaction, as he sat receiving the assiduous
+attentions and pointed compliments of Miss Grace. While Lady Shawbridge
+was remarking aside to Sir Matthias Whaleworthy, that Lady Flamborough's
+youthful airs were quite disgusting; and Sir Matthias in return, made
+some comments on Mr. Salter's dancing, which sounded very ungrateful,
+proceeding from lips which had just finished a _second_ plate of the
+man's turtle-soup.
+
+Lady Whaleworthy, good soul, was telling Sir Henry Shawbridge one of the
+long stories about herself, her father and mother, brothers and sisters,
+husband, children, and servants, which she inflicted on all who had the
+misfortune to sit near, and the patience to listen to her.
+
+Ere the ladies left the dining-room, the now completely enamoured Mr.
+Salter had determined, that in the course of the evening he would take a
+sly opportunity of making Lady Flamborough an offer of his heart and
+hand. Alas! how vain are human resolves, when we know not what an hour
+or at most an hour and a half may bring forth; for it could not have
+exceeded that time, when the gentlemen followed the ladies to the
+drawing-room, and yet Mr. Salter's visual organs by some process,
+possibly connected with a certain series of toasts, which despite of
+fashion, he might have felt it his duty to propose, had in that short
+period undergone such an extraordinary change, that when he approached
+what ought to have been the _sole_ object of his affections, he beheld
+as it were two Lady Flamboroughs, sitting, or rather attempting to sit,
+on the same chair! He gazed in utter amazement, and strove to
+concentrate the powers of sight: for a second the mysterious vision
+amalgamated, and was but one! again, however, it glided asunder, and
+became two! nor did this happen but once, so as to leave any room for
+doubt or mistake, on the contrary, while our astonished host still stood
+staring, the extraordinary process was frequently repeated. Nay, once,
+as lured by the smiles of the fair shadow nearest him, he ventured to
+address some complimentary remark to its ear in particular, it slid away
+as if for refuge behind its representative, and immediately after popped
+in view on the other side!
+
+Whether it is that supernatural appearances have a tendency to awe the
+passions into stillness, or whether this glaring infringement on the
+classical laws of unity, by dividing, destroyed the interest; or whether
+possibly, some vague dread of being betrayed unconsciously into the sin
+of bigamy, might have presented itself to the imagination of Mr. Salter,
+we have not philosophical lore nor critical acumen sufficient to decide;
+we can only speak to the effect, which was, that Mr. Salter, instead of
+finding with this double provocation a double share of love inundating
+his heart and overflowing his lips, was struck perfectly mute, and
+continued so for the remainder of the evening.
+
+So much for lovers continuing their libations at Bacchus' shrine until
+they see double.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+"Well, there is nothing like getting into _select_ society after all!"
+said Miss Salter to her sister, when they had retired for the night.
+"Who would have thought, six months ago, of both of us having baronets
+for lovers? I dare say you are right, Grace, and that this marriage of
+my father's (for I suppose now it will take place), is the best thing
+that could have happened for us. And I know, I'm determined when I'm
+married to Sir William Orm (and he has gone great lengths, I assure
+you), that I will visit none but titled people. And tell me, how did
+you and Sir James get on?"
+
+"Oh, delightfully!" answered her sister, "he asked me if I thought him
+very handsome; and of course I said I did; and then he laughed so. And
+then he asked me if I thought the silk of his waistcoat a pretty
+pattern; and I said I did; and he told me a lady chose it for him. And
+he asked me if I was inclined to be jealous; and I said if I thought he
+had any regard for me, I'd be jealous of every lady that looked at him;
+and he said, 'would you indeed?' and laughed again. And he asked me if I
+admired his dancing as much as most people did, for that he was thought
+a first rate dancer; and I said that nobody could help admiring his
+dancing. And he asked me if I could think what in the world it was that
+made so many young ladies refuse to dance with him; and I said it was,
+to be sure, because he danced so well that they were afraid it would
+make their own bad dancing the more noticed. 'And do you really think
+so?' said he, laughing again. And so, at last, only think! he asked me
+if I'd like very much to be my lady! and I said I should of all things.
+And so then he laughed, and said he could make any body a lady he
+chose."
+
+"And I hope you said you wished he'd make you one," interrupted her
+sister.
+
+"Why I thought of it," replied Miss Grace, "but I was afraid people
+would hear me; if we had been quite by ourselves, I would have said it."
+
+"What nonsense!" exclaimed Miss Salter. "If you can get to be my lady,
+and have fifteen thousand a-year at your command, I think you can
+afford to defy people's comments about how you came by it! You said, the
+other day, that if luck knocked once at your door, it shouldn't have to
+knock twice. I'm sure it knocked then, with a vengeance, and such a
+knock as comes to the doors of but few, I can tell you; and you the fool
+not to answer it. It's such as you'll never hear again, with your little
+ugly black-a-moor face. And when you had the good fortune to get hold of
+a fool that didn't know the difference, if you dosed his draught with
+flattery enough, you should have said or done anything to please him,
+blockhead that you are."
+
+"You needn't be so abusive, Eliza," said poor Grace, almost whimpering,
+"I'm sure I thought I was barefaced enough, this time, to please you."
+
+"Such stuff, with your mock modesty," interrupted Miss Salter.
+
+"And as for a black face, it's as good as a red one, any day," continued
+Grace, "and rather _genteeler_ for that matter," she added, "since
+you're grown so mighty fond of gentility."
+
+Miss Salter's rage now knew no bounds, and consequently became so coarse
+and disgusting in its manifestation, that we shall forbear any further
+representation of the scene.
+
+Vulgar people are bad enough in good humour. Propitious fate deliver us
+from them when they are out of temper!
+
+Before proceeding further with our history, we may as well take the
+present opportunity of sketching slightly the origin of this same titled
+personage, by a connection with whom the Misses Salter expected to gain
+so much consequence. Lady Flamborough was the only child of an
+hotel-keeper, who, in his hospitable calling, had amassed enormous
+wealth. He had not always, however, been the great man, even in his own
+line, which he ultimately became. His daughter, therefore, to the age of
+five or six, was brought up, literally running about in a very minor
+establishment, little better, in short, than a road-side posting-house;
+and, being a pretty, rosy, fat child, had, up to that age, been the pet
+and plaything, not only of her father, (she had no mother living), but
+of every waiter and hostler in and about the house. And often had she
+sat on her father's knee, while he drank his ale in the bar, and, when
+the jest and the tale went round, which were, as yet, to the ear of the
+child, a foreign tongue, laughed merrily for very glee at seeing others
+laugh. But alas! amid the sounds and sights of scenes like these, native
+delicacy, even at this early age, was lost. For callousness is not so
+much a wrong bias given, as a class of feelings, out of which some of
+the most valuable traits of character are hereafter to be formed,
+destroyed; and if the material be gone, how can the superstructure be
+raised?
+
+The child was, after this, sent to expensive boarding-schools, and as
+her father's fortunes rose, given every possible accomplishment. In
+these, and her being very pretty, Mr. * * * *, afterwards Lord
+Flamborough, but then a younger brother, and of course poor, found some
+apology for overlooking the lady's want of birth, and appropriating her
+immense wealth, which was his true object.
+
+Soon after his marriage, his brother died, and he succeeded to the title
+and estates; and now, bitterly repenting his ill-assorted union,
+behaved with neglect, and even contempt, towards his wife. Upon which
+the lady, partly out of revenge, and partly out of levity, gave a
+favourable reception to the addresses of a lover in no very exalted
+sphere of life.
+
+Proceedings were immediately instituted to obtain legal redress; but
+before the divorce had passed the house, his lordship, who had
+previously been in a bad state of health, chanced to die.
+
+Lady Flamborough, therefore, though of course banished from all tolerable
+society, still continued to be Lady Flamborough, and to enjoy a handsome
+jointure. On her total expulsion from the set among whom her marriage
+had, for a time, given her a place, she descended till she found her
+level among that, rationally speaking, only disreputable class, made up
+of those who have lost caste by their own wilful departures from
+principle, and those who are contemptible enough to be willing to
+associate with vice, for the love of the _tarnished tinsel_ which once
+was rank; forgetful that titles and honours were first invented as
+badges of the virtuous or heroic deeds of those on whom they were
+bestowed; that only as such they have any meaning; and that, when borne
+by the vicious, they become, in a peculiar degree, objects for the
+finger of scorn to point at, and seem to claim, as their especial
+privilege, the contempt and derision of mankind.
+
+  "'Tis phrase absurd to call a villain great."
+
+Titles are attainted for high treason, why should they not be so for
+every treason against good morals? Are not good morals as essential to
+the well-being of the community as good Government?
+
+Nay, what is Government? Power to enforce moral order. Why then should
+not a sin against the end be visited as severely as a sin against the
+means?
+
+Are men, whose vices invade the peace of the domestic hearth, and sunder
+the sacred ties of life,--or men who court luxury in foreign climes,
+while evading the payment of their just debts at home; consigning the
+while industrious tradesmen and their helpless families to ruin;--are
+men, in short, who are no longer men of honour, to be still misnamed
+_noble men_? Is it not the natural tendency of such misnomers to bring
+nobility into contempt? And is not this an injustice to the truly
+_noble_?
+
+Are the vicious to be allowed to sully honours till the honourable
+cannot wear them?
+
+Nobility would indeed be beautiful were it a guarantee of virtue! titles
+would indeed be honours, if the men who bore them must be pure! And if
+the certainty that those titles for ages had existed in that family,
+were thus an assurance that morality for centuries had not been sinned
+against in that house, then indeed, would rank be nobility. Let us not
+be misunderstood: let us not be supposed to mean that men of rank are
+more likely to offend against the laws of morality than other men; on
+the contrary, education and circumstances ought to render them less so:
+we simply assert, that when they do so offend, such offence ought to
+degrade them from their rank as _noble men_.
+
+How glorious would be that land that first enacted such a law! how
+worthy its monarch of that greatest of his titles, "Defender of the
+Faith!" For what is this faith? Religion! and the author of Religion has
+defined it thus:
+
+"True religion and undefiled, before God and the Father is this: to
+visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and keep himself
+unspotted from the world."
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+Mrs. Dorothea had been so busy all day, changing her lodgings again,
+that she had hardly had time to ask Sarah a word about the Salters'
+dinner-party.
+
+On this occasion, however, we must remark, that she had moved to a
+furnished house, not to a mere lodging; for she was determined to make
+an exertion, while the Ardens were in Cheltenham, live how she might the
+rest of the year, having a great horror of living like a poor relation.
+
+Most people have a particular objection to seeming to be what they
+really are.
+
+Indeed Lady Arden had written most kindly to Mrs. Dorothea, inviting her
+to spend the time they should be at Cheltenham with them. Had the
+expense of a house or lodging been no object to Aunt Dorothea, she would
+gladly have availed herself of this invitation for the pleasure of the
+thing; but the arrangement would have been so very convenient, that her
+_pride_ took the alarm, and would not suffer her to accept the offer. In
+her father's life time, as a daughter of the then head of the family,
+she had acquired notions of her own consequence, which became a painful
+incumbrance from the moment her circumstances underwent that violent
+revolution to which those of the daughters of the proudest and most
+ancient families are peculiarly liable.
+
+_Pride_ in any situation is a moral disease, which it would be highly
+desirable to see for ever banished from the world! but _pride_, when
+complicated with poverty, is apt to render the unhappy sufferer not only
+always very uncomfortable, but often very ridiculous. Added to which, it
+must ever be impossible for the heart that harbours _pride_ to know
+contentment.
+
+At present, however, Mrs. Dorothea was quite delighted. The house she
+had taken for six months certain for Lady Arden, though designated by
+the rural title of Violet Bank, was a splendid mansion. The one she had
+taken for herself for the same period, was both pretty and agreeably
+situated; it was accommodated with a cook, or maid of all work, who was
+taken with it as a part of the furniture. Mrs. Dorothea had also hired a
+footman for the great occasion, and put him into livery; so that with
+Sarah, her own maid, she had now, for a single lady, quite a respectable
+little establishment, and could look forward to returning the evening
+entertainments, at least of her relations, on something of an
+independent footing. Dinners of course she could not give, nor need she
+accept them; she did not care what she eat. She certainly liked the best
+society, and that she should now have, without laying herself under
+obligations to any one. For, much as she liked Lady Arden, (one whom no
+one could help liking, she was so truly amiable,) she could not forget
+that her ladyship was a stranger in blood, from whom, consequently, an
+_Arden_ could not receive even a courtesy without requital.
+
+Mrs. Dorothea was so glad too, as she told Sarah, while she stood in the
+centre of her new drawing-room, looking round her, to get out of that
+horrid place where she had been for the last two months, sitting every
+evening on those tiresome little chairs, for, as Sarah had prophesied,
+her landlady had never given her the sofa, nor put the drops to the
+chimney-light, nor even got a key for the chiffonier. Then, the woman of
+the house could not or would not afford a decent servant, so that the
+cooking was shocking, and the attendance wretched; and then the oven of
+the bakehouse next door she found out at last was just on the other side
+of the one brick thin wall, against which her bed stood, so that she had
+been nearly baked to death, and had been losing her health without
+knowing why. To be sure the carpet looked respectable, but then the
+lodging had no other recommendation, as in addition to its many
+discomforts, it had proved one way or other very expensive; for
+mistaking the heat and restlessness she felt at nights for the
+consequences of the lassitude and want of appetite of which they were in
+fact the cause; she had got frightened about herself, and had called in
+doctor after doctor, and taken ever so much medicine in vain, till at
+last happening to go in next door to correct an error in her baker's
+bill, in which she had been charged with all the bread supplied to her
+landlady, she became acquainted with the geography of the premises, and
+so discovered the whole mystery. Then being without a key to the
+chiffonier too, made a great difference in the groceries, though having
+no proof of the fact, it would not do to say so. This might have brought
+down the lawyers upon her; then indeed would the cup of her afflictions
+have been full. Poor Aunt Dorothea felt almost restored to the days of
+her youth by the comparative comforts which now surrounded her. She
+moved into her regular dining-room when her dinner was ready, and was
+there decently and respectfully attended by her own footman in livery.
+There was a sideboard, and her few articles of plate were arranged upon
+it, and things looked orderly and comfortable; it was enough to give one
+an appetite, and made her boiled chicken and quarter of a hundred of
+asparagus seem a dinner for an emperor. Instead of dining in the
+comfortless scramble she used to do, in her haste to send the tray out
+of the drawing-room lest some one should come in, she now ate as slowly
+as possible to prolong the gratifying sense of dignity which accompanied
+the ceremony.
+
+The very next day the Misses Salter had the impudence to call, and the
+new footman not being in the family secrets, admitted them.
+
+On their entrance Aunt Dorothea looked her astonishment with great
+dignity.
+
+"What a sweet situation," exclaimed Miss Salter.
+
+"What a charming house," said Miss Grace. Mrs. Dorothea bowed.
+
+"How fortunate we were in finding you at home," said Miss Salter.
+
+"Oh, yes, very fortunate indeed!" added Miss Grace. Mrs. Dorothea bowed
+again.
+
+"How sorry we were you could not come to us last night," said Miss
+Salter, "we had such a _select_ party, just what you would have liked."
+
+"Yes, just what you would have liked," echoed Miss Grace.
+
+"I hope we shall be more fortunate the next time," said Miss Salter. "We
+shall have a great many of those agreeable _select_ parties just now.
+Our _particular friend_, Lady Flamborough, you see, and our _particular
+friend_, Lady Whaleworthy, and our _particular friend_, Lady Shawbridge,
+and all that pleasant set being here just now, naturally induces one to
+see a great deal of company. Then there are such delightful young men
+here at present, and that you know always makes parties pleasant,
+there's _our friend_, Sir William Orm, _such_ an elegant fashionable
+young man."
+
+"And Sir James Lindsey," observed Miss Grace, "an old baronet, with
+fifteen thousand a-year."
+
+"Yes," said Miss Salter, "such an agreeable good tempered little man, so
+affable and unassuming. And there is General Powel too, in short we
+quite abound in _nice young_ men. And I hope," added Miss Salter, with
+an air of great friendship, "that we shall soon and often have the
+pleasure of seeing you, Mrs. Arden."
+
+"You are very obliging," replied Mrs. Dorothea, bowing gravely, "but my
+arrangements will for some considerable time be controlled entirely by
+those of my sister, Lady Arden, and her family, with whom I shall
+consider myself engaged, either at home or abroad, every day during
+their stay."
+
+"So you expect Lady Arden," said Miss Salter, with well affected
+surprise. "Dear me, I'm sure we should be most happy to pay attention to
+any friend of yours."
+
+"You are very obliging," observed Mrs. Dorothea, with if possible
+increasing stiffness, "but Lady Arden does not mean to extend her
+acquaintance."
+
+The discomforted Misses Salter finding lingering and last words useless,
+at length took their departure.
+
+The Ardens dined on the road, but arrived in time to take tea with Aunt
+Dorothea. The weather was beautiful; the rural appearance of the little
+villa, situated among the plantations and pleasure grounds of the public
+walks, its own miniature lawn and veranda, adorned with flowers and
+flowering shrubs, and garlanded with roses as if for a festival, the
+fine trees of the Old-Well-Walk in view, and bands of music, as if hid
+in every grove, sending forth on each breeze some strain of melody, all
+seemed delightful and refreshing to people just escaped from the heat
+and fatigue of London. While the large and joyous looking family party,
+some seated within the open glass door, some standing in the veranda,
+some straying on the fresh mown turf of the little lawn, formed a
+picture of social felicity quite delightful to the usually solitary Aunt
+Dorothea; to whom the idea of the party being not only her near
+relatives, but also her guests, was altogether so pleasing that she had
+not been as happy for many years. To her kind heart must be ascribed the
+chief of the pleasure she experienced; if, however, there was a slight
+admixture of gratified vanity we cannot be surprised, when we consider
+that a pretty comfortable house of her own, in which to receive her
+friends, was to her so great a novelty.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER X.
+
+
+So fond is youth of novelty, that Alfred and his sisters, though fresh
+from all the gaieties a London season has to offer, were quite
+impatient, the very morning after their arrival, to visit the public
+walks, of which they had had peeps the evening before from Aunt
+Dorothea's veranda. They had been told that about seven was the hour.
+Accordingly, as it was a fine sunny morning, the girls were all up soon
+after six. They had been told too, that notwithstanding the hour, it was
+usual to be extremely fine; but for this their habits of good taste
+were too inveterate; they equipped themselves therefore in quite close
+bonnets, and having roused and enlisted the goodnatured Alfred, set off
+for Mrs. Dorothea's, Lady Arden having by an arrangement of the evening
+before, committed the young people to the charge of their aunt, knowing
+that she should be too much fatigued herself after her journey to rise
+so early.
+
+Aunt Dorothea was quite ready. She was too happy in feeling herself
+necessary to her nieces, too happy in having the charge of them, too
+justly proud of them, proud of their beauty, and all their many
+attractions and recommendations, to feel anything like laziness, this
+first morning that she was to show, not only the walks to them, but them
+to the walks.
+
+Thither then they proceeded immediately, guided through each shady
+maze, as in the play called _Magic Music_, in which the sounds become
+louder to denote nearness to the object of pursuit. So did the swelling
+notes of the band grow on the ear as they approached the immediate spot,
+which it is fashion's whim to throng as closely as any crowded
+assembly-room, while all around is comparative solitude.
+
+Here all-kind Aunt Dorothea's proud anticipations were fully answered by
+the sensation her nieces produced; every eye was turned towards them,
+and in ten minutes after their first appearance all the company who sat
+on the benches on either side the walk had asked each other who they
+were; the mammas who had daughters, and the _young_ ladies who were _not
+young_, decided that they were not the style of beauty they admired,
+while the very young girls and all the men, had pronounced them the
+loveliest creatures they had ever beheld. As for the mothers who had
+sons, they prudently suspended their judgments till they should hear
+what fortunes the Miss Ardens were likely to have.
+
+Our party were joined instantly by Henry Lindsey. He had ascertained
+their movements from themselves, and quitted town when they did to be in
+Cheltenham before them. He was at Louisa's side in a moment, and was
+received with a blush and a smile which, though produced in part at
+least by gratified vanity, seemed to his generous nature all he could
+desire of encouragement. He was of course introduced to Aunt Dorothea,
+who, until she found out that he was a younger brother, was quite
+delighted with him.
+
+The Arden party now took advantage of vacant seats which presented
+themselves, and for a time became in their turn spectators of the moving
+crowd.
+
+Soon after which, announced by noise, and with many coloured streamers
+flying, the fleet of the Salters, and their _select_ friends hove in
+sight.
+
+There was in the first place Mr. Salter, with a white hat on, which duly
+set off by contrast, that true secret for producing effect, a
+countenance, the hue of which we flatter ourselves we need not again
+describe. Lady Flamborough embellished his arm; her head thrown back,
+and adorned by a pink crape hat and feathers, her eyes raised, and
+practising their most becoming roll, her complexion heightened by the
+heat of the weather and the long walk up through the Sherbourn. Not
+that her dress was oppressive, on the contrary, it was light enough in
+all conscience, consisting of the softest India muslin, trimmed with
+superfine Mechlin lace, and ornamented at the neck, and at the wrists
+round the top, and round the bottom, down the sleeves, and down the
+front, with ties, bows, and ends innumerable, of pink ribbon, while a
+broad long sash of the same encircled the waist, tied behind in
+dancing-school fashion. The dress was made nearly as low round the bust
+as a dinner costume, while what shelter there was to compensate for this
+was derived from the long pendant white gauze-ribbon strings, and deep
+blond-lace edge of the hat, with merely a slight pink gauze-scarf,
+scarcely wider or longer than the said strings.
+
+The next in the line (as it approached crossing the walk abreast), was
+Lady Whaleworthy, defying hot weather and sunshine in a crimson velvet
+pelisse. It was a thing which, as she told her own maid when putting it
+on, had cost too much money to be ever either out of season or out of
+fashion: it was only your dabs of things which every body could have
+that were sure to go out again before you could turn yourself round in
+them, so that there was no saving in the end. "I always _tells_ Sir
+Matthias that a right good article, cost what it will at the first, is
+sure to be the cheapest in the long run."
+
+Poor Lady Whaleworthy! a crimson-velvet pelisse had been the dream of
+her youth when she did not think she should ever possess such a
+treasure! and still such the hold of early impressions in a
+crimson-velvet pelisse was concentrated her ladyship's notions of the
+_ne plus ultra_ of magnificence. Next came little Sir James,
+fantastically fine, with a lilac figured silk waistcoat, as many gold
+chains as a lady, and a glaring brooch, the gift of Miss Grace Salter,
+and taken for the purpose of being so bestowed from her own dress, and
+with her own brown hands transferred to the breast of his
+open-work-fronted and diamond buttoned inner garment; while the little
+man, during the whole performance of the flattering operation, had
+laughed almost hysterically.
+
+Three titles were very well to muster for a morning walk; so next came
+the Misses Salter themselves. They never dressed alike, having each
+their own notion of the colours that became them. In shape, however,
+both their hats had been made by the same pattern, borrowed for the
+purpose from Lady Flamborough's. Miss Salter's was of yellow crape, Sir
+William Orm having been his own jockey at a late race, and rode in a
+yellow jacket; while Miss Grace's, in compliment to Sir James's
+waistcoat was lilac; both, of course, flaunted with feathers, blond, and
+streaming strings, and had artificial flowers stuck in the inside. Nor
+had such a show of beauty and fashion been a mere lucky hit; the Misses
+Salter, on quitting Mrs. Dorothea's, had fully weighed the subject, and
+resolved to show the Ardens, who might else be prejudiced against them,
+that they were not people to be looked down upon; they had gone to
+infinite pains in making their arrangements.
+
+Alas! little did they think that this very morning was marked in the
+book of fate to cost them both their lovers: they, too, who had none to
+spare. But unhappily ladies so situated are so fond of showing off a
+supposed conquest--so fond of being suspected of being about to be
+married, that in their haste to be congratulated, they too often cast
+away all cause for gratulation; and by the noise they raise themselves,
+put a man on his guard before he is above half caught, whom they might
+perhaps have secured, had they been satisfied to delay their triumph,
+and keep him nodding at the home fireside till they had quietly netted
+him round. We speak of course only of ladies in _distress_, like the
+Misses Salter. The lovely sisters of Arden, on the contrary, so far from
+being under the necessity of laying snares for lovers, found them at
+their feet wherever they went; the only difficulty was to select from
+among them such as might both please themselves, and come up to their
+mamma's and brother's ideas of matches suitable to their family
+consequence. We left our party seated on one of the benches, which, as
+we have already stated, were ranged on either side this favourite
+portion of the walk. The eye of Sir James, as he passed with the
+Salters, was instantly caught by the extreme loveliness of the beautiful
+sisters. For the poor little man, though he had neither sense nor
+judgment to direct him in the formation of any thing approaching to an
+opinion, was not without some of the natural elements of taste, and was
+especially a great admirer of beauty: it dazzled and delighted him, as
+new and splendid toys would a child; and it was much that he had been
+taught to say, like the good child, "I'll only look!" for he would often
+stand with his hands behind his back, as if the attitude were intended
+to keep them out of the way of temptation, and to stare at strangers
+whose appearance happened to strike him, till people would be first
+offended, and finally guess the truth, that poor Sir James was silly.
+
+On the present occasion, seeing his brother with the party which had
+drawn his attention, he joined him instantly; and even while speaking to
+him, as well as for some time after, eagerly passed his eyes again and
+again along the row of ladies, till they were finally fixed by the
+peculiar lustre of Louisa's beauty.
+
+Henry now introduced his brother, and the party rose to renew their
+walk. Sir James attached himself to them entirely, and contrived, too,
+to make a good position next to Louisa, whose appetite for admiration
+was so insatiable, that even his was acceptable. While the whole party
+were so goodnatured, so agreeable, and so much amused; yet so much too
+well bred to show it in the rude and flagrant manner indulged in by too
+many towards those labouring under natural infirmities, that poor Sir
+James was perfectly delighted, and felt as if he was among the most
+charming, kind, agreeable people in the whole world.
+
+The Misses Salter had in the mean time made several attempts to bow to
+Mrs. Dorothea; but that lady always took care to be so much occupied
+with other people, as to make it impossible for them to catch her eye.
+She however noticed their proceedings; and observing that some time
+after the desertion of Sir James, Sir William Orm arrived and joined
+them, she laid her plans accordingly. Sir William would not do to
+introduce to her nieces, but he should nevertheless desert Miss Salter.
+
+The walk now began to thin; on which the Arden party, having invited Sir
+James and Henry Lindsey home with them to breakfast, an invitation very
+usual on the Cheltenham promenade, took the path which led to their own
+villa.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+When breakfast was over, and the gentlemen had taken their departure,
+Louisa was amazingly laughed at by her sisters about her new lover.
+
+He was mimicked and ridiculed in every possible way; walk, air, manner,
+voice, modes of expression, ways of looking, &c. &c.; till the girls had
+perfectly fatigued themselves with laughing.
+
+We have heard it said, that it was a service of danger for any man to
+become the admirer of one of a large family; for that, let him be ever
+so successful in talking the lady of his choice into love, she was sure
+the moment he absented himself to be laughed out of it again by her
+sisters. It is no wonder, then, that poor Sir James did not escape. Lady
+Arden, however, and Mrs. Dorothea came from time to time to the rescue
+of the little baronet's memory.
+
+"Heedless creatures!" said Aunt Dorothea, "how little thought you give
+to the future!"
+
+"I only hope he may be serious, and really propose for Louisa," said
+Lady Arden; "and if he should, I trust she will have the sense to pause
+before she rejects so advantageous an offer."
+
+"But then, mamma, is he not a fool?" asked Louisa.
+
+"Why no, my dear, not exactly that. Indeed, I know a great many
+ill-tempered, reserved sort of men, without a grain more sense, who pass
+for Solomons! He is a vain little man, certainly; and perhaps too
+goodnatured. But then, only consider what a vastly _eligible_
+establishment it would be: you would have rank yourself, and be at once
+restored to the wealth and station lost to you all by the death of your
+father; and what, my dear, is still more important, you would be rescued
+_in time_ from the comparative poverty, and consequent obscurity into
+which you must ultimately sink, if you survive me unmarried."
+
+What dilemmas so humiliating as those to which _Pride_ reduces its
+votaries!
+
+Lady Arden, by nature amiable, affectionate, and high-minded; but by
+education tainted with false pride, thus stooped to the very depth of
+meanness, unconscious of degradation; and sacrificed her purest feelings
+to the supposed necessity of securing to her daughters that artificial
+station in life which a system of unjust monopoly had for a time given
+them, and of which the same system had again deprived them.
+
+Artificial positions in society, like unnatural attitudes of the body,
+cannot be long persisted in without pain and weariness. Where is the
+dignity of human nature? Forgotten! for were it remembered, the beggar,
+when educated, might share it with us; and at this false pride takes
+alarm! And, therefore, do we leave man out of the account, and worship
+idols of silver and idols of gold, and titles made of the breath of our
+own lips.
+
+  "From _Pride_ our very reasoning springs."
+
+Louisa had nothing to say against such unanswerable arguments as those
+Lady Arden had used; but she thought of Henry Lindsey, and could not
+help wishing that he had been the elder brother, or, at least, that the
+fortune had been divided: even seven thousand five hundred with him
+would have been better, she could not help thinking, than the whole
+fifteen thousand with Sir James.
+
+"It is always desirable," continued Lady Arden, "that a girl should
+marry in the same station as her father; but it is not always
+practicable, particularly if she is a daughter of the elder branch; for
+no family can have more than one elder son, while many may have half a
+dozen daughters, no one of whom ought, in common prudence, to marry a
+younger brother!!"
+
+"Nay," said Alfred, "is not this sufficient to show how absurdly
+society is constituted? What is to become, then, of five out of every
+six daughters, and all the younger sons in the world? What is to become
+of my hapless self, for instance?"
+
+"We must hope, my dear, that you may be fortunate, and meet with an
+heiress."
+
+"But consider, ma'am, how few heiresses there are. Parliament ought to
+make a new batch every session. It would, however, be of no use to me if
+they did," he added, despondingly, "for heiresses, of course, consider
+themselves entitled to marry, not only elder sons, but noblemen. I have
+often thought what is to become of me, if I should ever have the
+misfortune to fall in love."
+
+"You did, I think, fall half in love one evening in town," said Jane.
+
+"And, by-the-by," observed Lady Arden, "Lady Caroline Montague is an
+heiress."
+
+Alfred coloured, and rising, sauntered towards a window as he replied,
+"And, therefore, very unlikely to be allowed to cast away a thought on
+an unfor----" Here he broke off, and after gazing for a time from the
+window, exclaimed, "That was certainly she--I had but a momentary view,
+but I am quite sure it was she I saw pluck a rose in that next garden,
+and run into the house again. Can they be living in the adjoining villa
+to us?"
+
+The grass gardens or little lawns of these twin villas were separated
+only by wire palings, along which sweet briar and flowering shrubs were
+trained.
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+The family party, with the addition of Lord Darlingford, Sir James
+Lindsey, and his brother, were assembled round the luncheon-table at
+Lady Arden's.
+
+Henry Lindsey had been amazingly piqued that morning by Louisa's
+reception of Sir James. The little baronet was now seated next to her,
+and making, if possible, a greater fool of himself than usual; while, in
+consequence of the lesson she had received, she was yielding him her
+attention with marked complacency. Henry sat opposite, and trembled
+with a mingling of agitation and indignation. He thought he could
+already foresee that he was to be deliberately immolated to avarice;
+yet, so thoroughly was he the slave of Louisa's beauty and his own
+passion, that no worthlessness on her part could have set him free. He
+felt, that were she already the wife of his brother, her image might
+drive him mad, but that he could not banish it from his imagination.
+
+The hardship of Henry Lindsey's case as a younger brother was
+conspicuous, and displayed in a striking manner the evils consequent
+upon sacrificing justice to _pride_.
+
+From a boy he had felt much on this subject; but being of a generous,
+warm-hearted, liberal nature, he did not long brood over his own
+individual wrongs; his mind, however, following the impulse thus
+received, though in the first instance from a selfish feeling, gave
+itself to the contemplation and discussion of natural rights generally,
+till it became enamoured of abstract justice, and learned to apply its
+searching test to every subject, especially the all absorbing topic of
+the day--Political Economy; while, with his characteristic enthusiasm,
+despising the sophisms of expediency, he embraced, without perhaps
+sufficient caution, theories which soon caused him to be considered by
+his friends a reformer, by his enemies almost a revolutionist, and by
+himself the warm advocate of the rights, not of younger brothers only,
+but of those whom he emphatically termed the step-children of the
+laws--_The People_.
+
+Such were at all times his opinions, while the irritable state of his
+mind, at the moment of which we are speaking, added asperity to his
+manner of expressing himself, and caused him, in answer to some jesting
+remark of Alfred's on the old topic of younger brothers, to give vent to
+his feelings in a long, and almost angry political discussion. He
+objected, he said, to the law of primogeniture on the ground of its
+being a wretched system of monopoly, which placed in the hands of a
+simple individual what, if divided, would suffice to restore thousands
+of his degraded and oppressed fellow-creatures to the rank of humanity.
+The times were gone by when communities, formed for the general weal,
+would wilfully sacrifice prosperity to _pride_, and not only parcel out
+the whole land to, comparatively speaking, a few families, but the
+succession to those lands being limited to the elder branches, allow all
+place, preferment, and emolument, to be confined to the younger sons of
+the same families, because the land had given them influence; and the
+mass of the people to be thus reduced to do the work of the ass and the
+mule, and because they cannot also eat their food, the grass and the
+thistle, be often in danger of starvation.
+
+The old feudal system itself was better than this: the ancient baron was
+at least bound to feed not only his relations but his vassals, and he
+did so in his own hall, at his own table. While, now-a-days, a man, as
+soon as his father's funeral is over, turns his brothers and sisters out
+of doors, to exist as they may, on a pitiful portion, the principal of
+which is in general infinitely less than one year's income of the
+property, on the scale of which they have been accustomed to live in
+their father's time; while the new master permits his servants to
+collect their wages by showing the empty baronial hall to strangers at
+so much per head, by which creditable means he is himself enabled to
+reserve all his rents to stake at hazard in London, or at _rouge et
+noir_ in Paris. When parliament is sitting, he must of course attend, to
+vote against any infringement on his monopoly, which the enlightened
+spirit of the times may chance to propose. Thanks, however, to the
+Reform Bill, the holders of the monopolies are no longer our sole
+law-givers; we have now some _chance_ of justice _one time or another_.
+
+"Besides," he added, "to return to the ancient baron, he was not only
+bound to feed his retainers, but in time of war to provide the
+government with a certain number of them, fitly clothed and armed;
+which was virtually bearing the burdens of the state. The baron was, in
+point of fact, but the trustee to a certain property, which property was
+to feed a certain number of the population, and to contribute its due
+proportion to the defence of the community. Instead of this, when the
+feudal system becomes dangerous to government the barons are forbidden
+to arm, and exonerated from feeding their retainers; yet, the
+trust-property left in their hands for _pocket-money_, while their late
+followers are not only turned out on the wide world to starve, but the
+taxes necessary to maintain the army which the barons are forbid to
+provide, are levied on the _bare palms_ of the _hands_ of the thus
+turned out and starving vassals; and not satisfied with this injustice,
+those who thus keep possession of the trust-lands, have arrived at
+literally billeting their younger sons on those said vassals, thus
+turned out and starving."
+
+"Explain! explain!" cried Lord Darlingford, "How can you make that out?"
+
+"Are not," replied Henry, "the salaries and pensions of all the posts
+and sinecures they hold paid by means of taxes, a great proportion of
+which are levied on industry? Is this as it should be? If the _pride_ of
+the great demand that their properties shall be inherited by their elder
+sons, and the offspring of that _pride_--if _false necessity_, require
+that places and sinecures be provided for their younger sons, should not
+the _rich co-operate_ in raising a fund for the payment of the salaries
+of such, and not grind their thousands by pittances from the _real
+necessities_ of the _poor_?"
+
+"What then is your panacea for so many crying ills?" asked Lord
+Darlingford, "Do you call on us to render up our trusts and proclaim an
+Agrarian law?"
+
+"No; those whose motives are honest dare not go such lengths. This would
+be to resolve society into its mere elements, to open the flood-gates of
+anarchy, and awake the savage spirit of wanton plunder. Many large
+landed properties too have been purchased with the wages of industry; so
+that besides the horrible convulsions attendant upon the dissolution of
+the social system, there would be no such thing as drawing the line; to
+avoid, therefore, worse evils, I would allow the 'frightful
+disparities,' as an able writer of the day terms them, to exist till
+industry, unchecked, unladen, could work out for itself a gradual
+emancipation from the bondage of want. But I would not add to evils I
+dare not too suddenly remedy! I would not require the children of Israel
+to make bricks without straw! I would not lay the burdens of the state
+on shoulders already weighed down by nature's demand for daily bread. I
+would exempt from the whole weight of taxation the labourer, whether of
+brain or limb; he has no stake in the stability of the state; he can
+carry his head or his hand wherever he goes. He who keeps back the
+hire of the labourer is denounced in holy writ: I would not be worse
+than such, and rob the labourer of his hire. I would, therefore, repeal
+every tax _direct_ and _indirect_, which now exists, and substitute for
+_all_ a graduated property-tax, on _independent_ property _only_,
+trifling in amount, say one per cent., where the property was small;
+and doubling, trebling, nay, quadrupling, if necessary, as it rises.
+What, if a man with thirty thousand per annum, pay twenty thousand, can
+he not live on ten? or if the man with two hundred thousand per annum,
+pay one hundred and fifty thousand, can he not live on fifty? This, some
+people are not ashamed to answer me would be robbing the rich; while
+they talk as loudly as vaguely of the sacredness of property and vested
+rights. But I would answer such, that starvation in the midst of plenty,
+on the plea of the sacredness of justice, is a practical blasphemy!
+What, therefore, relief from taxation did not effect for the absolutely
+destitute, I would complete by an amended system of poor-laws;--such
+assessments, however, to be levied on independent property only."
+
+"Poor-laws are bad things," interrupted Sir James, who having finished
+his luncheon, was now lolling on a sofa, "they make the common people so
+lazy."
+
+"As long as industry is not taxed in support of idleness," answered
+Henry, "the lazy rich man is entitled to no commiseration for being
+compelled to assist his brother, the lazy poor man! Poor-laws," he
+added, turning to Lord Darlingford, "as far at least as food goes, I
+consider the most sacred of vested rights. God said, 'Behold, I have
+given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of all the
+earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding
+seed, to you it shall be for meat.'"
+
+"But you allow," said his lordship, "that many of the great landed
+properties you would tax thus heavily are purchased with the produce of
+the owner's own exertions; state your reasons for giving immunity to
+present industry and not to past?"
+
+"Because," replied Henry, "when once a man has realized property he has
+acquired a stake in the country, a stake in the stability of the
+government; his property requires protection, whether from the foreign
+enemy or the home depredator; and, therefore, he should pay for such
+protection. If a man desires a wall round his garden, who pays for
+building the wall? The man who owns the garden! If a man wishes to
+insure his premises against fire, who pays the insurance? The man whose
+premises are guaranteed. Would either of these persons dream of calling
+a parish meeting to demand of their neighbours as a right, that they
+should subscribe towards the expense so incurred; nay, that every
+pauper subsisting on some shilling or two per week, should be compelled
+to pay two-pence for his penny loaf until the sum was made up; yet, such
+is the spirit of every tax, direct or indirect, levied on any thing but
+independent property. The machinery of government is the garden-wall of
+the landed interest, the insurance office of the fund-holder. Any tax,
+therefore, levied on those who have neither land nor money is a crying
+injustice, except, indeed," he added with bitter irony, "we admit of a
+small pole-tax to keep down burking. It is, no doubt, the houseless,
+nameless, friendless wretch, who has no one to ask what is become of
+him; the poor creature, who has nothing to be protected but the limbs
+and sinews he was born with, who runs the greatest risk of contributing
+these to the promotion of science."
+
+"But," observed Lord Darlingford, "it is not the very destitute who pay
+taxes."
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Henry, "indirect ones they do. If the beggar
+in the street succeeds in exciting the compassion of the passenger, and
+receives one penny, ere he can appease his hunger with a mouthful of
+bread, do not the corn laws, by doubling the price of the loaf, exact
+from him one half of the penny so obtained? And is not his mite, thus
+cast into the treasury, like that of the poor widow in the Gospel, taken
+from his _want_; and, therefore, more than all they (_the rich_) did
+cast in of their abundance?"
+
+"Oh, it is all but too true!" said Lady Arden, feelingly. "I do think
+your scheme of taxation would be but justice. Willoughby would certainly
+have a great deal to pay; but he can surely afford it better than poor
+creatures who have nothing but what they earn, or what they beg. I see
+the subject now in quite a new light. I have always been in the habit of
+thinking people _poor_ who had but _one_ or _two_ thousands a-year; and
+I never took the trouble of considering that there was any difference
+between hundreds a-year and nothing."
+
+"How would you apportion this property-tax of yours?" asked Lord
+Darlingford; "and how ensure its being sufficient for the exigencies of
+the state?"
+
+"On a graduated scale, as I have already said," replied Henry, "from
+justice to individuals: let those who have the largest property to
+ensure, pay, as at all other insurance offices, the most; but, as to
+details and calculations, I leave those to Mr. Hume, or some of the
+multiplication table people; I only advocate the principle. Indeed, one
+of the great recommendations of this plan is, that the principle once
+established, the work is done: when those who tie up the burdens have to
+carry them, they may be trusted to find scales of sufficient nicety in
+which to weigh them: we need, in that case, no longer call for
+estimates, or petition against sinecures; nay, we may give the very
+voting of the subsidies to the _Lords_ themselves!--many of whom, I make
+no doubt, would forthwith become immortalised by the economical or
+'_twopenny halfpenny_' ingenuity, developed in the devising of future
+budgets. '_Twopence halfpenny_,' I would have the noble lords to know,
+though no object to them, is a sum which many of their destitute
+fellow-creatures would, at this moment, receive with joy of heart! Then,
+remember, in further recommendation of this scheme, the millions a-year
+of unprofitable expense that would be saved to the nation, by having but
+one instead of innumerable taxes to levy."
+
+"I don't think," said Sir James, looking as if he had made a discovery,
+"that the people with large fortunes will like this law of yours,
+Henry."
+
+"Many people, too," replied Henry, contemptuously, "don't like paying
+their Christmas bills."
+
+Alfred, who had been looking over a morning paper near a window, and
+from time to time lending a share of his attention to the disputants,
+now joined them.
+
+"We cannot, I think," he said, "blame any particular government, or set
+of men, for the ills of which you complain. The fault is in human
+nature; and the remedy, if there be one, is only to be found in laying
+step by step the wisest general restrictions we can on individual
+selfishness. The advance of civilization has already placed a salutary
+check on plunder by force; it remains for the march of intellect to
+discover one for plunder by stratagem. But we must be cautious; in
+desiring the higher steps of the ladder of wisdom and virtue, we must
+not undervalue those we have attained, and in our headlong haste,
+stumble; and, like our neighbours of the continent, fall back on the
+frightful abyss of anarchy that lays below! 'Tis well to rise in
+excellence; I hate the cant of dreading all chance: but, to keep to the
+simile of the ladder, let us take care that the lifting foot be firmly
+placed on the step above, ere the standing one be removed from the step
+below."
+
+"Is there not some danger," said Lord Darlingford, "of a property-tax
+sending capital out of the kingdom?"
+
+"It must be very easy," replied Henry, "for the inventors of all sorts
+of protecting duties to devise a means of meeting that difficulty, by
+some ingeniously arranged tax on the exportation of property, whether
+income or capital, with a tremendously deterring fine on any attempt at
+imposition; and minor exactments, to hunt evasion through all its
+windings. There might, also," he added, "be an alien tax, to prevent the
+foreign artizan from sharing the immunity from taxation, purchased by
+our own rich for our own poor."
+
+"Is there not some danger," said Lady Arden, "that the deteriorated
+incomes of the great, by obliging them to lessen their establishments
+and expenditure, would throw many people out of employment, and so
+increase the numbers of the poor?"
+
+"I should think not," answered Henry; "recollect there would be the same
+property in the kingdom, only in more general and more equal
+circulation. The servants dismissed, and the luxuries foregone by the
+few, would in all probability be more than compensated by the increased
+establishments and more numerous comforts of the many, though each only
+in a small degree. The standard of splendour might be lowered, but that
+of comfort would be raised. The change, too, is likely to be in favour
+of home productions: the overflow of inordinate wealth, the _too much_
+of the few, is frequently squandered on luxuries obtained from abroad;
+while the fertilizing sufficiency, the _enough_ of the many, would
+probably be expended on comforts produced at home.
+
+"I do not, however," he added, "mean to assume the character of a
+prophet, or even to argue the point of future consequences; I take
+higher ground, and end every such discussion with the same appeal to
+duty:
+
+"Let each generation do what is clearly justice in their own day, and
+leave the future to the All-wise Disposer of events.
+
+"If there were, indeed, a theory through the mazes of which moral
+rectitude knew no path, we might be excusable in taking calculation for
+our guide; but when our road lies before us, indicated by duty's
+steadily pointing finger, we are not entitled to balance ere we proceed,
+even though it should be where four frequented highways meet."
+
+Mrs. Dorothea, the sisters, and Sir James, had got tired of politics,
+and wandered into the garden. Henry, perceiving that Sir James was still
+in attendance on Louisa, became impatient, broke off the conversation
+abruptly, and following them, joined her, saying, "Lord Darlingford is
+too prudent a politician for me. I hate prudence and calculation, and
+worldly mindedness," he added, with impetuosity, and a provoked and
+mortified tone of voice, which Louisa was at no loss to comprehend. "The
+present artificial state of society," he proceeded, "has banished into
+the poet's dream every thing worth living for!--there alone all things
+deserving the ambition of an intellectual being now hold their unreal
+existence! Beauty has become a snare--feeling a folly, or a curse!--love
+a farce, and lovely woman, nature's most cunning workmanship, a _toy_,
+a _trinket_, which the rich man may draw out his purse and
+purchase!!!--heart and all!" he subjoined, in an under and somewhat
+softened voice, for Louisa had looked round, and their eyes had met for
+a moment. "Is it so?" he continued; "or are the beautiful looking
+deceptions now made to suit the _market_ for which they are intended,
+_without hearts_?"
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+Whether Alfred's study was pamphlet, newspaper, or magazine, he could
+never contrive to discern the print by any light but that of the window,
+or rather glass door, at which we left him standing on the morning on
+which he first discerned the fleeting semblance of a fair vision in the
+adjoining garden. The glass door was generally half open, a muslin blind
+drawn half down across it, and the eyes of the student, like those of
+the naughty child in the pictures of bold Harry, just visible over the
+top of his book.
+
+On such occasions one of his sisters would often glide behind him, and
+startling him with a loud burlesque sigh, exclaim, "She is not there
+to-day." "Nonsense!" Alfred would say, rising. "This is a very well
+written thing," he added one morning, throwing his book on a table.
+
+"What is it about, Alfred?" asked Madeline archly. He took up the book
+again to examine it before he could answer the question; "I declare he
+can't tell," she cried, "without looking at the top of the page;" a
+general burst of laughter followed, from which Alfred escaped into the
+garden. He had long since made it his business to ascertain that Lady
+Palliser and her daughter inhabited the next villa; but few, very few
+indeed, and "far between," had been the glimpses of his beauteous
+enslaver which his late studious habits and love of good light had
+procured for him.
+
+Lady Caroline appeared to be conscious that the garden was exposed to
+the view of their neighbours, and was therefore timid about entering it;
+or, when she did so, as on the first occasion noticed, it was only to
+pluck a flower, for she seemed fearful of remaining in it for a moment.
+This morning, however, both mother and daughter had appeared on the lawn
+and with bonnets on, which, combined with the early hour, had caused
+Alfred to suspect them of an intention of visiting the walks; and his
+consequent anticipations of a possible meeting, had, we must confess,
+made him rather absent.
+
+He now called in at the window to his sisters to know if they were not
+yet ready, assuring them that the band had played several tunes, and
+that they would be late.
+
+"Don't you know that the Duke of Gloucester has arrived?" he continued,
+"did you not hear the joy bells yesterday evening? He is so punctual to
+seven, that the fashionables are always early when he is here."
+
+This remonstrance had the desired effect; final arrangements were
+quickly completed and the party set forth.
+
+On entering the Montpelier walk, Alfred beheld, quite near and coming
+towards them, Lady Palliser and her daughter, in company with the duke,
+and attended by two or three of his grace's aides-de-camp.
+
+Alfred saw that Lady Caroline perceived and recognised him, for she
+coloured instantly, but looked as if she did not know whether she ought
+to acknowledge him or not; while he was so much startled and confounded,
+that he had not presence of mind to look for a recognition. Lady
+Palliser happened to be conversing with his grace, and did not see him.
+He passed, therefore, unacknowledged by either lady.
+
+The next turn, the next and the next again, he was determined to manage
+matters better, and accordingly kept a regular look out for the duke's
+party, but they were nowhere to be seen; it was evident they had been
+going off the walk at the time he met them.
+
+How dull the whole gay scene became the moment this conviction reached
+him! How irksome the frivolity of every body's manner; while all the
+world, seeming to have made the discovery simultaneously with himself,
+kept telling each other as they passed that the duke was gone, just as
+if it was done on purpose to torment him.
+
+In vain did Miss Salter, every time he encountered the party, address
+Lady Flamborough by her title, in an unnecessarily loud tone, to
+endeavour to draw his attention by showing him what exalted company she
+was in. Every effort was thrown away upon him, as well as all the extra
+finery sported this day on purpose for the duke. Little did his grace
+think how many husbands and fathers he had caused to grumble. As for
+poor Lady Whaleworthy, in her loyal zeal to make herself fit company for
+royalty, she actually crowned herself with the gold tissue turban which
+she wore at Mr. Salter's dinner; so that with this and her everlasting
+crimson velvet pelisse, to which she had added a gold waist-band for the
+occasion, she was altogether as fine as the hammer cloth of a lord
+mayor's coach.
+
+Lady Flamborough trusted more to her natural attractions; these she
+displayed for the great occasion with a liberality which certainly did
+succeed in calling forth a remark from his grace, though by no means a
+complimentary one.
+
+The new bonnets sported this morning would require the calculating boy
+to count them; and as for shoes, many a simple-hearted girl fresh from
+the country, submitted to hours of actual torture, in order that the
+Duke of Gloucester might go back to London convinced that she had very
+small feet.
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+The next morning Alfred was on his guard, and watched the first
+approaches of the duke's party with a palpitating heart.
+
+But, alas! Lady Palliser, as before, was occupied and saw him not;
+while, what was much worse, it was evident that Lady Caroline did see
+him at a distance, and from that moment kept her eyes fixed on the
+ground. They passed each other, and he could discern the glow of
+consciousness steal over her cheek as they did so. Again and again they
+passed--still without recognition; till at length he scarcely ventured
+to look that way. Lord Darlingford now appeared. He attached himself to
+Lady Arden's party--Jane in particular. After a turn or two, he
+apologised for quitting them, saying he must go and speak to Lady
+Palliser. Alfred, forming a sudden and desperate resolve, at which he
+often afterwards looked back with astonishment, took his lordship's arm,
+and accompanied him. The duke had just quitted the walk, and Lady
+Palliser, quite _désoeuvrée_, happened at the moment to be in what she
+called a humour for being spoken to. She received, therefore, not only
+Lord Darlingford but Alfred with the utmost graciousness. Caroline,
+after a timid glance at her mother's countenance, looked round and
+recognised our hero with a smile that seemed to open to him in an
+instant the gates of Paradise. Nay, the Montpelier walk itself became,
+as by a sudden revelation, the very garden of Eden to his delighted
+eyes. He was walking next to Caroline--he did not know how he had got
+there! He was speaking to her--he did not know what he was saying! Her
+countenance was turned towards him to reply, while the close bonnet
+which, while it was so turned, hid its loveliness from every eye. It was
+a slight summer one of simple snowy sarcenet, and though it warded off
+the glare of the out-door sun-beam, it admitted through its half
+transparent texture a heavenly kind of light, which at once accurately
+defined, and seemed a fitting shrine for the perfectly angelic features
+around which it dwelt: the pure lively red of the lovely moving lip,
+where all else was so white; the smile of enchantment, exposing to view
+the pearly teeth; the delicately pencilled brow; the large dark eyes,
+which yet were so soft, so modestly raised, so meek in their expression,
+that their very lustre seemed that of compassion's tear ere it o'erflows
+the lid! Yet did their mild beams make such an unmerciful jumble of all
+Alfred's ideas, that he was quite sure he must be talking nonsense. But
+there was no help for it; if he spoke not, he saw but the fluted outside
+of the white sarcenet bonnet; it was necessary to make ceaseless appeals
+to Caroline's attention, or the graceful head would not be turned
+towards him; the lovely eyes would not be raised to his, the beauteous
+lips, fresh as rose leaves moist with morning dew, would not be parted
+in reply; to purchase delights such as these he was compelled to risk
+his reputation as a sage, and go on without an effort to think. At
+length, however he came to an unlucky pause, and instead of jumping
+over it, unfortunately began to weigh what subject he should next
+propound. But, alas! the precious moments flew past in rapid succession,
+and, one after another, became absorbed in the gulph of eternity, while
+our poor hero was still at a stand.
+
+And now strange uneasy sensations began to blend with the dream-like
+felicity he had hitherto enjoyed, though he was not yet awake to the
+cause, which was simply this: the band was playing that well known note
+of dismissal--the national anthem--and anticipations of approaching
+separation began to steal over his senses. To his surprise and infinite
+delight, however, Lady Palliser suddenly asked Lord Darlingford and
+himself, with the prettiest and most petitioning manner possible, to go
+home with her party to breakfast. We need scarcely say that Alfred
+consented; so did Lord Darlingford, though not quite so willingly, for
+he had intended to return to Lady Arden's party.
+
+After this morning, Alfred not only joined his new friends whenever they
+appeared, but became in a short time almost a daily visitor at Jessamine
+bower; and apparently with the entire approbation of Lady Palliser.
+Indeed, it was in general some message or some commission of her
+ladyship's, or some allusion to the morrow made at parting, almost
+amounting to an appointment, which furnished him with an excuse for
+calling. He, poor fellow, was flattered, delighted, filled with hope and
+joy! But, alas! he was not sufficiently acquainted with the character of
+Lady Palliser to understand his own position. Her ladyship was a being
+without affections and without occupation; who in her intercourse with
+others, and from total heartlessness, cared not whose best feelings were
+the springs of the puppet-show, so the movements of the puppets amused
+her--and he happened to be the whim of the hour;--to order him about, to
+see him perfectly at her disposal, chanced to be what, just then,
+afforded a species of excitement to her restless idleness and morbid
+selfishness.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+Meanwhile much of Caroline's excessive reserve, or rather fearfulness of
+manner wore off. In her mother's immediate presence indeed she was ever
+the same; but if Lady Palliser quitted the room for a moment, or was
+occupied conversing with some other visitor, Caroline's countenance
+would brighten, and her manner become comparatively easy and happy.
+Fully, however, to comprehend our heroine, it will be necessary to cast
+a retrospective glance over the manner of her education.
+
+The most painful silence of the heart and all its best affections had
+from infancy been habitual to Caroline. She was an only child, and had
+no recollection of her father; while her mother's strange, unfeeling
+character, had made her from the very first shrink within herself. When
+arrived at an age at which young people, not self-opinionated, naturally
+wish to ask those older than themselves what they ought to do on various
+little occasions, which seem to them important from their novelty, poor
+Caroline would sometimes, in what she deemed a case of urgency, make a
+great effort and apply to her mother, on which Lady Palliser would treat
+her simplicity as the best of good jokes, laugh to excess, then rally
+her for blushing, and next perhaps for shedding tears; and, finally,
+either leave her question without reply, or give one turning the
+subject into absolute ridicule; till at last Caroline learned to feel a
+terror surpassing description of having any one thought, feeling, or
+opinion even guessed at by her mother. Yet her mother was her only
+companion. There was also a strange inconsistency in the character and
+conduct of Lady Palliser; for while she never condescended to advise,
+she was tyrannical in her commands, exacting implicit, unquestioned,
+instantaneous obedience to every whim.
+
+Either there was something in the thorough kindliness of Alfred's
+disposition which appeared in his manner, and secretly won the
+confidence of our heroine; or fate had ordained that they were to love
+each other. Whatever the cause, the consequence was, that Caroline,
+after the intimacy we have described had subsisted for some weeks, no
+longer felt alone in the world--she was no longer without thoughts that
+gave her pleasure; while those thoughts, though for their ostensible
+object they had a walk, a song, a book, or a flower, were always
+associated with the idea of Alfred--of something that he had said--or
+some little kind service he had performed--or, perhaps, some chance
+encounter of his eye--or the consciousness of his fixed gaze, felt
+without daring to look up, and which, though it had produced strange
+confusion of ideas at the time, was remembered with delight. Neither was
+she any longer without hope, though but a hope that they might meet on
+the walks, or that he might come in about something she had heard her
+mother mention to him.
+
+It may be asked why should Caroline not always have had the hopes with
+which most young people enter life; merely because the buoyancy of youth
+had been pressed down, and the elasticity of its spirits destroyed, by
+the unnatural restraint under which every thought and feeling had been
+held during the period that her earliest affections had, as is generally
+the case, endeavoured to fix themselves on her parent.
+
+As for Alfred, he had misgivings certainly, respecting his being a
+younger brother, and his consequent want of fortune. At the same time,
+when he felt that he was justified in harbouring the restless,
+delightful hope, that he was already not quite indifferent to Caroline,
+and that he received such decided encouragement as he did from her
+mother, what could he think, but that he was the most fortunate fellow
+in existence, and that he had met with the most generous, liberal
+minded, delightful people in the whole world!
+
+Sometimes, indeed, he would take a fastidious fit, and murmur a little
+in his heart against fate, for compelling him to be the one to receive,
+and denying him the pride and pleasure of bestowing; but so absorbing
+was his passion for Caroline, that he soon closed his eyes against this
+objection, almost as absolutely as he would have done against the
+contrary had it existed. He was incapable, in short, at the time, of
+weighing any subject deliberately: a look, a smile, or the unbidden
+brightening of Caroline's countenance when they met, would have been
+sufficient to have upset the firmest resolves, had he even been visited
+by a lucid interval in which to have formed them; but on the contrary,
+from the first morning he had been so unexpectedly invited home by Lady
+Palliser, his head had become giddy with rapture; the pulsations of his
+heart had never settled down to their steady original pace, nor had any
+one thought or feeling ever once been summoned before the bar of reason.
+That it must be a fairy tale--a dream--too much happiness to be true,
+would sometimes cross his imagination for a moment, and strike his heart
+with a sort of panic; but such thoughts not being agreeable enough to
+meet with a welcome within, were therefore quickly dismissed.
+
+Whenever he was neither at Lady Palliser's nor at his old post at the
+window, he was wandering in some unfrequented walk, or reclining
+listlessly on a remote sofa in a deep reverie, calling to mind looks,
+smiles, or half uttered replies, from which, while they said nothing,
+every thing might be inferred.
+
+He studied and learned to comprehend as a language hitherto unknown, the
+timid, shrinking, as yet undeveloped character of Caroline. To him her
+very silence now conveyed more than the eloquence of others; and however
+long he watched the downcast lid, if it was raised at last but for a
+second, he was amply rewarded.
+
+And when he repaired to Jessamine Bower, to pay his now daily morning
+visit, and on entering addressed Lady Palliser first, as he made a point
+of doing, he literally trembled with concealed emotion as he noted the
+slight tinge, faint as the reflection from a rose leaf, steal over
+Caroline's delicate cheek, while she continued to bend over her
+employment, whatever it might be, and acting her part unnecessarily
+well, endeavoured to betray no consciousness of his presence, till her
+attention was absolutely claimed by some such formal address as--
+
+"How is Lady Caroline this morning?" Formal as were the words, the tone
+of the voice was sufficient. The faint tinge would increase to a deep
+blush, ere the equally formed reply was articulated. On many occasions,
+Alfred would continue to converse with Lady Palliser, or perform any of
+her frivolous and whimsical commands, and nothing more apparently would
+pass between the young people; yet would he, the while, trace in slight
+variations of countenance, imperceptible to any other eye, all that
+Caroline thought or felt with regard to what was said. Sometimes Lady
+Palliser herself would suddenly fling down her netting or knotting, or
+whatever nonsense she was about, with an expression of disgust, declare
+she was sick of it, and ordering Alfred to look for her pet book of
+Italian Trios, and Caroline to put away her drawing and join them, seat
+herself at the instrument.
+
+This to Caroline and Alfred was a wonderful improvement of position.
+Standing together behind Lady Palliser's chair, their voices united in
+the thrilling harmonies of the music, and sometimes in the utterance of
+words expressive of thoughts, which else one at least of the voices had
+never dared to pronounce. On one of these favourable occasions a
+circumstance occurred, trivial in the extreme, yet which forwarded
+Alfred's cause amazingly, and indeed conveyed to both a tacit conviction
+of each other's attachment.
+
+A hand of each while they sang rested on the back of Lady Palliser's
+chair, and after a simultaneous attempt to turn over the leaf of the
+music-book, accidentally came in contact as they returned to their
+former position. It had been long ere a modest younger brother, like our
+poor hero, had found courage to possess himself by any direct means of
+the fair, soft, taper fingered, rosy palmed, little hand, of the great
+heiress, the beautiful Lady Caroline Montague; but an occasion like this
+was not to be resisted: Alfred's trembling fingers closed upon the fond
+treasure; while a hasty but faint effort of Caroline's to withdraw it,
+was met by a beseeching look that seemed to have the desired effect;
+for, though covered with blushes, she did not immediately succeed in
+disengaging the hand, while the little scene was at the moment supplied
+by the duet with appropriate words.
+
+[Illustration: Langue il mio co-re per te d'a-mo-re.]
+
+Sang Alfred, while Caroline in faltering notes replied
+
+[Illustration: Non so re-sis-te-re.]
+
+When our hero had taken his departure Caroline hastened to her own
+apartment. She felt unfit for any society, particularly her mother's.
+
+Her pure unpractised delicacy of mind caused her to look back on the
+incident which had just passed as an event of the utmost importance; as,
+in short, not only a proposal, but also an acceptance. Nay, had she
+wished it, she would no longer have thought herself at liberty to
+retract; for she knew that she would not have allowed a man who was
+indifferent to her to have retained her hand in his for a single second.
+That she had permitted Alfred then to do so, she felt amounted to a
+confession of preference! Deep was the blush which accompanied this
+thought.
+
+At other times Lady Palliser would be extravagantly late in the morning;
+and, if consequently not in the drawing-room when our hero called, she
+would send word that Mr. Arden was not to go away till she came down;
+and then so whimsical were all her movements, not perhaps make her
+appearance for an hour, or possibly two. Those were the occasions on
+which Alfred best succeeded in drawing Caroline into easy and familiar
+conversation, and thus inducing in her a feeling of confidence towards
+himself, which a young creature who had been blessed with any friend in
+her own family, would not have thought of mingling with her love for a
+lover: but the affection poor Caroline was beginning to feel towards
+Alfred was not only her _First Love_, but it was also the first
+friendship her heart had ever been encouraged to know. Thus it was, that
+to a being hitherto so totally alone in the world, he became in so short
+a time every thing. While the idea, however vaguely entertained, of
+being at some period of the future of existence protected by his
+affection from every harshness--sheltered by his tenderness from every
+sorrow, had almost unconsciously became the hope, the home, the resting
+place of all her anticipations.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+"But how are you to ask us to the wedding, Alfred, considering we don't
+even visit?" said Louisa one morning to her brother, who stood as usual
+at the window, but now without even the pretext of a book.
+
+"Nonsense, Louisa!" he replied. "Wedding, indeed! I wish it were come to
+that! and it would be easy to arrange the visiting. By-the-by, ma'am,"
+he added, turning to his mother, "independent of Louisa's jesting, I
+wish we did visit."
+
+"So do I, my dear," replied Lady Arden, "but Lady Palliser, of the two,
+was here rather before I was; besides she is a person of the highest
+rank, so that I think the first advances ought to come from her. They
+say too, her ladyship is going to give a great fancy ball, and it would
+look as if I wanted to have the girls asked. However, I should suppose
+we must visit soon, one way or other; for Louisa's jesting as you call
+it, appears to me to go on in as serious a manner as you could desire."
+
+"Oh--I--a--don't know, ma'am," said Alfred, colouring, and pulling off
+and on an unfortunate glove, which seemed destined to be martyred in the
+cause.
+
+"Why certainly," persisted Lady Arden, "neither Lady Caroline, nor her
+mother for her, would be justified in receiving either your public
+attentions or your daily visits in the manner they do, if they meant to
+make the only objection which could be made to you--your being a younger
+son."
+
+"Well--I hope you may be right, ma'am;" said Alfred, laughing, and
+escaping into the garden to hide his confusion.
+
+"He will be a fortunate young man if he gets Lady Caroline Montague,"
+said Aunt Dorothea.
+
+"Not more fortunate than he deserves, Mrs. Dorothea," replied Lady
+Arden, "for he is the best creature in the world, as well as the
+handsomest and the most agreeable."
+
+"No one can be more sensible of my nephew's merits than I am," said Mrs.
+Dorothea; "but I still maintain that few, even of the few who deserve as
+well, are as fortunate. Lady Caroline Montague, I understand, inherits
+the whole of the family estates, and her son, should she have one, will
+I suppose have the title."
+
+"Why, no doubt she could command any match," replied Lady Arden; "'tis
+however a most fortunate circumstance that Lady Palliser has the good
+sense to see the advantage of her daughter marrying so thoroughly
+amiable a young man, who will make her so truly happy."
+
+"Talking of happiness," said Mrs. Dorothea, "I hope poor Jane may be
+happy with Lord Darlingford."
+
+"I trust she will," replied Lady Arden, with a half suppressed sigh;
+"and in point both of rank and fortune you know it is a most desirable
+match."
+
+"No doubt of it," rejoined Mrs. Dorothea, "and people are very foolish
+who neglect such serious considerations, and allow their time to glide
+by them. Were I, at this moment, as I might have been but for my own
+folly, Countess Dowager of Ravenscroft;" and here Mrs. Dorothea drew up
+her head with great stiffness, "such people as the Salters would never
+have had it in their power to insult me; nor should I have been in
+danger of losing my life by being baked to death in that horrid lodging.
+To be sure the carpet looked respectable, and that was all it had to
+recommend it."
+
+"By-the-by," said her ladyship, "I have often wondered, Mrs. Arden, how
+you, who have in general a very proper sense of your own dignity, came
+to make the acquaintance of such people as those Salts, was it you
+called them?"
+
+"Your ladyship's remark is very just," replied Mrs. Dorothea, "but the
+old friend from whom they brought me a letter, is a highly respectable
+and gentlemanly man, and I was not aware till lately that he had only
+made their acquaintance himself casually at a boarding-house, where it
+seems they persecuted him with attentions, and then worried him for a
+letter to some one at Cheltenham, where they said they were going
+perfect strangers. He was afraid to enter into those particulars in the
+note he sent by them, lest they should contrive to open and read it: and
+the letter he since wrote me to say how little he himself knew of them,
+and to apologise for the liberty he had taken, by explaining that they
+made such a point of his giving them a line to some friend, that he did
+not know how to refuse, was unfortunately delayed, waiting for a frank
+(he knows I don't like postages), till with my usual silly goodnature I
+had taken a great deal of trouble about those worthless people. Their
+vulgarity too disgusted me all the time; yet they so overwhelmed me with
+their thanks, their gratitude, as they called it, that I literally did
+not know how to shake them off."
+
+"Really my dear madam," said Lady Arden, "you are quite too
+goodnatured."
+
+"That has always been my weak point," replied Mrs. Dorothea: "when I see
+that it is in my power to serve people, I am fool enough to fancy that
+alone gives them a claim upon me."
+
+And such was really the case, for poor Mrs. Dorothea, though she had
+been all her life threatening to grow wise, in other words selfish, had
+never yet attained to any degree of proficiency in this art of
+self-defence, if we may so term it. Too great goodnature was indeed her
+only apology for being still at fifty-five, what people of the world
+emphatically call young! For she had not been all her days blinded by
+the dazzling sunshine of unclouded prosperity; on the contrary, her
+horizon had been frequently overshadowed by those unfavourable changes,
+from which, as variableness of weather teaches the sailor seamanship,
+knowledge of the world is in general collected.
+
+"But we were speaking of Jane," proceeded Mrs. Dorothea, "I have not the
+least doubt of my niece's good sense. Indeed Jane is a sweet girl, as
+amiable as sensible. I was only afraid that Lord Darlingford had rather
+a jealous temper."
+
+"I hope not!" her ladyship replied, again sighing, "and you know, my
+dear Mrs. Arden, the impossibility of having every thing one's own way
+in this world. The connection, establishment, and all that, are in the
+highest degree desirable. And then between ourselves, Lord Nelthorpe has
+not behaved very well to poor Jane."
+
+"In that respect, it is so far fortunate," said Mrs. Dorothea, "that she
+is now making a still higher connection. And then Sir James, with his
+fifteen thousand per annum, will certainly be a splendid match for
+Louisa; but she must mind what she is about, and not laugh at him as she
+now does after they are married."
+
+"Of course she will have too much good sense for that," replied Lady
+Arden; but her eyes filled with silent tears as she thought of the
+infinite sacrifice Louisa would make, if she did indeed marry Sir James.
+
+The three sisters had followed Alfred into the garden, and were
+collecting flowers to supply the vases in the drawing-room, and laughing
+in their usual light-hearted way, if but a blossom fell to the ground
+instead of into the basket held out to catch it. Caroline the while was
+standing in her mother's drawing-room, behind a Venetian blind, through
+which unseen she was observing their movements, and envying their
+happiness, which to her appeared to be satisfactorily accounted for by
+Alfred's being their brother. How fervently did she wish at the moment
+that she too were his sister, were it but that she might be privileged
+to go out and join the cheerful group, on which she thus wistfully
+gazed.
+
+With her solitary musing, however, a thrill pleasure mingled, when from
+time to time she saw Alfred steal a glance of interest at the very
+window where she stood; and which, from the blind being down, he
+suspected was occupied by Caroline.
+
+The Arden girls, at the moment, were all occupied plucking blossoms from
+various parts of a long trailing branch of woodbine, which as it hung
+from above their heads, it cost them an effort to reach.
+
+"Look, look! Caroline," cried Lady Palliser, who was standing at another
+window, "how like they are to the drawings of the graces. I must go and
+see Lady Arden directly, and send them all cards; for I am determined to
+have those three nice girls to do the graces at my fancy ball."
+
+Out of this mere whim of Lady Palliser's arose a visiting acquaintance
+with the Ardens.
+
+Alfred and Caroline were, therefore, more than ever together, a
+consequence which Lady Palliser made no effort whatever to prevent. The
+fact was that her ladyship was in the habit of considering Caroline, who
+was but seventeen, a mere child; while her own excessive vanity, and
+Alfred's unremitting efforts to make himself agreeable to her for
+Caroline's sake, had completely deceived her into a belief that he was
+under the dominion of one of those absurd boy passions, which very young
+men sometimes conceive for women much older than themselves;
+particularly if they happened to be, as her ladyship well knew she was,
+still extremely beautiful. And though Lady Palliser was too proud and
+too cold to have the most remote idea of making a fool of herself, she
+looked forward to seeing our hero in despair at her feet as to the
+_denouement_ of an excellent jest; while in the meantime she amused
+herself by drawing him on to commit every absurdity she could devise.
+And such, no doubt, if meant as attentions to herself, would have been
+many humble assiduities, which, for Caroline's sake, he willingly paid
+her ladyship.
+
+During the progress of this amiable proceeding, the honest-hearted
+Alfred received every symptom of kindliness of manner, as an indication
+of maternal feeling, and as a proof that Lady Palliser already
+considered him her future son-in-law.
+
+One evening they happened to be alone, when he was about to take his
+departure; her ladyship, on bidding him good night, held towards him
+her beautiful white hand in a very coquettish, but, as he thought, in
+the most frank, obliging manner possible. The idea struck him, that
+considering his comparative want of fortune, it might be more honourable
+in him to make some disclosure of the state of his feelings to Lady
+Palliser, previously to addressing Caroline herself; accordingly, in a
+paroxysm of grateful and dutiful affection, he seized her ladyship's
+proffered hand, respectfully pressed it to his lips, and began to murmur
+something about his own unworthiness. Lady Palliser, snatching her hand
+away, laughed and said, "Go, you foolish child."
+
+Alfred, thus discouraged for the moment, took his departure in silence,
+with some idea that Lady Palliser, however kindly and liberally disposed
+towards his humble pretensions, very possibly thought both Caroline and
+himself too young at present. What else could she mean by calling him a
+foolish child? Little did he dream of the construction put on his manner
+by his intended mother-in-law.
+
+As little had he suspected on former occasions, that her ladyship had
+believed him to be making a complete fool of himself, and had been in
+proportion well amused, when, in conversation with her, while every word
+was intended for the ear of our heroine, who sat silently by at her
+drawing, he had ventured on topics, which when alone with Caroline he
+dared not introduce; and eloquently painted his idea of an ardent,
+genuine, and worthy attachment, and the devotion of a whole life
+consequent upon it till he had became breathless with agitation: yet,
+seeing that Lady Palliser only smiled at the uncontrollable warmth which
+quite carried him away, he believed that he was tacitly approved of,
+and so thoroughly understood, that explanation, whenever the proper time
+for it should arrive, would be merely matter of form.
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+The triumphs of Aunt Dorothea over all her enemies, particularly the
+Salters, were so numerous, that to avoid prolixity we have not recounted
+them. As for Miss Salter, she had brought on a most inconvenient pain in
+the back of her neck by the reiterated bows with which she had again and
+again, morning after morning, vainly endeavoured to draw the attention
+of Mrs. Dorothea Arden.
+
+One day, however, when that lady was driving up and down the
+High-street, seated at her ease in her sister, Lady Arden's peculiarly
+splendid open barouche, she beheld, trudging along the flag-way and
+coming towards her, Mr. and the Misses Salter, with countenances which
+betrayed that they were not insensible to the heat of the weather; and
+shoes so assimilated by dust to the dust on which they trod, as to be
+nearly invisible. Mrs. Dorothea was not aware that the Salters had ever
+before seen her in this elegant carriage: so anxious was she therefore
+that they should do so now, that on the impulse of the moment, in
+defiance of having long since given them the cut direct, she made an
+almost involuntary, yet very conspicuous bow. Electrified and delighted,
+the whole party stopped short and performed no less than three bows each
+in return; while Miss Salter, who had by much the greatest portion of
+moral courage of the whole trio, added even a kiss of the hand.
+
+Miss Dorothea had not been long returned home when she received a card
+of invitation from the Misses Salter to a quadrille party, accompanied
+by a long servile note, to say that they were much concerned at not
+having had earlier it in their power to offer some attention to her
+friends, Lady Arden and family, and also to her friend Lady Palliser,
+and begging to know if their waiting upon, and sending cards of
+invitation to these respective ladies would be agreeable.
+
+To this was added a hint, that indeed the party was in a great measure
+made for her friends and would be very _select_.
+
+To the invitation for herself, Mrs. Dorothea sent a formal rejection,
+without assigning any reason. Of the absurd and forward proffer of
+_attention_ to her _friends_ she took no notice.
+
+Nor were those dignified proceedings the sole mode of vengeance
+practised by Mrs. Dorothea against her pitiful foes; for much as she was
+herself engaged at present with more agreeable occupations, she had
+placed the affair from the commencement in such able hands, namely,
+those of her prime minister, Sarah, that no circumstance, however
+minute, had been lost sight of.
+
+The origin of the Salters, by its coarsest appellation, had been
+diligently disseminated in every servant's hall, and thence arisen to
+the respective dining and drawing-rooms, till it had reached the ears of
+many, who else had never known that there were such people in existence
+as the Salters.
+
+What was if possible worse, Sir William Orm's servant in particular had
+been put on his guard about the deception practised on him by Mrs.
+Johnson, respecting the young ladies' fortunes; on which Sir William had
+without the slightest ceremony cut the connexion altogether. He never
+called or even left a card; he never joined them any where, and as to
+the bows he gave them in return for those they made to him from a mile
+off, they were really, except to persons in desperate circumstances, not
+worth having.
+
+Sir James, it may be remembered, had deserted on the very first morning
+he had encountered Louisa Arden; so that disconsolate indeed were now
+the pair who had so lately congratulated themselves on having two
+baronets for their lovers.
+
+Their _select_ acquaintance too, the Shawbridges and Whaleworthys, began
+to play fine; for in a watering place a title is a title, whether got by
+accident or by cheese, and though both beef and cheese, like all other
+necessaries, are sad vulgar things, experience had taught even the
+innocent hearted Lady Whaleworthy, that with a certain class, and she
+poor woman dreamed of no better, a title could cover a multitude of
+_cheeses_.
+
+Not so, alas, with the Misses Salter's _family secret_, which seemed for
+the present to have abolished all variety of diet, for (crying
+injustice!) while scarcely any body would visit Mr. Salter, Mr. Salter's
+beef was, to quote Sarah's polite pun, "in every body's mouth!"
+
+People could not even propound the flattering probability of his having
+amassed a large fortune without some one more witty than elegant adding
+the characteristic remark, that while salting his beef it was supposed
+he had taken care to save his bacon.
+
+To complete the unfortunate position of the family, Mr. Salter had
+unluckily found it necessary of late, in consequence of an aggravation
+of his old complaint of the eyelids, to wear, protruding from beneath
+the brim of his white hat, a _green_ silk shade, which gave occasion to
+the idlers on the Mountpelier-walk, green being the well known colour of
+disappointment, to assert that he had done so in consequence of the
+cruel desertion of Lady Flamborough, who had, simultaneously with the
+appearance of the said badge of despair, jilted him for a half-pay
+lieutenant; a gentleman who having received a hint to retire from the
+service of his Majesty, for reasons best known to himself and his
+brother officers, had come to Cheltenham to devote himself to the
+service of the ladies.
+
+Nor had poor Mr. Salter, while dragged every day to the walks by his
+daughters, who now had no one else to walk with, a chance of forgetting
+his fair deceiver; for there she was to be seen morning and evening as
+gaily _undressed_ as ever, flaunting away and smiling and languishing as
+usual; her white ostrich feathers too, at the highly improper
+instigation of the breezes, mingling from time to time with the bright
+red whiskers of the ci-devant lieutenant; while she, ungrateful woman,
+had the barbarity to pass poor Mr. Salter again and again, without so
+much as a recognition. "And that after," as he himself remarked,
+"having had the face to eat his good dinners;" the remembrance of the
+cost of which now added bitterness to the thoughts of slighted love.
+
+This was the morning too of the very day, or rather evening, fixed for
+Lady Palliser's fancy ball, with the expectation of which the whole town
+was ringing. Even the walks were thinned by its prospective influence,
+or rather picked of fashionables; for those who were to be there, were
+keeping themselves up, that they might be quite fresh for an occasion to
+which the very capriciousness of her ladyship's character had lent, in
+anticipation at least, a more than common interest.
+
+The Misses Salter, after weighing for two or three turns the poor chance
+which sad experience had taught them there was of their picking up a
+beau of any kind, against the certain disgrace of showing by their
+wretchedness of fatigue that they were not to be among the _élite_ of
+the evening, decided on going home to their breakfast, which social meal
+commenced in a sulk and ended in a storm.
+
+Miss Grace began again about the improvidence of cutting Mrs. Dorothea
+in the premature manner they had done. "And it was all your fault,
+Eliza," she continued, "that insolent temper of yours is always longing
+so for an opportunity to break out; and yet there is nobody that can
+sneak and cringe in the mean fawning manner that you can when you think
+there is any thing to be got by a person. If my advice had been taken,
+we would have been acquainted with all these genteel people, and going
+to this ball to-night, no doubt. To do Mrs. Dorothea justice, she was
+quite indefatigable in her kindness, and in getting people to call on us
+and invite us as long as we showed her any kind of gratitude; so we have
+ourselves to thank, or rather you for it all."
+
+"Your advice indeed, you fool!" was all Miss Salter could find to say;
+having, as she could not help knowing, the worst of the argument.
+
+"It all comes of _pride_, and upstartishness, and nonsense," said Mr.
+Salter. "Grace, the girl, however, is so far right; Mrs. Dorothea Arden
+is a very worthy gentlewoman, and showed us a great deal more civility
+than in our station of life we had any right to look for; and it
+certainly was our place to be very grateful for it, and if we have not
+been so it is no fault of mine; I knew nothing of the carryings on of
+you Misses with your boarding-school breeding forsooth."
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+In consequence of the expected ball in the evening, neither the Palliser
+nor Arden party had been at the walks in the morning. But soon after
+breakfast Alfred called at Lady Palliser's with his usual offering of
+sweets.
+
+Caroline had just entered the drawing-room, and was proceeding towards a
+conservatory at its further extremity, when the appearance of Alfred
+arrested her steps.
+
+He assisted her in arranging the flowers he had brought, and in
+selecting from them the favoured few she was to wear herself. This task
+drew from him some playful remark, more love-like than rational, on the
+good fortune of the happy blossoms thus chosen.
+
+Lady Palliser had been particularly harsh that morning about some
+trifle, and Caroline was consequently in very bad spirits.
+
+"Why should it be good fortune to be chosen by me," she said, "when I am
+myself the most unfortunate of beings? The poor flowers that I choose,"
+she added with a faint effort to laugh, fearful she had said too much,
+"will be the first to fade away," quoting Moore's little song.
+
+  "Or the young gazelle, with its soft black eye,
+  If it _loved you well would be sure to die_,"
+
+proceeded Alfred, humming the air and continuing the quotation; then in
+a half playful, half tender whisper, he subjoined, "The death-warrant
+of many of whom your ladyship little thinks would be already signed and
+sealed were this the case." But perceiving while he spoke that though
+Caroline tried to smile her lip trembled, he checked himself, and with
+an altered tone exclaimed, "I beg a thousand pardons! You are--you
+seem--what can have--"
+
+"Oh, nothing," she replied, "only other young people are light-hearted
+and cheerful together; there are your sisters for instance, how happy
+they always seem to be; and how kind to you all--how indulgent, how
+affectionate, Lady Arden appears. While I have neither sister, nor
+brother, and yet my mother"--here checking herself, she added
+hesitatingly, "I dare say--it must be my own fault--I suppose I don't
+deserve to be loved--but I am quite sure that--that--my mother does not
+love me--and oh, if you knew how miserable the thought makes me!"
+
+"You cannot be serious," he said.
+
+"I am indeed!" she replied, looking up with innocent earnestness, while
+her eyes swam in tears.
+
+Alfred caught her hand, pressed it to his lips, talked incoherently
+about the impossibility of knowing without loving her, then of his own
+unworthiness, his presumption, his poverty, his insignificance, &c. &c.;
+his being in short a younger son; and at length wound up all by making,
+notwithstanding, a passionate declaration of his love. If affection the
+most devoted, the most unalterable, had any value in her eyes, affection
+that would study her every wish, affection such as he was convinced no
+lover had ever felt before; if such affection could in any degree
+compensate for the absence of every other pretension, such, unable
+longer to suppress his feeling, he now ventured to lay at her feet.
+
+Caroline trembled and remained silent. He entreated her to speak, to
+relieve him from the fear that he had offended her past forgiveness by
+the very mention of his perhaps too daring suit.
+
+"Does--my mother--know?" she whispered at last, "because--if not--I
+fear--"
+
+"Lady Palliser I think," he replied, "must know, must understand; nay, I
+have ventured to allude slightly to the subject, and have even been
+presumptuous enough to translate her ladyship's kindly and indulgent
+admission of my constant visits as, however liberal on her part, a tacit
+consent to my addresses."
+
+"Oh, I hope you are right!" exclaimed Caroline, with an inadvertent
+earnestness which called forth from Alfred gratitude the most profuse,
+expressed, not indeed loudly, but in whispers so tender, so eloquent,
+that for some moments, Caroline, forgetting every thing but their
+import, felt a happiness she had never known before. New and delightful
+prospects of futurity seemed opening before her youthful imagination,
+hitherto so cruelly depressed. Her countenance, though covered with
+blushes, and studiously turned away to hide them, so far indicated what
+was passing within, as to encourage Alfred in adding,
+
+"To-morrow, then, when Lady Palliser may possibly be at home, may I
+venture to speak to her ladyship on this subject?"
+
+After a short silence, Caroline replied with hesitation,
+
+"Yes--I--suppose--you had better."
+
+But she sighed heavily as she said so, for she dreaded the strange and
+whimsical temper of Lady Palliser; yet she now found that a feeling of
+consolation accompanied what had hitherto been her greatest sorrow, the
+sense of her mother's want of affection; for perhaps, she thought, she
+may not care enough about me to mind what I do! Here all her efforts at
+self-possession gave way, and she yielded to a passion of tears.
+
+Alfred had been holding her hand, and anxiously watching her
+countenance; he became alarmed, and began to suspect, that perhaps she
+was herself undecided. "What can this mean?" he cried. "You do not
+repent of the permission you have given me? Caroline! say you do not!
+Say I am wrong in this!"
+
+She raised her eyes and moved her lips to reply, when a loud
+electrifying knock was heard at the hall door. The look however had so
+far reassured Alfred, that he again pressed her hand to his lips, and
+repeated with an inquiring tone, "To-morrow, then?" Footsteps were heard
+in the hall; the drawing-room door opened, and Alfred hastily
+disappeared, while a servant entering, laid cards on the table and
+retired.
+
+Caroline was hastening towards the conservatory to take refuge there
+till her agitation should subside, when the Venetian blind which hung
+over its entrance was moved aside, and her mother appeared before her,
+scorn and rage depicted in her countenance.
+
+Our heroine, her footsteps thus unexpectedly arrested, stopped short in
+the centre of the apartment, and stood trembling from head to foot.
+
+From behind the Venetian blind, Lady Palliser had witnessed the whole of
+the interview between the lovers.
+
+She was not herself previously aware that the heartless coquetry in
+which she had been indulging had taken so strong a hold even of her bad
+feelings; but disappointed vanity was perhaps a mortification she had
+never known before. She therefore scarcely herself understood the
+species of rage with which she was now animated; the almost hatred with
+which she now looked on the perfect loveliness of her blushing,
+trembling child. Of course, on prudential considerations she would have
+disapproved of the match at any rate; and of this she now made an
+excuse to herself.
+
+She stepped forward, and when close before Caroline, stamped her foot,
+uttered an ironical, hysterical laugh, and almost gasping for breath,
+stood some moments ere she could well articulate.
+
+"You piece of premature impudence!" were the first words she at length
+pronounced. After pausing again for a moment, she recommenced with a
+sneer, "So you have made your arrangement. I must congratulate you on
+Mr. Arden's obliging acceptance of your liberal offer, of heart, hand,
+and fortune!"
+
+Caroline looked the most innocent astonishment.
+
+"You really do not understand me," proceeded her ladyship, in the same
+tone of mockery. "Are you then not aware that I have been a witness to
+the scene which has just passed? and have, of course, heard your modest
+ladyship stating to Mr. Arden how much at a loss you were for some one
+to love you, forsooth! Barefaced enough, certainly! Upon which the young
+man could not in common politeness do less than offer his services.
+Besides, it was much too good a thing to be rejected; few younger
+brothers, and therefore beggars, would refuse the hand of an heiress of
+your rank and fortune. Go! you disgrace to your family and sex; go to
+your room, and remain there till you have my permission to leave it. As
+for Mr. Arden, I shall give orders that he is never again admitted
+beneath this roof. Should you hereafter meet him in society do not dare
+to recognise him. Go!"
+
+Caroline was moving towards the door, without attempting a reply, well
+aware that remonstrance or entreaty would be perfectly vain.
+
+"Stay!--I have changed my mind," recommenced her ladyship. "Mr. Arden
+comes to-morrow, it seems--let him come--I shall not see him. Receive
+him yourself, reject him yourself, now and for ever! Tell him that on
+reflection you have repented of your folly; and that the subject must
+not be even mentioned to me. Let the interview take place in this
+room--let your rejection be distinct, and let him suppose it comes from
+yourself. I shall be again in the conservatory--I shall hear and see all
+that passes; and on your peril, by word or look, say more or less than I
+have commanded."
+
+Caroline flung herself on her knees, and with clasped hands and
+streaming eyes looked up in her mother's face. "Oh, do not, do not,"
+she exclaimed, "ask me to see him, and in all else I will submit!"
+
+Lady Palliser laughed out with malicious irony, saying, "So you offer
+conditional obedience. Do," she proceeded, frowning fiercely, and
+extending her clenched hand in the attitude of a fury, "precisely as I
+have commanded!"
+
+"This evening," continued her ladyship, with affected composure, looking
+contemptuously down on Caroline, who was sobbing ready to break her
+heart, "this evening, deport yourself as though nothing had happened:
+dance as much as usual; and do not dare to have red eyes, or to show the
+slightest depression of manner. Should Mr. Arden make any allusion to
+what has occurred this morning, merely tell him to say nothing more on
+the subject till to-morrow."
+
+Here Lady Palliser quitted the apartment, while Caroline remained on her
+knees, overwhelmed by utter despair, and shedding, with all the innocent
+vehemence of childhood, the large pure tears, which like summer showers
+fall so abundantly from the eyes of the young in their first sorrow.
+
+The alternative of daring to disobey her harsh and heartless mother
+never once presented itself to her mind as possible.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+It was night--arrivals had commenced--the lights, the music, the
+decorations, the sight and scent of the flowers, all added to the aching
+of Caroline's temples and the confusion of her ideas, as she stood in a
+sort of waking dream, conscious only of wretchedness, near the door of
+the first of the reception rooms, courtesying with a mechanical smile to
+each new group that appeared. She would have given the world to have
+been any where else, but this was the post her mother had commanded her
+to fill.
+
+When the ladies of the Arden party entered, she felt a childish impulse
+to fling herself into the bosom of Lady Arden, and drawing all the
+daughters round her, entreat them to hide her from her cruel mother.
+
+Alfred next appeared, accompanied by Sir Willoughby and Mr. Geoffery
+Arden. The two latter named gentlemen had been expected for some days,
+but had arrived only about two hours before.
+
+Alfred presented both, and some unmeaning conversation passed about the
+heat of London, how long they had been on the road, &c. Our hero, the
+moment he came in, missed the flowers Caroline had promised to wear, and
+felt disappointed. If she had forgotten them in the hurry of dressing it
+was no very flattering token of her regard. If, on the other hand, Lady
+Palliser had noticed and forbid her wearing them, it was a bad symptom
+of his ultimate success. He longed for an opportunity of venturing some
+playful reproach which might lead to an explanation. When his companions
+moved on a step or two he drew very near, and asked in an emphatic
+whisper, if the chosen blossoms had faded already. A rush of colour,
+which the peculiar fairness of Caroline's complexion already described
+made the more remarkable, covered her cheeks in a moment; but she
+attempted no reply. After a short and somewhat anxious pause Alfred
+asked her to dance; she looked up suddenly but vacantly, as if scarcely
+comprehending what he had said, but still spoke not. He was just about
+to repeat his words, when Willoughby, who had been conversing with Lady
+Palliser, turned round and made the same request. Caroline, glancing
+towards her mother, and seeing her eye upon her, started, assented
+quickly, took Willoughby's arm, and walked to the quadrille.
+
+Lady Palliser noted the chagrin of our hero with secret triumph, and
+suddenly forming one of her usually whimsical and tyrannical resolves,
+determined, as an appropriate punishment for the lovers, to marry her
+daughter to Sir Willoughby, whose match in town she had heard it
+confidently reported was off. Though he was but a baronet, his immense
+property made it at least an eligible marriage; and such, little as she
+cared about Caroline, she had always considered it a necessary part of
+etiquette some time or other to provide.
+
+That Alfred, however, might ascribe Caroline's change to her own
+caprice, and be the more mortified, Lady Palliser took his arm, walked
+about with him for a considerable time, and treated him with more than
+her usual cordiality.
+
+It had the desired effect, it threw him into complete despair; he could
+not now even console himself with the thought that Caroline was acting
+under the influence of her mother.
+
+When the dancing had ceased, and Caroline was seated with her evidently
+delighted partner on a distant sofa, Lady Palliser led our hero up to
+her, and said, "Come, Caroline, I have no notion of giving up old
+friends for new ones altogether: you must dance one set with poor
+Alfred; do see how forlorn he looks."
+
+Caroline was utterly confounded: had her mother forgiven them--was she
+going to relent.
+
+Such happy thoughts, however, were soon scattered, for Lady Palliser,
+on pretext of arranging a stray ringlet, drawing very near, whispered,
+with a menacing frown, "Take care how you behave, and what you say." The
+frown and whisper destroying as they did the momentary hope, caused
+Caroline, on taking Alfred's arm, to look so much disappointed that it
+was impossible not to infer that she would rather have remained on the
+sofa. Yet Alfred could not bring himself to believe this! he was
+miserable, however, and did not know what to think; while he was so much
+occupied forming painful conjectures, that he himself behaved strangely
+and coldly.
+
+Caroline thought with intense agony of the task she had to perform in
+the morning, while with a feeling allied to terror she stole from time
+to time a momentary glance at the features of him she must so soon
+mortally offend; to whom she must so soon give apparently just cause to
+view her henceforward with hatred and contempt. She even fancied that
+his countenance wore already a severity of expression she had never seen
+in it before. She bewildered herself too with the thought, that if she
+could get an opportunity and venture just to whisper, "Mr. Arden, don't
+mind any thing I am obliged to say to you in the morning," it might
+prevent his thinking so very very ill of her as he must otherwise do.
+This sentence she repeated to herself above an hundred times during the
+quadrille, yet whenever she was going to address it to Alfred, and more
+than once she moved her lips to begin, she either caught her mother's
+eye turned upon her, or she fancied it might be, and dared not look to
+see lest it should give her a conscious and guilty appearance; or the
+impression that Alfred was already displeased became so strong as to
+deprive her of the courage to speak to him; besides all which, her heart
+at each abortive attempt she made to articulate, leaped up into her
+throat, and by its excessive fluttering quite choked her utterance, till
+the convenient moment was gone by. On the music ceasing, Lady Palliser
+came up and took her away, as if in great haste to make some
+arrangement, yet, in so obliging a manner, and with so many pretty
+excuses, that Alfred thought her ladyship at least was unchanged.
+
+And so must Caroline, he told himself again and again; "it can be but
+fancy on my part, or rather, all that seems strange and altered in her
+manner must proceed from her extreme delicacy, her excessive timidity,
+her consciousness that we now perfectly understand each other's thoughts
+makes her fearful to meet my eye, at least with others present; makes
+her afraid that all the world will know the moment they see us together
+what is passing in our hearts. I can well imagine one so gentle, so
+young, so fearful, feeling the newness of her situation, almost as
+though she were already a bride; having listened but this very morning,
+for the first time in her life, I should suppose favourably, to the
+accent of a lover."
+
+Alfred had wandered into the conservatory, where, amid the intoxicating
+odours of ten thousand exotics--pursuing this train of thought--he
+luxuriated for a time in dream-like meditations on the delicacy, the
+devotion, the exclusive tenderness, which must necessarily characterise
+the attachment of a being so pure, so innocent, so unpractised in the
+world's ways as Caroline--his Caroline! Yes, he was now entitled to
+combine with her idea this endearing epithet.
+
+He was standing the while with his arms folded and his eyes
+unconsciously uplifted to a brilliant lamp, as if lost in contemplation
+of its brightness.
+
+A change in the music broke his reverie; when his discerning vision
+passing along a vista of orange trees, found its way into the
+drawing-room, and fell on a group preparing to waltz. Among these, and
+occupying the very spot hallowed to memory by the interview of the
+morning, he beheld Caroline standing with the arm of Willoughby round
+her slender waist, and her hand resting on his shoulder--a moment after
+the couple had launched amid the tide of changing forms; but Alfred's
+eye still traced them as they floated round and round the prescribed
+circle, till, what with the moving scene, and his own thoughts of agony,
+his brain went round also. He had never been able to prevail with
+Caroline to waltz, her plea of refusal had always been that she did not
+waltz. Was she then changed in every sentiment--in every opinion--in
+every feeling! Had she become hardened to the world--lost to personal
+delicacy--lost to affection--lost to him! What had she--what had she not
+become! and all within a few short hours.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+In vain had our heroine, when Sir Willoughby had asked her to waltz,
+pleaded the same excuse alluded to in our last chapter. Lady Palliser,
+who was near, and heard Sir Willoughby's request, interfered, and
+commanded compliance; while poor Caroline, who seems to have been born
+but to be the victim of her mother's caprices, was led away to join the
+gay circle, trembling and broken-hearted.
+
+The report that Willoughby's marriage had been broken off was quite
+true: he had written the account to Alfred a day or two before. The lady
+had the very day previous to that fixed for the wedding eloped with her
+former lover; while Sir Willoughby had found himself, his preparations
+being all made, in rather an absurd situation.
+
+The newspapers, too, had taken unwarrantable liberties with his name,
+and made some witty comments on the superior personal attractions of his
+rival.
+
+His vanity it was which had in the first instance been gratified--his
+vanity now suffered proportionately. And so irritable was his temper and
+so depressed his spirits, on his arrival in Cheltenham, that Alfred, who
+had but just returned from his interview with Caroline, felt that it
+would be mistimed to mention her, or allude at all at present to his own
+happier prospects. He limited the confidential conversation, therefore,
+to kind condolence with his brother, being too delicate to remind
+Willoughby that he might have escaped this mortification had he taken
+his advice.
+
+Thus was the foundation unintentionally laid of a concealment which
+finally led to many disastrous consequences.
+
+The moment Willoughby was introduced to Caroline he was captivated by
+her beauty. After they had danced together, when our heroine was so
+unexpectedly desired by her mother to dance with Alfred, Geoffery Arden,
+who may be termed Willoughby's evil genius, took possession of the seat
+beside him on the sofa, which had been just vacated by Caroline; and
+well knowing his cousin's weak point, said, "Well, that is one of the
+most pointed things I ever saw."
+
+"To what do you allude?" asked Willoughby.
+
+"Did you not see how mortified her ladyship looked at having her
+flirtation with you disturbed."
+
+"Flirtation, indeed!" repeated Willoughby, laughing; "the acquaintance
+is rather short for that, I should think."
+
+"Nay, we hear of love at first sight; and it was certainly something
+very like it. You were not many minutes in the room when you asked Lady
+Caroline to dance; and I don't know whether you noticed it, but a moment
+or two before Alfred, who has been so long acquainted, had made the same
+request; the lady pretended not to hear: she heard, however, when you
+spoke, and consented with marked alacrity."
+
+Willoughby's vanity, which had been so lately wounded, gladly welcomed
+suggestions so flattering. To woo and win the young, the beautiful, the
+rich Lady Caroline Montague, might well silence the jeers of those who
+were disposed to make impertinent comments on his late disappointment.
+
+As for Geoffery Arden's motive for offering the incense of flattery to
+Willoughby, it was the same which in most cases governs most
+men--self-interest. It was by the grossest flattery that he had long
+since made himself necessary to his cousin; and by the same means he
+still sought to retain an influence over him, which, in a pecuniary
+point of view, was particularly convenient to himself. On the present
+occasion also, he had seen with half a glance sufficient to make him
+suspect, at least, that Lady Caroline Montague was an object of interest
+to Alfred. If he was right in his conjecture, the circumstance might
+afford a favourable opportunity for sowing the seeds of dissension
+between the brothers, an object of which he never lost sight, well
+knowing that his own influence and that of Alfred could never go hand in
+hand--the one being for evil, the other for good.
+
+Added to this, it was always more or less an object with him to throw
+obstacles in the way of any love affair of either of the brothers; for
+though he was not so romantic as to expect by such means to succeed in
+preserving them both old bachelors, should they reach old age--for such
+a chance could not be very important to him, who was so much their
+senior--it was just as well to keep the book of fate open as long as
+possible. There was no use in increasing the chances against himself.
+The fewer names, in short, above his own on the list of even improbable
+advantages the better.
+
+While the cousins continued to occupy their sofa, and observe the
+dancers, Geoffery was eloquent in the praises of Caroline's beauty;
+quoting, as he well might, many high authorities for her being the
+acknowledged belle of the late season in town. He knew that weak men,
+with all their obstinate devotion to their own opinions, unconsciously
+see with the eyes, hear with the ears, and even speak in the language of
+others; and that their love most especially is a mere reflection!
+
+Indeed, to gain an entire ascendency over weak people only requires a
+little management; but unfortunately it is of that uncandid sort which
+their best friends are the least likely to adopt.
+
+If you say to an ill-governed child, "My dear, you have eaten enough of
+that cake, give it me, and take this pretty toy to play with." The child
+says, "No, I won't; it's not a pretty toy," and eats faster than before.
+But lay down the toy carelessly within his sight, and if he has eaten
+sufficiently, he will drop his cake on the floor, and fly to seize the
+toy.
+
+Men and women of weak minds are but children of a larger growth.
+
+When the company had all retired, Lady Palliser thus addressed her
+daughter: "Your avoiding to dance with Mr. Arden was quite unnecessary.
+I have no desire that your manners towards him in society should be at
+all altered: such conduct would draw down remarks which I do not choose
+should be made. As for to-morrow," continued her ladyship, "remember
+that I shall witness the scene; therefore let your obedience be perfect!
+Also, if you have any regard to decency left, take care that no folly on
+your part gives Mr. Arden an opportunity of boasting that Lady Caroline
+Montague, in despite of the impropriety of the alliance, was
+indelicately ready to fling herself into his arms, if Lady Palliser had
+not interfered."
+
+Her ladyship here quitted the room; and Caroline, her ideas confused by
+this new view of the subject, stood transfixed to the spot, till aroused
+from her reverie by the entrance of servants to extinguish the lights.
+
+She retired, but it may be believed not to rest. She flung herself on
+her bed without undressing, and wept away the early morning, the
+brightness of which entering freely through the shutterless windows of
+a Cheltenham bed-room, shone with incongruous lustre alike on her
+glittering ornaments and her falling tears. We speak of morning, because
+the night, of course, had been over before the ball concluded.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+Alfred had no opportunity for private conversation with his brother
+before he went to his appointment at Lady Palliser's; nor indeed did he
+now desire it till he should have come to some explanation with
+Caroline.
+
+In strange perplexity of spirits, trying in vain to persuade himself
+that he had every thing to hope and nothing to fear, he repaired to
+Jessamine Bower.
+
+On entering the drawing-room he perceived Caroline, seated and alone.
+When he was announced, she did not move. He approached; her eyes still
+remained fixed on the ground, while the paleness of her complexion was
+even more remarkable than usual, and a very slight but universal tremor
+pervaded her whole frame. He stood before her, and as he did so,
+trembled himself with undefined apprehension.
+
+"Good heavens, Caroline!" he exclaimed, sinking on one knee, and
+attempting to take her hand. She withdrew it hastily, and her cheeks
+crimsoned while she cast one involuntary glance in the direction of the
+conservatory. Alfred rose, folded his arms, and stood for a moment
+silent, then said--"If I have been presumptuous, Lady Caroline, I have
+much to plead in my excuse, and the interview of yesterday in
+particular; I was certainly led to hope for a more favourable
+reception, however little I may be deserving of it."
+
+"I was--to blame," said Caroline, in a voice scarcely articulate, and
+still without looking up.
+
+"Is it possible! Do I interpret you right? Were those hopes, to me so
+full of joy, altogether fallacious? But no, Caroline, I will not, I
+cannot believe it! Lady Palliser objects, and you deem it your duty to
+submit: even this thought would be happiness, compared with that of your
+indifference! Or--or--"
+
+"My caprice!" said Caroline, looking up almost wildly for a moment,
+"Yes, think it my caprice!"
+
+"I cannot believe it," he replied.
+
+There was a considerable pause, during which he anxiously observed
+Caroline, and perceived that silent tears were stealing down her
+cheeks.
+
+"Those tears are not caused by caprice," he said in a tone of
+tenderness; "in compassion say," he added with sudden and vehement
+earnestness, "that you are acting in obedience to Lady Palliser's
+commands, and I too will submit." While speaking again he sank on his
+knee before her, and tried to take both her hands. The terror however
+with which she resisted, hastily rising as she did so--the more
+effectually to avoid him--so much for the moment resembled aversion,
+that he rose as hastily, and looking his amazement, said with a
+hysterical intonation of voice, "If it is indeed so, I have a thousand
+apologies to offer to Lady Caroline Montague for my impertinent
+intrusiveness. To retire, however, and offend no more, will perhaps be
+better than entering further into the subject." He was about to depart,
+when pausing he said, "I will ask one question--Am I rejected? Do you
+finally withdraw the hopes you yesterday bestowed?"
+
+"I do," she replied.
+
+He stood for a few moments to master his emotion, then pronouncing a
+haughty good morning, hastily quitted the room and the house. In a few
+moments after, he was pacing, without plan or intention, one of the many
+shady and usually quite solitary walks, which branch off in every
+direction from the general scene of gaiety, and near to which both
+villas stood.
+
+His pride, as well as every tenderer and worthier feeling, was wounded
+beyond description. He now appeared, even to himself, in the light of
+one who had indelicately, unfeelingly, and presumptuously sought a match
+of worldly advantage, to which he had no pretension; and though he
+could acquit himself of interested views in so doing, he felt that it
+would be a romance and absurdity to expect so candid an interpretation
+from any one else. The one continued dream, which had made up his whole
+existence for many weeks past, was now dissipated in an instant. Nay, he
+sought in vain among his own meditations for the apologies, even to
+himself, which had before seemed sufficient. Caroline, so silent, so
+fearful at the commencement of their acquaintance, had seemed to derive
+a new existence from his growing attentions, while Lady Palliser,
+instead of checking those attentions, and showing alarm at the visible
+pleasure with which her daughter received them, had herself given him
+what he then considered the most unequivocal encouragement, being always
+the first to make intercourse easy to both, by desiring the always
+timid Caroline to dance with him, walk with him, and sing with him. And
+then the silent glow of secret pleasure with which the welcome command
+was obeyed, confirmed sometimes perhaps by a momentary expression caught
+when the eyes accidentally met, or at other times merely by an alacrity
+of movement, or cheerfulness of tone in obeying or replying, which,
+notwithstanding, betrayed volumes in a character too fearful and gentle
+to let itself be regularly read aloud, yet too artless, too unpractised,
+to know how utterly to seal its pages.
+
+While such things had been, the prejudices of society had faded from his
+mind; he had believed it not impossible that where an only child already
+possessed immense estates, a parent might prefer the happiness of that
+child to the unnecessary addition of other estates. Now all the
+artificial estimates of life and manners, taught by early education,
+returned in their fullest force, and he thought himself a madman ever to
+have entertained such an opinion.
+
+He now believed that every one who knew he had had the presumption to
+pay his addresses to Lady Caroline Montague, would reprobate him and
+say, that because he was a younger brother, and of course a beggar, he
+wanted to make his fortune by marrying an heiress. How bitterly did he
+now regret that he had ever had the rash folly to confess his passion.
+Yet, so thoroughly disinterested had that passion been, that he had even
+for the time lost sight of the possibility of being suspected by others
+of motives of which he was himself incapable: all that through the
+happy intoxication of his feelings had presented itself respecting
+fortune, was a vaguely delightful remembrance that his poverty could
+never entail any privations on Caroline. What was now to be done? The
+wretched state of his feelings would have induced him to quit Cheltenham
+immediately, but wounded pride prompted him to remain; he wished to let
+Lady Caroline Montague see that her caprices should not govern his
+conduct; that he could behave with composure in her society--with polite
+self-possession even towards herself. But in this first moment of just
+resentment, he knew not the difficulty of the task he courted. He
+resolved to conceal the whole affair from Willoughby, and if his mother
+and sisters persisted in making allusion to the subject of his
+admiration of Lady Caroline Montague, to assure them gravely that he
+never meant, in his circumstances, to subject himself to the suspicion
+of seeking an heiress because she was an heiress.
+
+Having come to so dignified a resolve, he flattered himself for the
+moment that he was almost composed. Scarcely however had he arrived at
+this conclusion, than fond memory, more at leisure than it had been
+during the late angry burst of disappointed passion, began retracing
+scenes, recalling looks, repeating words, recounting circumstances, till
+his mind again became a troubled sea, from amidst the breakers of which
+he beheld, but now with all the aggravated feelings of one sent adrift
+in a bark without rudder or oar, tantalizing views, but too distant to
+admit a hope of reaching a smiling happy shore--a haven of bliss to
+fancy's eye, which appeared the more perfect now that it was
+unattainable.
+
+At one time he stopped short, and stood for about ten minutes like an
+absolute statue, quite unconscious of any outward object. He was asking
+himself, if it were not still possible that Caroline was acting under
+the influence of Lady Palliser and if there might not come a time when
+that influence would cease?
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER XXII.
+
+
+No language can paint the utter desolation of poor Caroline's mind; for
+she was too young, too inexperienced, too much accustomed from infancy,
+to be the unmurmuring slave of her mother's capricious tyranny to have
+any thing like a just estimate of her own situation.
+
+Had she ventured to think, which she had never yet done, that when of
+age she should be her own mistress, she would, as very young people do
+when they look forward three or four years, have thought the period so
+remote as to be scarcely an object of hope; while she would still have
+trembled at the thought of venturing at any time, however distant, to
+disobey her mother, unless indeed she could be quite sure of never
+seeing her again.
+
+Lady Palliser's plan of government when Caroline was a mere infant, had
+been a system of terror; nor had any thing in her subsequent conduct
+tended to soften that first impression. Frowns and menacing attitudes
+had been used towards the baby before it could understand words, if when
+occasionally brought into its mother's presence it had happened to
+stretch its little hand towards any attractive object. Hours of solitary
+imprisonment in a dark room had been inflicted on the child, for but a
+fancied dilatoriness of movement in the execution of a command, till
+poor Caroline had learned to start with nervous alarm, and fly with the
+alacrity of terror at the very sound of her mother's voice; while it was
+melancholy to see, during the seemingly willing movement the little
+innocent face of the child filled with the contradictory expressions of
+anxiety and dread.
+
+Thus had early associations followed up by constant tyranny, imposed at
+the dictates of a temper unreasonable, capricious, and unfeeling, taught
+Caroline to view with a sinking of the heart the very smiles of her
+mother's countenance, as played off in company; none of them she knew
+were intended for her, even when their light, perchance, was turned upon
+her.
+
+Overweening, all-engrossing vanity, was Lady Palliser's ruling passion;
+society therefore in which she could be the object of universal
+admiration was her only element. Not that she was what is commonly
+called a flirt:--she was too haughty--too exacting of general adoration
+for such a condescension towards any individual in particular; while yet
+within her hidden thoughts, concealed beneath an appearance of
+statue-like coldness, she had a secret delight in imagining every man
+with whom she was acquainted, as much in love with her as he dared to
+be, and withheld from a declaration of his passion only by her own
+haughty reserve: nay, so far did she carry this dream of vanity, that
+she felt more or less of resentment towards every man of her
+acquaintance who married or attached himself to any other woman.
+
+Such was the person with whom poor Caroline had hitherto spent every
+domestic hour she could remember. Her home, which had thus never been a
+happy one, now by contrast with the vague hopes in which she had
+latterly ventured to indulge, presented to her imagination a long
+perspective of tenfold dreariness. The frowns in private, the artificial
+smiles in public of her unkind parent, were all that she anticipated in
+future. Her very youth seemed an aggravation of her misery, for the
+grave itself, which, in her present exaggerated and hopeless state of
+feeling, was she believed, the only refuge to which she could look
+forward, appeared at an immeasurable distance, the path to it stretching
+before her mind's eye an interminable pilgrimage of weariness.
+
+We do not mean to support these views of the subject as rational or
+just; but Caroline in experience and knowledge of the world, as well as
+in chancery phraseology, was still an infant; even her love had at
+present something in it of the feelings of the child turning to the kind
+and gentle, as a refuge from the harshness of the more severe; and with
+the idea of Alfred was blended thoughts of his sisters and of Lady
+Arden, and of their happy home--that scene of cheerfulness and general
+goodwill, which she had latterly enjoyed the privilege of entering
+without ceremony, and which she had never quitted without regret.
+
+The most severe, however, of all her sufferings was the thought that
+Alfred must now hate and despise her.
+
+She was shut up in her own apartment weeping bitterly and giving way to
+a succession of dreary reflections, when she received a summons from her
+mother to appear in the drawing-room. So much was she accustomed to
+obey implicitly that she did not dare to excuse herself.
+
+On descending, she found with Lady Palliser, Sir Willoughby Arden and
+his cousin Geoffery. Willoughby was turning over new songs and
+professing himself a great admirer of music; the true secret of which
+was that he sang remarkably well himself. After some trivial
+conversation, he discovered several duets in which he had often taken a
+part with his sisters, and intreated that Caroline would try one of
+them. She excused herself on the plea of a headache caused by the music,
+lights, and late hours of the previous evening; but Lady Palliser
+interfering, she was compelled to make a wretched attempt; the manner
+spiritless, the voice tremulous and even out of tune. Willoughby's
+performance, however, was really good; he was therefore quite
+delighted. As the song was being concluded, Lady and the Misses Arden
+came in, and the latter being prevailed on to assist Willoughby with
+some more of his favourite duets, the visit was prolonged into quite a
+morning concert.
+
+When the Ardens were about to take their departure for the avowed
+purpose of a walk, Lady Palliser insisted on Caroline's accompanying
+them, saying that the air would take away her headache. Caroline made a
+faint effort to excuse herself, but in this, as in every thing, was
+obliged to submit.
+
+They soon met and were joined by Lord Darlingford and Sir James Lindsey;
+and it not being an hour at which any part of the walks was particularly
+crowded, they wandered on to where the shade by its coolness was
+inviting.
+
+Willoughby attached himself entirely to our heroine, with whom he
+already fancied himself in love. Lord Darlingford walked soberly beside
+Jane, who after many relapses of a hope, fainter at each return, had
+resigned her early dream of first and mutual love, and was now quietly
+receiving his serious addresses. She had at length brought her mind to
+anticipate, with a placid sort of happiness, the hope of obtaining for
+life the companionship and protection of a friend whom she could
+respect; together with the certainty of securing a perfectly eligible
+establishment, and thus escaping all those miseries inflicted by the
+unfeeling world's scorn on the poor and the unprotected;--miseries
+against which her mother and her aunt had so often warned her.
+
+Louisa was attended by Sir James, her expected marriage with whom was
+now the universal theme. She had herself, however, by no means made up
+her mind; she could not even approach a decision, her meditations on the
+subject always ending in a fruitless wish that Henry were the elder
+brother.
+
+Madeline, who did not happen to have a lover present walked and talked
+with her cousin Geoffery.
+
+Mrs. Dorothea had been called for as they passed her door; she was the
+companion of Lady Arden.
+
+Arranged in the order we have described, our party came suddenly upon
+Alfred, standing where we last left him, and having just brought his
+solitary musings to the final summing up with which we concluded the
+last chapter.
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+
+Alfred could not without an appearance of great singularity avoid
+joining the party; he turned, therefore, and making his salutation to
+Caroline, and what other recognitions were necessary, in as hurried a
+manner as possible, took the unoccupied side of Madeline. Geoffery saw a
+good deal, and suspected more. "Where have you been all the morning,
+Alfred?" he said. "We have had some delightful music at Lady
+Palliser's."
+
+"Indeed!" replied our hero.
+
+"Yes," added Willoughby, "Lady Caroline was so obliging as to try one
+or two charming duets, in which her ladyship permitted me to attempt a
+part."
+
+Alfred could scarcely credit that he heard aright--was it
+possible!--could Caroline indeed be so utterly devoid of feeling? What,
+but a few moments after having driven him from her presence, overwhelmed
+with despair by her capricious perfidy? However strangely changed,
+however indifferent she had herself become, had she not even the grace
+to compassionate the sufferings she had wilfully inflicted? Could she
+within the very same half hour be in such exuberant spirits that it was
+necessary to exhaust them by singing for the amusement of her morning
+visitors? Or was it indeed possible, that young as she was, she had
+already learned worldly wisdom sufficient to prefer the possessor of
+the Arden estates to his landless younger brother? So indeed it would
+appear. Had she not last night danced with Willoughby in preference to
+himself?--Had she not afterwards departed from her usual line of conduct
+to waltz with him also?--This morning, had not every thought and feeling
+undergone an evident and sudden revolution. That prudential
+considerations had been strongly represented to Caroline he made no
+doubt; it was highly improbable that such views had arisen spontaneously
+in her own mind; but of what value could the merely fanciful preference
+be that could be so easily turned aside? To believe Caroline worthless
+cost him a more cruel pang than even the knowledge that she was lost to
+him for ever.
+
+As soon as the Arden family had reached home, after having left Caroline
+at Lady Palliser's, and parted from Lord Darlingford and Sir James at
+the door, the sisters began as usual to banter Alfred about his love;
+and Lady Arden observed laughingly, "But you seem to have quite resigned
+your post to Willoughby." Alfred made a strong effort to treat the
+subject with seeming carelessness, and replied generally, that younger
+brothers had no pretensions.
+
+"That is," replied his mother, "as the lady may think. And I am sure
+Willoughby would be very sorry to interfere with your prospects; an
+heiress can be no object to him."
+
+Willoughby looked amazed. Alfred begged Lady Arden would not treat the
+subject with such unnecessary solemnity, and assured his brother, with
+an earnestness that surprised the ladies of the family, that he had not
+the most distant intention of ever addressing Lady Caroline Montague,
+nor the slightest reason to suppose that if he were guilty of so silly a
+presumption, his forwardness would not meet with the repulse it should
+deserve.
+
+"I don't know that," said Geoffery; "it must depend on the share of
+encouragement a lady pleases to give."
+
+"Lady Caroline Montague," observed Willoughby, "is certainly much to be
+admired; at the same time," he added, with evident pique, "I should be
+sorry, were I ever to enter the lists among her ladyship's adorers, to
+owe my success to being an elder brother, as my mother would infer!"
+
+The girls persisted in laughing, and declaring there must have been a
+lover's quarrel; for that Alfred did not speak of Lady Caroline in the
+least like the way he used to do.
+
+"There is certainly a great change," said Mrs. Dorothea; "every thing
+appeared to be going on just as Alfred's best friends could have
+wished."
+
+"How busy people make themselves," thought Willoughby, "but they shall
+not influence my conduct."
+
+To avoid the painful topic, Alfred sauntered into the lawn by one of the
+open French windows. He was almost instantly followed by Willoughby, who
+took his arm and walked for some time up and down in silence.
+
+"I wish Alfred you would be candid with me," said Willoughby at last, "I
+certainly admire Lady Caroline Montague, but mine is the admiration--the
+acquaintance of a day--an hour. If you are seriously attached, still
+more, if the attachment is, as my mother and sisters seem to think,
+mutual, tell me so honestly, and I am sure you will do me the justice to
+believe, that had I the vanity to suppose I could succeed in such an
+attempt, I would be the last being in existence to wish to interfere
+with your happiness; so far from it, that if fortune is the obstacle,
+say so, and I will make a settlement on you so splendid, as to leave no
+room for objection on that head."
+
+Alfred, quite overcome by his brother's generosity, was unable to
+articulate; he drew Willoughby's arm closer to his side in token of his
+gratitude, and they walked on a little, till finding themselves
+sheltered from the immediate view of the windows by a drooping
+acacia-tree, they paused by a sort of mutual consent, and Alfred, making
+an effort to master his emotion, said--"I feel Willoughby, if possible,
+more gratitude than if I were about to accept and be made happy by your
+noble offer. I feel too," he added, hesitating, "that I--owe it to your
+generous nature to make a confession, which else I had gladly avoided.
+I--I have been already rejected--rejected not by Lady Palliser on the
+plea of want of fortune, but by Lady Caroline Montague herself. You are,
+therefore, of course--free--to--to--" but he could not bring himself to
+give the palpable form of words to the remainder of the inference.
+
+"Rejected already! and by Lady Caroline herself!" repeated Willoughby.
+"Thank heaven then, my interference at least can never be alleged. What
+occurred before my arrival cannot be laid to my charge. This, under
+whatever circumstances may arise, will be an infinite consolation to my
+mind."
+
+Alfred did not judge it necessary to correct the slight error in
+chronology which his brother had made, and a protracted silence
+followed; at length Willoughby said, "Do you think it probable, Alfred,
+that you will be induced to renew your addresses?"
+
+"Certainly not!" replied Alfred.
+
+"In that case," said Willoughby, again breaking the silence, "who may or
+who may not ultimately succeed in making themselves acceptable to Lady
+Caroline Montague can in no wise affect your happiness?"
+
+"My happiness," replied Alfred, in a strange hurried manner, "is quite
+irrelevant to the present subject: but I am not, I trust, so selfish as
+to feel any desire to condemn a lady to a life of celibacy, merely
+because--but let us lay aside this painful subject; I shall endeavour
+as quickly as possible to forget all things connected with it, except,
+indeed, the feelings of heartfelt gratitude so justly due to you, my
+dear Willoughby."
+
+While this conversation was passing in the lawn, Geoffery, whom we left
+in the drawing-room with the ladies of the family, addressed Mrs.
+Dorothea Arden thus:
+
+"So you really think it will be a match between Alfred and Lady Caroline
+Montague?"
+
+"I should think so, certainly," replied Mrs. Dorothea; "his attentions
+have been very marked, and have been received with decided approbation,
+both by mother and daughter; and I am sure that he is, poor fellow, very
+sincerely attached."
+
+"We all thought it quite settled," said Jane. Her sisters echoed nearly
+the same sentiment.
+
+"There can be no doubt," observed Lady Arden, "that Alfred would have a
+right to consider himself very ill treated, if any objection to his
+pretensions were started at this late period."
+
+"There was a great difference, however, last night," said Louisa, "in
+Lady Caroline's manner."
+
+"And a still greater this morning," added Madeline.
+
+"Your ladyship thinks Alfred attached to Lady Caroline?" asked Geoffrey.
+
+"Unquestionably!" replied Lady Arden. "If the affair should not go on,
+it will be a very serious disappointment to him, I am convinced."
+
+"And her ladyship received him well up to last night?" persisted
+Geoffrey.
+
+"I should certainly say so," Lady Arden replied.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+                            END OF VOL. I.
+
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+                  C. WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSE, STRAND.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Dilemmas of Pride, (VOL 1 OF 3), by Margracia Loudon
+
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+Project Gutenberg's Dilemmas of Pride, (VOL 1 OF 3), by Margracia Loudon
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+Title: Dilemmas of Pride, (VOL 1 OF 3)
+
+Author: Margracia Loudon
+
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+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DILEMMAS OF PRIDE, (VOL 1 OF 3) ***
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+
+
+<h1>DILEMMAS OF PRIDE.</h1>
+<p class="center">BY THE AUTHOR OF FIRST LOVE.<br /><br /></p>
+<p class="center">IN THREE VOLUMES.</p>
+<p class="center">VOL. I.<br /><br /></p>
+
+
+<p class="center">LONDON:</p>
+
+<p class="center">BULL AND CHURTON, HOLLES STREET.</p>
+
+<p class="center">1833.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<table summary="Table of Contents">
+<tr><td class="center" colspan="2" style="font-size:125%">Table of Contents</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="center" style="font-size:80%" colspan="2">Contents generated for HTML</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Chapter I</td><td style="text-align:right"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">1</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>Chapter II</td><td style="text-align:right"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">14</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>Chapter III</td><td style="text-align:right"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">26</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>Chapter IV</td><td style="text-align:right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">45</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>Chapter V</td><td style="text-align:right"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">66</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>Chapter VI</td><td style="text-align:right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">83</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>Chapter VII</td><td style="text-align:right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">89</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>Chapter VIII</td><td style="text-align:right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">104</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>Chapter IX</td><td style="text-align:right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">116</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>Chapter X</td><td style="text-align:right"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">128</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>Chapter XI</td><td style="text-align:right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">142</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>Chapter XII</td><td style="text-align:right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">149</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>Chapter XIII</td><td style="text-align:right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">173</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>Chapter XIV</td><td style="text-align:right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">180</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>Chapter XV</td><td style="text-align:right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">187</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>Chapter XVI</td><td style="text-align:right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">202</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>Chapter XVII</td><td style="text-align:right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">218</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>Chapter XVIII</td><td style="text-align:right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">230</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>Chapter XIX</td><td style="text-align:right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">244</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>Chapter XX</td><td style="text-align:right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">255</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>Chapter XXI</td><td style="text-align:right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">265</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>Chapter XXII</td><td style="text-align:right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">276</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>Chapter XXIII</td><td style="text-align:right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">287</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p style="font-size:175%"><a name="DILEMMAS_OF_PRIDE" id="DILEMMAS_OF_PRIDE"></a>DILEMMAS OF PRIDE.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The immense extent and beautiful irregularity
+of the grounds, the unfathomable depth of the
+woods, the picturesque ramifications of some of
+the most conspicuously situated of the very old
+trees, the hour, for it was almost midnight, the
+numerous bonfires scattered in all directions,
+the innumerable tenantry gathered round them,
+the crowd of moving forms extending as far as
+the eye could penetrate into the darkness; and,
+quite in the fore-ground, the figure of a blind old<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>
+man who had been born in the family, and grown
+grey in its service, playing, with the most extravagant
+demonstrations of delight, on a rude
+harp, that instrument so surrounded with poetic
+associations; seated too beneath a spreading
+cedar, the trunk and undermost branches of
+which, together with his countenance and white
+hair, were strongly illuminated by an adjacent
+heap of blazing pine,&mdash;all gave to Arden Park
+a demesne of such unlimited magnificence, that
+it formed in itself a sort of sylvan empire, a
+powerful resemblance, at the moment of which
+we speak, to what our imaginations are prone to
+figure of the feasts of <i>Shells</i>, as described by
+that poet of ancient bards and burning oaks, the
+venerable Ossian.</p>
+
+<p>On an abrupt and rocky eminence, at some
+distance, but still within the park, stood the
+picturesque remains of Arden Castle, once the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>
+residence of the ancestors of the family. Its
+round towers of different dimensions, some still
+perfect, its perpendicular site, the trees and turn
+of the river at its base, were all rendered conspicuous
+by the clear light of the moon now
+about to set behind the ruins.</p>
+
+<p>In all the ancient deeds the landed property
+derived its designation from this castle, and it was
+still customary for the heir to take formal possession
+of the roofless walls, ere he was considered
+true Lord of the Manor; a ceremony
+which had in the course of the day just passed,
+been duly performed.</p>
+
+<p>A little removed from the old castle, emerging
+from the trees, appeared the square turret of
+another ruin, called the Grey Friary, once the
+residence of monks, to whom at that time a portion
+of the lands appertained, while along the
+verge of the horizon, the spires of several churches<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>
+were just visible, breaking the dark line formed
+by seemingly interminable woods.</p>
+
+<p>The modern house, a magnificent structure,
+standing on a commanding eminence, the
+approach to which was gradual in the midst of
+a park and woodlands comprising above thirty
+thousand acres, now poured from every door
+and window streams of cheerful light.</p>
+
+<p>Figures were discernible within, some moving
+in the merry dance, others thronging to and from
+halls dedicated to hospitable cheer.</p>
+
+<p>We have already said it was near midnight:
+the day had been spent in festivities, held to
+celebrate the coming of age of Sir Willoughby
+Arden, now (his father having been sometime
+dead,) the head of the ancient family to whom
+the property belonged.</p>
+
+<p>The rejoicings, not only those going forward
+beneath the sheltering roof of the mansion but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>
+those also out of doors, were kept up thus late
+in compliment to Alfred Arden, the twin brother
+of the heir. The elder twin had been born about
+nine in the evening, the younger not till after
+twelve at night. To unite, therefore, the two
+distinct birth-days in the one festival, and thus
+preserve unsevered the more than brotherly tie,
+it had been resolved that no guest, of whatever
+denomination, should depart till the hour of
+midnight had been ushered in with every possible
+demonstration of joy.</p>
+
+<p>The county-town, though not above a quarter
+of a mile removed, was quite planted out: the
+spires already noticed, and which were highly
+ornamental to the landscape, being all pertaining
+of city scenery, which was visible over the tops
+of the trees.</p>
+
+<p>The clocks of some of the churches now began
+to strike. A spell at the instant seemed to fall<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>
+upon all: the music ceased, the voices of revelry
+were hushed, and that peculiar stillness prevailed
+which seemed to indicate that every individual in
+the crowd was occupied in counting the solemn
+chimes. The nearest and loudest bell took
+the lead, and was quite distinct from the rest,
+while the others followed, like answering echoes,
+in the distance. A second after the number
+twelve was completed, one universal shout rent
+the air! The health of Alfred Arden was drank
+within the mansion, and arms might be seen
+waving above the heads of the guests: after
+which, Sir Willoughby, leading his brother forward,
+issued from the open door, and stood on
+the centre of the steps.</p>
+
+<p>Servants held up lighted flambeaux on either
+side, and the old butler, with hair as white as
+the harper's, presented a goblet of wine. Sir
+Willoughby announced his brother with enthu<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>siasm,
+and then drank to the health of Alfred Arden.
+A simultaneous movement among the
+groups around the bonfires indicated that they
+were following his good example, and the next
+moment three times three resounded from the
+crowd.</p>
+
+<p>In about an hour after this all was still,
+save the solitary voice of a distant waterfall.
+Every light was quenched, and dying embers,
+which from time to time as they fell together
+flashed for an instant, were all that remained of
+the scattered bonfires. The merry crowd had
+sought their respective homes, and the inhabitants
+of the mansion had retired to rest, with
+the exception of Lady Arden, who sat at an
+open window, taking leave as it were of familiar
+scenes which, when the light of morning next
+dawned upon them, would no longer be her
+home.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In marrying the late Sir Alfred, the then
+head of the family, in obedience to the wishes
+of her parents, she had sacrificed an early attachment
+to his youngest brother.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Alfred had, however, proved a very polite
+husband, and she had for years been the mistress,
+nay, the very princess of a princely mansion,
+a splendid establishment, and a magnificent
+demesne; she had possessed every luxury that art
+and wealth could procure, and at the same time
+had been surrounded by all the beauties of nature
+on the most extensive scale.</p>
+
+<p>All had now passed away! It was to her
+son, 'tis true, and he was dutiful and affectionate,
+and would always, she had no doubt, make her
+welcome, but of course as a visitor; and whenever
+her son should marry (which she certainly
+wished him to do), a stranger would be mistress
+of all; and to the courtesy of that stranger she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>
+must owe permission to cross the threshold of
+her long accustomed home.</p>
+
+<p>She did not mean absolutely to murmur; but
+there was something pensive, at least, if not melancholy
+in such thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>While her son was a minor, Arden Park had
+still been hers, at least the right of living there;
+but to-morrow she was to set out for town; she
+was to take her daughters from under the shelter
+of their father's roof, to become wanderers
+as it were, on the world's wide wilderness. She
+would have a house in town, 'tis true: a short
+season of each year would be spent there, and
+the remainder in temporary and probably agreeable
+homes in the various watering-places.
+But she felt a painful consciousness, that, of the
+adventitious rank which the mere <i>prejudices</i> of
+society bestow, herself and daughters would
+now lose many steps; and that the latter must,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>
+whenever she should die, if they were not
+married, lose many more; nay, be probably
+reduced, at last, by the insufficiency of their
+portions as younger children, to the state of poor
+aunt Dorothea, whom she had herself often held
+up to them as a warning of the miseries attendant
+on remaining single.</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Dorothea's afflictions were not always
+of the tragic order, and the remembrance of some
+of them called up, at the moment, despite her
+solemn reflections, a faint smile on the countenance
+of Lady Arden; followed, however, by a
+sigh, for the subject now came home to her
+feelings in a manner it had never done before.</p>
+
+<p>So absorbing had been her reflections, that
+she had not noticed the gathering clouds which
+had gradually extinguished every star, and darkened
+the heavens, till all on which she still
+looked out had become one black and formless<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>
+mass. At the instant, a vivid flash of lightning
+gave to her view, with the most minute distinctness
+of outline, not only the grand features of
+the landscape generally, but, prominent above
+all, the ruins of the castle, the rocky eminence
+on which they stood, the river at its foot, and
+the trees that surrounded its base. Thunder
+and violent rain followed, and the wind rose to
+a hurricane. There existed a superstitious belief
+among the country people that a tremendous
+tempest always preceded or accompanied
+any event fatal to a member of the Arden family.
+A remembrance of this crossed the mind of Lady
+Arden at the moment, but was of course rejected
+as silly to a degree. Besides, she added
+mentally, if an idea so absurd required refutation,
+the present occasion being one of rejoicing,
+would be quite sufficient to satisfy any reasonable
+mind. She retired to rest, however, with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>
+saddened feelings, while the castle, crowning its
+rocky site, as already described, floated before her
+eyes, even after their lids were closed; and when
+she slept, the vision still blended with her
+dreams, as did the forms of the Baron and his
+two sons, described in the legend of the
+castle, and all strangely mixed up with the
+festivities of the previous day, and the forms of
+her own happy blooming family.</p>
+
+<p>The legend alluded to, and which had given
+rise to the superstition we have mentioned, ran
+thus.</p>
+
+<p>Some centuries ago, the Baron had two sons,
+who, when boys, had climbed, one day, during
+a fearful thunder storm to the topmost turret of
+the castle, which was at the time enveloped in
+clouds.</p>
+
+<p>When, however, the storm was over, their
+bodies were found, locked in each other's arms,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>
+laying in the river at the foot of the rock on
+which the castle stands. The old Baron died
+of grief, and the property went to a distant relative,
+who, it was vaguely hinted, had followed
+the youths unseen, and while they stood gazing
+at the storm, had treacherously drawn the coping-stone
+from beneath their feet; others maintained
+the only grounds for this foul suspicion to be,
+that the said stone was certainly found on the
+inner side the parapet, while the bodies of the
+youths lay below.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+
+<p>When Lady Arden arose in the morning all
+was calm and sunshine.</p>
+
+<p>The storm of the night might have seemed a
+dream but for the still visible traces of its
+ravages. The river was greatly swollen, and several
+of the largest and finest of a range of
+magnificent old trees which had grown on the
+brow of a sloping bank, forming a beautiful
+feature in the landscape, now lay on the ground,
+literally uprooted by the violence of the tempest.
+Their fate, however, was soon forgotten
+in that of two young oaks, which had been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>
+planted beside each other on the lawn, on the
+joint birth-day of her two sons. The lightning
+had shattered both: Lady Arden viewed them
+for the moment with a shuddering sensation
+of superstitious dread, the influence of which it
+required all her good sense to resist.</p>
+
+<p>Geoffery Arden, the only nephew of the late Sir
+Alfred, was standing on the grass, with his arms
+folded, and looking rather askance than directly
+at the remains of the blasted trees, while his
+eye-brows were drawn up contemptuously, and
+a somewhat scornful smile curled his lip, as he
+marked blind Lewin the Harper, his countenance
+full of woe, feeling, with visibly trembling
+hands, each shattered branch of the uprooted
+oaks, while the large tears were falling from his
+sightless eyes.</p>
+
+<p>The brothers Willoughby and Alfred, and
+their three sisters, all seemingly attracted by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>
+the same object, issued one by one, from the
+open glass door of the breakfast room, and gathered
+round the spot; each looked playfully
+dismal for a moment, and the next uttered
+some laughing remark. They were soon joined
+by their mother; and the group would have
+formed a striking family picture. Lady Arden
+was still a very fine woman: from her mild temper
+the sweetness of her countenance was yet unimpaired,
+while the expression of maternal tenderness,&mdash;and
+this from the late tenor of her
+thoughts was unconsciously mingled with something
+of solicitude,&mdash;with which she viewed her
+children, her sons now especially, and Alfred in
+particular, her favourite son, gave additional
+interest to her appearance.</p>
+
+<p>Alfred's sparkling eye and blooming cheek
+did not, however, seem to justify much anxiety
+on his account; his brother too, though he had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>
+always been more delicate, seemed at present
+in excellent health and spirits, while the three
+sisters were young, handsome, and happy looking.
+Geoffery Arden still stood apart, as though
+there were but little fellowship of feeling between
+him and the rest of the group.</p>
+
+<p>He was a lad of eighteen or nineteen
+before the marriage of his uncle, the late Sir
+Alfred; and from a child had been in the
+habit of hearing his father and mother, and
+such of their particular friends as sought to
+flatter their secret wishes, speculate on the possibility
+of his uncle's never marrying, and his
+being consequently heir to the Arden estates,
+which were strictly entailed in the male line.
+Nay, his very nursemaid's usual threat was, that
+if he cried when his face was being washed, he
+should never be Sir Geoffery. At school, all the
+boys at play hours had somehow or other a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>cquired
+the habit of calling him Sir Geoffery; and
+at college his companions, particularly those who
+wished to flatter him into idle extravagance,
+constantly joked and complimented him about
+his great <i>expectations</i>. Thus had those expectations,
+unjustly founded as they were, grown
+with his growth and strengthened with his
+strength; till, when his uncle did marry, he
+could scarcely help thinking himself an injured,
+robbed, and very ill-treated person. Hope however
+revived a little, on the first three children
+chancing to be daughters, and his mother began
+again to say, he might have the Arden estates
+yet:&mdash;stranger things had happened. "And
+you might marry one of the girls, you know,
+Geoffery," she would continue,&mdash;"it would be
+some compensation to poor Sir Alfred for having
+no son."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed I should do no such thing," he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>
+would reply. "I should just please myself.
+It's not to oblige me, I suppose, that my uncle
+has no son."</p>
+
+<p>The birth of the twin brothers, immediately
+after this, put an end to all further speculations
+on the subject; except, indeed, that Mrs. Arden
+could not help observing that, "after all, the
+lives of two weakly infants, as twins of course
+must be, with the measles, hooping-cough, and
+all other infantile diseases before them, were
+not worth much."</p>
+
+<p>Geoffery became sulky under his disappointment,
+and said very little; but silently he hated
+the twins for having been born. Of what use
+were they, he thought; for what purpose had
+they been brought into the world, except indeed
+to ruin his prospects.</p>
+
+<p>Had they never been born, they would not
+have wanted the property, and he might have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>
+enjoyed it. Now he must go and drudge at a
+profession, the very idea of which, after his
+imagination had been so long dazzled by false
+hopes, he absolutely loathed.</p>
+
+<p>He had been educated for the Bar, but had
+neglected his studies. He had been dissipated
+without gaiety of heart, and a gambler from
+avarice. His hopes had made him proud, while
+his fears had made him gloomy. In short, he
+had contrived to extract the evil from every
+thing, while he had avoided all that was good.
+As to his legal studies, he had never read any
+portion with interest or attention but the law of
+male entail.</p>
+
+<p>He was a bachelor, and likely to remain
+such: for he could not afford to marry, unless
+he obtained a much larger fortune than he was
+entitled to expect.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing he could exactly dare to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>
+do to injure his cousins; but he hated them
+both, and kept an evil eye upon them. As for
+his female cousins, he did not take the trouble
+of actively hating them, he merely despised them
+as beings shut out from all possibility of inheriting
+the property. Beautiful and high born as
+they were, he would not have accepted the
+hand of any one of them had it been offered to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Willoughby was goodnaturedly weak, and
+very vain;&mdash;his was a vanity however which,
+when it happened to be gratified, made him extremely
+happy, by keeping him in the highest
+good humour with himself. From him Geoffery
+won large sums at billiards, by flattering him on
+his play, 'till he induced him to give him,
+habitually, such odds as amounted, in point of
+fact, to giving him the game, or, in other words,
+the sum staked upon it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Lady Arden often endeavoured to dissuade
+her son from acquiring so bad a habit as that
+of gambling, but in vain; for Willoughby, like
+all weak men, was obstinate to excess: he had
+besides a marvellous respect for the salique law,
+and that jealousy of being guided, which unhappily
+always forms a leading feature in the
+characters of those who stand most in need of
+guidance. Yet he was fondly attached to his
+mother; his greatest delight was to devise something
+for her pleasure or her accommodation; he
+was always ready to make her munificent presents;
+in short, he would do any thing to oblige her,
+with the exception of following her suggestions.</p>
+
+<p>Not that he always ungraciously refused requests
+that contained in them nothing prohibitory;
+he had no particular objection sometimes to
+do a thing he was asked to do; but a thing
+he was asked not to do, he was always sure to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
+do! And if it happened to be a thing which
+Geoffery Arden wished should be done, he could
+always decide the point, by artfully complimenting
+his cousin on the <i>firmness</i> of his character.</p>
+
+<p>Of Alfred, Geoffery could make nothing.
+He was frank, kind, and open-hearted; yet
+clear-seeing and decided. With him his mother's
+slightest wish but guessed at was a law:
+his sisters, too, could always coax him out
+of any plan of pleasure of his own, and get
+him to go with them. Not so those for whom
+he had no particular affection; he had never
+yet been known, in any one instance, to sacrifice
+his opinion of what was right, respectable,
+or amiable, to the persuasions of idle
+companions; so that he was already respected
+as well as regarded by thinking and discerning
+men much older than himself; some of them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>
+too, men who had bought their experience dearly
+enough and who were surprised into involuntary
+admiration of so young a person, who
+seemed to have his intuitively.</p>
+
+<p>His brother loved him in the most enthusiastic
+manner; more than he did his mother, or
+any one else in the world; yet, strange to say,
+such was Willoughby's dread of being governed,
+that even the brother whom he loved so much,
+had not the slightest influence over him; nay,
+Alfred was afraid to use persuasion of any
+kind, lest it should have a contrary effect; and
+yet, if he ever let it appear that he was in the
+slightest degree hurt or offended by this unmeaning
+and dogged obstinacy on the part of his
+brother, Willoughby's despair would sometimes,
+though but for a moment or two, manifest itself in
+a way perfectly terrifying; he would rush towards
+a window, or a river side, and threaten to fling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>
+himself out or in; so that Alfred, though he
+knew himself to be his brother's sole confidant,
+and the first object of his affections, was obliged,
+with great pain of course, to see him led away
+by designing people, especially his cousin Geoffery,
+into many practices far from prudent, yet
+not interfere; and even be thankful, when by
+refraining from so doing, he could avoid the recurrence
+of the distressing scenes alluded to.
+Willoughby had received a blow on the head
+when a child, which had not then exhibited any
+serious consequences; whether this circumstance
+had any connection with the occasional strangeness
+of his temper or not, it was impossible to
+say, but Alfred sometimes secretly feared it
+had. It was a thought, however, which he did
+not communicate even to his mother. Such was
+the family, which on the morning we have described,
+quitted Arden Park for London.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+
+<p>While the Arden family are on their way to
+town, we shall take a peep at the High-street in
+Cheltenham. Strings of carriages were driving
+backward and forward, from turnpike to turnpike,
+while the open barouches, filled with bonnets
+of every colour in the rainbow, flaunting
+and waving to and fro, looked like so many
+moving beds of full blown tulips. Foot-passengers
+too of all classes thronged the flag-ways.</p>
+
+<p>Among these was distinguishable a tall, large,
+and still handsome woman, apparently upwards<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>
+of fifty. There was something aristocratic about
+both her countenance and carriage, although
+she was closely followed by a trollopy looking
+maid-servant, who carried a bandbox under each
+arm, a dressing-box in one hand, and a work-box
+in the other.</p>
+
+<p>Mistress and maid entered the private door
+or <i>genteel</i> separate ingress, appropriated to
+lodgers, of a music-shop; and having the door
+at the further end of the passage opened, for the
+purpose of throwing light on the subject, stumbled
+up a still dark and very narrow staircase,
+at the top of which they turned abruptly into
+a small sunny drawing-room, furnished with
+chintz hangings, lined and draperied with faded
+pink calico. The carpet was a stamped cloth,
+of a showy pattern. It was a recent purchase,
+and therefore not yet faded; so that it secured<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>
+to these lodgings, as being <i>superiorly</i> furnished,
+a great preference over their competitors. In
+the centre of the room stood a table covered
+with a very dingy green baize, and round the
+walls were ranged some half dozen small mock
+rosewood chairs, accommodated with little square
+inclined planes, covered with pink calico, and
+called cushions. Either for want of strings at
+the back, or in consequence of such strings
+being out of repair, these said inclined planes,
+whenever you attempted to help yourself or any
+one else to a chair, flew off, either into the middle
+of the floor, or if it was the fire you had
+wished to approach, perchance under the grate.
+Over the mantelpiece was placed what the landlady
+considered <i>a very handsome</i> chimney-glass,
+a <i>foot and half</i> high, and about three wide;
+its gilt frame carefully covered with transparent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>
+yellow gauze. On the mantelpiece stood two
+bronze chimney lights, with cutglass drops,
+only it must be confessed there were but three
+of the drops remaining on one, and the other
+wanted two. The woman of the house, however,
+had promised faithfully to find the rest
+of the drops, and so restore to these embellishers
+of her establishment the whole of their
+pendant honours.</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't give much for their promises,"
+answered Sarah, the maid, when, in reply to
+a comment of hers on the subject, she was told
+so by Mrs. Dorothea Arden, her mistress.</p>
+
+<p>"And here's no sofa, ma'am," she continued;
+"how are you to be sitting, the length of an
+evening, stuck upright on one of these here
+<i>ricketty</i> bits of chairs, I'd be glad to know."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, it will not be very comfortable, to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>
+sure," answered Mrs. Dorothea, "so long as it
+lasts; but she has promised faithfully, that as
+soon as the sick lady goes away, which will be
+in about a week, she will let me have the sofa
+out of the next drawing-room."</p>
+
+<p>"A bird in the hand's worth two in the bush!"
+replied Sarah. "I dare say if the truth was
+known, they're not worth a sofa; or, if they are,
+they'll keep it in the next room, when it is vacant,
+to be a decoy-duck to another lodger. They're
+not going to let you have it, I promise you, now
+that they have got you fast for a month certain."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if they don't, I can't help it," said
+Mrs. Dorothea; "one can't have every thing
+you know; and the new carpet certainly gives
+the room a very respectable appearance. And
+then there is a chiffonier; that's a great comfort
+to put one's groceries in; or a few biskets; or a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>
+bottle of wine, if one should be obliged to open
+one. The doors, to be sure, are lined with blue
+and they should have been pink."</p>
+
+<p>"And here's no key," said Sarah, examining
+the chiffonier; "and I declare if the lock <i>ante</i>
+broke."</p>
+
+<p>"That is provoking," said Mrs. Dorothea,
+"she must get me a lock."</p>
+
+<p>Sarah was now dispatched with her bandboxes,
+and ordered to hurry the dinner and unpack
+the things.</p>
+
+<p>In about half an hour, Aunt Dorothea becoming
+hungry and impatient, rang her bell. Sarah
+reappeared, with a countenance of the utmost
+discontent, declaring she was never in such a
+place in her life; that there was no getting any
+thing done, and that as to unpacking, there was
+no use in attempting it, in a place where they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>
+should never be able to stop. When the dinner
+was asked for, she replied, that she believed it
+had been done some time, but that she supposed
+there was no one to bring it up, for all they
+had engaged to do the waiting. "But there's
+sixteen of themselves, shop boys and all; and
+they <i>gets</i> their own tea the while your dinner's
+a cooking it seems."</p>
+
+<p>When the dinner did come up, it was cold, and
+consisted of mutton-chops, which had evidently
+been upset into the ashes. Poor Aunt Dorothea
+consequently made but a slender repast.</p>
+
+<p>The next day, while engaged in the labours
+of the toilet, she thus addressed Sarah; for
+people who live quite alone, are too apt to get
+into a way of gossiping with their servants.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a very long time since the Salters
+have called; is it not, Sarah?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"A very long time indeed ma'am," replied
+the abigail, "they was a saying to their own
+maid the other day (they don't know I suppose
+as she is a friend of mine), for they was a saying,
+as I said, that they didn't think as they should
+call any more; for that nobody never knew
+where to find you, as you was always a changing
+your lodgings; and that as to your having
+a sister that was a lady, they didn't believe a
+word of it; for though you was always a talking
+of Lady Arden coming, she never come."</p>
+
+<p>"What impertinence! Well, Lady Arden
+will be here this season to a certainty. She is
+to come direct from London; and I'll take care
+they shall not be introduced to her. Was there
+ever such ingratitude! People that had not a
+creature to speak to, till I introduced them to
+every one they know. I even made so particu<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>lar
+a request of my friends that they would call
+on them, that I quite laid myself under obligations
+to people. They could find out my lodgings
+fast enough, when they were coming to my
+little sociable parties five nights out of the
+seven; declaring they did not know what
+was to become of them, were it not for my
+kindness; and that the more they saw how
+differently others behaved to them, the more
+were they obliged to me; and then making such
+a vulgar noise about the number of invitations
+they were in my debt and their grief at not
+having it in their power as yet to make any return."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I can tell you ma'am," said Sarah,
+"they are to have a grand party this very night
+at the rooms, and never had the manners to ask
+you."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I know their cards have been out for some
+time. And who are they to have, did you
+hear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, titles without end, they say; and generals
+and baronets, and all sorts of fine people.
+Mrs. Johnson <i>sais</i>, as the young ladies should
+say, they were determined as their party should
+<i>exist</i> entirely of <i>excuses</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Exclusives you mean, I suppose; but did
+you hear any of the names?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why yes ma'am; they are to have Sir
+Matthias and Lady Whaleworthy."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Matthias indeed!" repeated Mrs. Dorothea,
+"an alderman cheesemonger, knighted
+only the other day; and as for his poor goodnatured,
+vulgar wife, she has been fattened on
+whey, I suppose, till no reasonable door can
+admit her."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well to be sure!" exclaimed the abigail,
+"and then they are to have Sir Henry and Lady
+Shawbridge."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Henry, poor man," said Mrs. Dorothea,
+"was only knighted by mistake. I don't know
+what he was himself, but they say he had just
+married his cook-maid; and her ladyship certainly
+has all the fiery-faced fierceness of that
+order about her."</p>
+
+<p>"A cook-maid, ma'am! why I am a step
+above that myself. And let me see, who else&mdash;oh,
+there's to be Lady Flamborough."</p>
+
+<p>"She is a woman of rank certainly, or rather
+the widow of a man of rank; for she is of very
+low birth herself; and what is much worse, she
+is a woman of bad character, which of course
+prevents her being visited, so that she is glad to
+go any where. And who else pray?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Sir William Orm, that Mrs. Johnson <i>sais</i>
+is such a fine gentleman."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir William Orm," repeated Mrs. Dorothea,
+"he is a known black-leg; a man shut out from
+all good society; he may do very well for the
+Salters, however, if he can endure their vulgarity."</p>
+
+<p>"There is another title," said Sarah, "let me
+see&mdash;Sir&mdash;Sir&mdash;Sir Francis Beerton, or Brierton,
+I think."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor little man," said Mrs. Dorothea, "there
+is no particular harm in him; but his wife is so
+sanctified, that she will neither go any where,
+nor see any one at home; so that he is glad of
+any thing for variety. Strange notions some
+people have of duty! in my opinion, if a woman
+will not make a man's home comfortable and
+agreeable to him, she becomes accountable for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>
+all the sins he may commit abroad, although she
+should be praying for his conversion the whole
+time. Well, who comes next on your list?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think as I remember any more, excepting
+General Powel."</p>
+
+<p>"He, poor old man, is mere lumber; neither
+useful nor ornamental, nobody will be troubled
+with him who can get anybody else to fill up
+their rooms; so that I should suppose he is not
+incumbered with many invitations."</p>
+
+<p>"Well who would a thought of their being
+such a <i>despisable</i> set; and so many titles
+among them too; why to have heard Mrs.
+Johnson talk o' them, you'd supposed they had
+been so many kings and queens."</p>
+
+<p>"It was a set I should not have joined certainly;
+but quite good enough for the Salters,
+whom I should never have visited, had the friend<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>
+who wrote to me about them been sufficiently
+explicit as to who and what they were. The
+daughters, I suppose, would be excessively indignant
+if they thought it was known that their
+father had made his fortune somewhere in Devonshire,
+by a contract for supplying the navy
+with beef."</p>
+
+<p>"Supplying beef, ma'am! Why isn't that all
+as one as being a butcher?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not unlike it, certainly," replied Mrs. Dorothea.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, who would have thought, and they
+so proud: but it's always them there upstartish
+sort that's the impudentst and most
+unbearable."</p>
+
+<p>"It is in general the way those sort of people
+betray themselves. If they behaved in a modest
+unpretending manner, very possible no questions
+might be asked. After their ingratitude and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>
+impertinence to me, I for one shall make no
+secret of the circumstance. And the very young
+men that eat Mr. Salter's roast beef now, washed
+down too with his champaign and his claret, will
+not be the less ready to jeer at the time he sold
+the same commodity raw. When my sister,
+Lady Arden, comes, and her three beautiful
+daughters, they will of course have all the
+young men in Cheltenham about them; so that
+I shall be acquainted with them all; and I shall
+take care they shall not be in the dark about
+the Misses Salter, who shall find that I am not
+to be insulted with impunity."</p>
+
+<p>"And I shall have some fun with our butcher
+about it," said Sarah; "I shall tell him to be
+particular what sort of meat he sends to such
+a good judge as Mr. Salter. Perhaps you could
+spare me for a couple of hours this evening,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>
+ma'am?" she added, when her mistress was
+attired.</p>
+
+<p>"What for, Sarah? you are always asking
+leave to go out. I must say you are very idly
+inclined. How are my summer things ever to
+be ready at this rate. This mulberry silk has
+been looking quite out of season, ever since the
+sunny weather came in."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure, ma'am, there is not a young
+person in Cheltenham sits as close to their
+needle as what I do; but this evening Mrs.
+Johnson has, of course, the privilege of the
+music-gallery, and she has offered me a place.
+I thought you might like, perhaps, to hear how
+the party went off?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, certainly I should!" replied Mrs. Dorothea.
+"Well, Sarah, you may go, and mind
+you have all your eyes about you, and bring<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>
+me a full account of every thing. And notice
+if there is any body there that I know&mdash;and
+how the people are dressed&mdash;and how often the
+refreshment trays come in&mdash;and whether they
+attempt a supper&mdash;and who begins the dancing.
+The Miss Salters will get partners for once in
+their lives, I suppose! And I dare say they will
+contrive to have a tolerably full room; for I
+hear they have been getting all their acquaintance
+to give away cards, right and left; Lady
+Matthias alone boasts that she has disposed of
+three dozen."</p>
+
+<p>Sarah promised strict compliance with all the
+directions she had received, and disappeared in
+great haste, to pin new bows in her bonnet, and
+slip stiffeners into the large sleeves of her best
+silk dress; determining to complete her costume
+for the occasion, by lending herself her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>
+mistress's pea-green china crape shawl and
+black lace veil.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Dorothea Arden, as soon as she was
+alone, sighed unconsciously; for visions of her
+early days presented themselves suddenly and
+unbidden, forming a violent contrast with the
+whole class of petty and degrading thoughts and
+interests, to which circumstances had gradually
+habituated, at least, if not reconciled her.</p>
+
+<p>Ere she had quitted the pedestal of her youthful
+pride, beneath the shelter of her father's
+roof, with what appalling horror would she have
+thought of the chance-collected mob, about
+whose movements she was now capable of feeling
+an idle curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>Vague recollections, too, passed with the
+quickness of a momentary glance, through her
+mind, of eligible establishments rejected with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>
+scorn, of comfort and respectability cast away,
+for dreams of ambition it had never been her
+fate to realize.</p>
+
+<p>She paused, and some seconds were given to
+a remembrance apart from every other, which,
+though now but faintly seen amid the haze of
+distance, still seemed a little illumined speck,
+on which a sun-beam, piercing some aperture in
+a cloudy sky had chanced to fall.</p>
+
+<p>But it was too late, quite too late for such
+thoughts, so she went out to pay some morning
+visits, to send in a veal cutlet for her dinner,
+and find out, more particularly, who were to be
+at the Salter's party.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Mr. Salter and his two daughters, the former
+equipped in a new wig, the latter in two new
+dresses, expressly for the occasion, were parading
+up and down the yet vacant public ballroom.</p>
+
+<p>The lights were burning, the waiters in attendance,
+and the orchestra playing; while,
+peeping over the shoulder of the double bass,
+appeared a particularly smart bonnet, decorated
+with numerous bows of quite new ribbon,
+and further graced by a very handsome
+black lace veil.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What can all the people be thinking of?"
+said Mr. Salter at last; "I have a mind to order
+the lights to be put out, and go away home to
+my bed. It would be just a proper punishment
+for them all. And pray," he added, looking
+at his daughters' dresses, "what are these gig-meries
+to cost?" At this crisis resounded the
+welcome sounds, "Sir Matthias and Lady
+Whaleworthy:" with quickened steps and delighted
+countenances, our trio hastened towards
+the bottom of the room, to receive their guests,
+now, as by magic, flowing in altogether.</p>
+
+<p>Introductions were endless; every leading
+bird was followed by a flock, which neither host
+nor hostess had ever seen before; while, from
+time to time, the promised titles, those stars
+which were to give brilliancy to the night, made
+their appearance, sprinkling the common herd<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>
+with consequence. Lady Flamborough! Sir
+William Orm! Sir Henry and Lady Shawbridge!
+Next appeared poor old General Powel
+and half blind Sir Francis Brierton, poking his
+little sharp nose into everybody's face, and
+smirking his recognition, when by so doing he
+had discovered who they were; and though last
+not least, Sir James Lindsey; least in consequence
+we mean, for he was a very little, very
+ugly man, the express image of the knave of
+spades. He was, however, a vastly important
+personage, a bachelor baronet, with fifteen thousand
+a-year, and a man of good family too, so
+that there was no objection whatever to him,
+except that he was a fool, and that when he
+danced he so capered and kicked up behind,
+and rounded his elbows, and, in short, made
+himself so completely the butt and laughing-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>stock
+of the whole room, it was with difficulty
+that even his fifteen thousand per annum could
+procure him a partner.</p>
+
+<p>We rather suspect, however, that there were
+ladies who, though they shrank from sharing
+with Sir James the unprofitable ridicule of the
+hour, would have had no objection to share
+with him for life his fifteen thousand a-year,
+for, in that case, they could afford to be laughed
+at.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James had a brother, a very fine young
+man, remarkably handsome and equally clever;
+perhaps a little too hot-headed, but
+warm-hearted withal; an enthusiast in beauty,
+painting, music, scenery, every thing in short
+at which a glowing imagination takes fire;
+the very material for a frantic lover, yet condemned
+by his circumstances, either to lead<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>
+a single life, or possibly at least contract a marriage
+with the purse of some old rich widow,
+fitter to be his mother than his wife. For
+Henry Lindsey was one of the many living sacrifices
+hourly immolated on the altars of <i>pride</i>,
+and how many a holocaust has been offered up
+upon those altars!</p>
+
+<p>How often have we heard persons, who could
+argue rationally enough on other subjects, gravely
+assert, in reply to every argument which good
+feeling or justice could urge, "A family must
+have a head."</p>
+
+<p>In this particular instance the head, or <i>pride</i>
+of the family, had proved its disgrace, yet standing
+laws and previously made settlements could
+not be altered. Fifteen thousand per annum,
+therefore, must be melted down, to make a
+golden image of poor little silly Sir James,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>
+while Henry, with the pittance which as a
+younger child was his portion, was obliged to
+purchase the privilege of being shot at; for the
+younger brother of an old baronet <i>could not disgrace
+his family</i> by doing any thing likely to
+provide <i>comfortably for himself</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Thus do the <i>prejudices</i> of society seem to have
+been invented for the express purpose of hunting
+down and crushing those whom its laws have
+robbed and oppressed.</p>
+
+<p>Children of the same parents must be defrauded
+of the birthright, by natural justice
+theirs, to heap all on one brother! And for
+what purpose? That he may keep alive, by
+being its living representative, that <i>pride</i>, that
+<i>curse</i>, which forbids to those so defrauded, the
+use of honest means for earning honest bread!</p>
+
+<p>If, instead of this, all property which had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>
+been a father's, were, at his death, equally divided
+among his offspring, without revolution or
+confiscation, extravagant disparity of station
+would gradually disappear, and with it <i>pride</i>,
+that destroys the happiness, with its whole array
+of <i>prejudices</i>, waging eternal warfare against
+rational contentment.</p>
+
+<p>How many are there who might still, even as
+the world now is, dwell within a very garden of
+Eden, of peaceful and natural delights, and yet
+who virtually turn themselves out of the same;
+and, at the mere mandate of some <i>prejudice</i> of society&mdash;some
+<i>by-law</i> of <i>pride</i>, become wanderers
+through the thistle-grown wildernesses of discontent,
+or weary pilgrims amid the thorny
+paths of petty mortification.</p>
+
+<p>But to return to our ball: by this time so
+fair a proportion of the company had arrived,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>
+that it was thought advisable to commence
+dancing. For this purpose Mr. Salter, with
+a feeling of exultation which made him forget,
+for the time, what the whole entertainment was
+likely to cost, led Lady Flamborough to the
+head of the room. Her ladyship had evidently
+been pretty in her youth; but though the remains
+of a fine woman may sometimes be
+viewed with a blending of admiration with our
+veneration, mere prettiness seldom grows old
+gracefully. In Lady Flamborough's case it certainly
+did not. Her once nicely rounded little figure
+had now outgrown all bounds, not excepting
+those of the drapery which ought to have concealed
+its exuberance. Her once infantine features
+were now nearly lost in the midst of a
+countenance disproportionally increased in its
+general dimensions; while in manner she still<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>
+played off numberless once becoming, but now
+disgusting, airs of artless innocence; languishing,
+lisping, and rolling her eyes; and childishly
+twisting her fingers through the ringlets of her
+hair, while looking up in her partner's face, and
+saying silly things.</p>
+
+<p>Had it been possible to have checked coquetry
+in Lady Flamborough, the sight of the senseless
+bloated countenance on which she was thus
+casting away those interesting appeals of her
+visual orbs, one would have thought might have
+done so.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Salter's head was in shape something
+like a sugar loaf: the region denominated fore-head,
+and appropriated by phrenologists to the
+intellectual faculties, being so confined, that it
+nearly came to a point, while the descent
+widened as it approached the organs of gusta<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>tiveness,
+and all that called itself face, concluded
+without any distinct line of demarcation, in a
+jole, much resembling that of a cod-fish.</p>
+
+<p>The eyes were colourless, and owed all the
+brilliancy they possessed to an inflammation of
+the lids, which never forsook them. The efforts
+of their owner, on the present occasion, to give
+them a languishing roll, that should correspond
+with that of her ladyship's, was truly ludicrous.
+As to his mouth, it bisected his countenance
+from ear to ear, which rendered his
+endeavours to spread it wider by that bland
+movement designated a smile, nearly abortive.</p>
+
+<p>A few additional lines of circular or spherical
+trigonometry were conspicuously marked upon
+cheeks that yielded in carnation hue to nought
+save the nose; while this rallying point of the
+vital powers, like certain well-known altars of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>
+the ancients, never allowed the flame to go
+out.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Salter was exceedingly proud of his legs,
+(not that he had seen them himself for the last
+ten years), and though short for his body, which
+by-the-by had precisely the appearance of a
+Brobdingnag melon on castors, the legs themselves,
+when you were distant enough to have a
+view of them beneath the inflated balloon that
+otherwise concealed them, were certainly
+formed according to the rules of beauty; that is
+to say, they had very large calves, and very small
+ankles.</p>
+
+<p>We suppose it must have been the combined
+effect of the personal charms and the elevated
+rank of his partner, which raised Mr. Salter's
+spirits to so inconvenient a degree, as to produce
+in his mind a most frisky longing to behold,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>
+once more, this long remembered attraction of
+his own&mdash;his said handsome legs. Accordingly,
+while setting to the lady, he made several kicks
+out in front, with accompanying jerks forward
+of the head, in the vain hope of catching a
+glimpse; but, alas, in one unfortunate effort
+more strenuous than the rest, he lost his balance;
+out flew his feet, and down he came on his back,
+so much to the amusement of the whole room
+that no one for a time had the presence of mind
+to pick him up: while there he lay, sprawling
+and puffing, his own endeavours to rise being
+quite as fruitless as those of a beetle usually are,
+when placed in the same reversed position by
+a mischievous school-boy. Neither was the
+evening by any means one of unmixed delight
+to the Misses Salter. It was but too evident
+that even on the present occasion, when, if ever<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>
+compliment was due to them, that the gentlemen
+evinced any thing but impatience to secure the
+felicity of being their partners. On the contrary,
+it was generally when a quadrille was
+nearly made up, and the last added couple
+were in great distress for a <i>vis-à-vis</i>, that some
+one who had previously made up his mind not to
+dance, was pressed into the service, and given a
+hint that one of the Miss Salters was sitting down.</p>
+
+<p>Even Sir James, though he did dance a set
+with each sister, did not do so till he had been
+shaken off by nearly every other woman in the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>The Scotch proverb says, "It's a lucky lass
+that's like her father."</p>
+
+<p>But we must confess, we never could discover
+that it was any advantage to Miss Salter to be
+so strikingly like her father as she certainly was.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>
+Miss Grace Salter was altogether of a different
+style; she was under-sized, pitiably thin,
+and extremely dark, with an expression of countenance
+as if she had just swallowed something
+unseasonably bitter, and was making a face at
+its disagreeable flavour. The set with Sir James
+could not much sooth the vanity of either sister,
+for no sooner did he commence operations,
+than a ring was immediately formed for the
+avowed purpose of laughing at him; while he,
+mistaking the general attention he drew for
+admiration, seemed gratefully determined to
+spare no pains to give the greatest possible satisfaction
+to his numerous spectators.</p>
+
+<p>The Misses Salter had also another source
+of uneasiness this evening. At all times their
+greatest earthly apprehension, next to that of
+not getting husbands themselves, was, lest their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>
+father should marry, and cut them out of a
+small sum, which not having been swallowed
+up in the purchase of the estate for John,
+he had promised to divide between them unless
+indeed he married again. His doing so seemed
+this evening more probable than ever it had
+done before. The roll of his eye, while looking
+at Lady Flamborough, had become quite ominous,
+while her ladyship's air of condescension
+was truly alarming.</p>
+
+<p>"Now it would be too bad, would it not?"
+said Miss Salter to Miss Grace Salter, as they
+were undressing, "if after all, this ball that we
+have been so long teazing at my father to give,
+and that he thinks so much about the expense of,
+should turn out to be our own ruin in the end."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I am afraid, to be sure," replied her
+sister, "if he marries he won't leave us the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>
+money, or else it would be a grand connection!
+wouldn't it? We'd be sure to be visited by every
+body then."</p>
+
+<p>"That we should, no doubt," said Miss
+Salter, "but what of that, we shouldn't have
+a shilling in the world, comparatively speaking,
+when my father dies&mdash;and as for John&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He wouldn't give us a shilling if we were
+starving!" observed Miss Grace.</p>
+
+<p>By John, they meant their brother. And, by-the-by,
+one of the reasons, in addition to their
+want of beauty, why these ladies were paid so
+little attention to by the gentlemen, was, that it
+was well known, Mr. Salter had a cub of a
+son, on whom he meant, in imitation of his
+betters, to heap the earnings and savings of his
+life, for the purpose, as he himself expressed it,
+of making a family: and, for that matter he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>
+didn't see why a man mightn't be prouder of
+being the first of his name to do so, than if he
+was come of a family ready made to his hand
+a thousand years ago! for sure, they must all
+have had a beginning one time or other.</p>
+
+<p>But as to being the first of his name to have
+a rise in the world, he was not so clear of that
+neither: he had often heard talk of a Lord Salter
+or Salisbury, or something beginning with an S;
+and he might become a lord, one time or
+other, for any thing he knew to the
+contrary.</p>
+
+<p>But be that as it may, "he wasn't going
+to have his money, that he had been a lifetime
+scraping together, squandered by idle fellows
+that were nothing at all akin to him, but would
+just come and marry his daughters to get hold
+of the cash."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But supposing, Sir, we shouldn't get married
+at all," said Miss Salter one day.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing more likely," replied her father.
+"As for Grace, she is certainly as plain a girl
+as I'd desire to see any day. And I don't know
+how it is, you're not very handsome neither, tho'
+you're thought so like me."</p>
+
+<p>These observations of Mr. Salter's about
+being the first of his family were, by the particular
+desire of his daughters, strictly confined
+to his own fireside. There was no occasion,
+they argued, to make any such confession in a
+place like Cheltenham, where nobody knew anything
+about people, but what they choose to
+say of themselves. Accordingly, they made
+family their constant theme; and inquired with
+the most consequential airs about the connections
+of every one they heard named; always<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>
+winding up their harangue by observing, that
+of course it was very natural for a man like their
+father, of such an ancient and highly respectable
+family, to be very particular about who they
+visited, particularly in those sorts of places
+where people of every description congregated.</p>
+
+<p>"It's no harm, you know," said Miss Salter
+to her sister, "to have the name of being particular,
+it makes people of consequence; at
+the same time I'd have us get acquainted
+with every creature we can, and go everywhere;
+there's no knowing where one might
+find one's luck."</p>
+
+<p>"Talking of luck," answered Grace, "I read
+in one of the new novels the other day, that
+'luck knocks once at every one's door;' I wish
+it would knock once at mine, I know, and it
+shouldn't have to knock again."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And, by-the-by, was it quite prudent of us,
+on your plan, to cut Mrs. Dorothea Arden as we
+have done?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes; what's the use of an old maid,
+she can have no sons, you know; besides, we
+didn't cut her till Lady Whaleworthy, and
+Lady Flamborough, and Lady Shawbridge,
+and all of them, had called; and then I thought
+we could spare such old lumber as Mrs. Dorothea."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, to be sure, as you say, she can have
+no sons; indeed I never even heard her speak
+of a brother or a nephew; and as to her expecting
+this Lady Arden that she is always
+talking about, I am sure its nothing but a
+boast."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing more you may be certain! And
+then I was afraid my father would have taken<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>
+a fancy to her at last, for he was always saying,
+she was a fine woman for her years."</p>
+
+<p>"She was very useful however at first," said
+Grace.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes she was, certainly," replied Miss
+Salter, "but now you know we don't want her."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Lady Arden, leaning on her son Alfred, her
+eldest daughter on the other side, her two
+younger following, had just entered the ballroom
+at Almacks.</p>
+
+<p>The sisters, we have already said, were beautiful.
+They were all above the middle height,
+and finely formed; remarkably fair, with brilliant
+complexions, and very beautiful light
+brown hair.</p>
+
+<p>Jane, the eldest, had her mother's amiable,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>
+mild, regular features, and soft, modest, hazel
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Louisa, the second, much resembled her sister
+in the form of her features, except that her
+mouth was a very little larger, the lips fuller,
+and of a more vivid red, and the smile more
+conscious. Her eyes were of a grey colour,
+clear and sparkling; but in their expression
+there was too much of triumph, while her very
+blush had something in it of the same character;
+you felt, you knew not why, that it did not arise
+altogether from timidity.</p>
+
+<p>Her beauty, however, was perfectly exquisite;
+there was a rich luxuriance, a beaming lustre
+about her whole appearance, which seemed to
+gain by contrast with others, whom, while viewed
+separately, you had thought as handsome. It
+was like the undefinable distinction between the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>
+brilliant and its best imitations, most clearly
+seen when subjected to the ordeal of comparison.</p>
+
+<p>Madeline, the youngest, had a rounder face
+than her sisters, the features not quite so fine,
+yet lovely in their own perfectly innocent joyousness;
+while beautifying dimples accompanied
+her smiles, and fairy cupids danced in her
+laughing eyes.</p>
+
+<p>The sisters always dressed alike: on the present
+occasion, they all wore white lace over
+white satin; the lighter or outer drapery looped
+up on one side with a bunch of white roses,
+mixed with lilies of the valley: and a few of the
+same flowers in the hair on the contrary side.
+A set of diamonds each, unusually costly for
+girls, but which, by a whim of their maternal
+grandfather, they happened to possess, were their
+only ornaments.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Lady Arden had never, since her widowhood,
+returned to colours; her invariable costume was
+black velvet; her diamonds, however, yielded
+in magnificence to those of royalty only. So
+that, what with the faces being quite new, and
+the appearance of the group altogether, not forgetting
+the handsome Alfred, was such as to excite
+considerable attention, even amid an assembly
+like the present, where youth, beauty,
+fashion, and splendour, habitually congregate.</p>
+
+<p>Willoughby was too important a personage
+to form one of the family picture. He was in
+the room, however, having just arrived in attendance
+on a party with whom he had dined.</p>
+
+<p>A young lady of remarkable beauty was leaning
+on his arm. He addressed her from time
+to time with great animation; while she appeared
+to listen with the most languid indifference.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>
+Young Lord Nelthorpe, one of their nearest
+neighbours at Arden, now approached our party.
+Jane had noticed him for some time, and, on
+first doing so, had coloured deeply. They had
+not met before since their arrival in town. He
+came up to our party, was very polite, and even
+friendly, but not quite as cordial as might have
+been expected. He conversed with Lady Arden
+for a little time. Music commenced, he made
+a slight bow, and moving quickly towards a
+lady at a little distance, led her to the
+quadrille. Jane had been so perfectly certain
+that he intended to dance with her, that when
+the music began, she had instinctively drawn
+her arm half way from within her mother's.
+Her disappointment was bitter, and arose from
+a feeling much deeper than the mere loss of a
+partner for the dance could have excited.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>From her earliest childhood she had been in
+the habit of hearing her own family speak of
+Lord Nelthorpe as a very suitable match.
+As children together, they had been quite
+little lovers. Public schools and colleges
+had broken off this familiarity of intercourse.
+He had, however, since arriving at the age of
+manhood, often paid her a good deal of attention
+in the country, where he had nothing else to do;
+and in some of the summer evening walks of the
+young people, a declaration had more than once
+seemed to tremble on his lips; still nothing decided
+had passed; and poor Jane's heart had
+been given away, some couple of years before she
+had begun to doubt the sincerity of his attachment,
+or the certainty of their future union.
+And why was Jane mistaken? Because, society
+being artificially constituted, the language of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>
+nature cannot explain the motives which govern
+its members; nor our own feelings, till we too
+become sophisticated, teach us to calculate upon
+those of others.</p>
+
+<p>The attention of Alfred was just at this moment
+attracted by the appearance of the younger
+of two ladies, who were standing at a little distance.
+They were evidently, from their striking
+resemblance, mother and daughter. The stature
+of both was rather above the middle height;
+that of the elder, from its queen-like carriage,
+and its being a little disposed to embonpoint,
+had a strikingly imposing and majestic effect;
+while that of the younger, though perfectly
+formed and beautifully rounded, was so delicate
+in its proportions, and so timid in its air,
+as to require comparison to convince the eye
+that the actual elevation was the same. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>
+features of both were so regular, that it would
+be impossible for the scrutiny of the nicest artist,
+to discover a defect; but those of the elder were
+of a lustrous, conspicuous white, as though
+chiseled in Parian marble; those of the younger
+of a stainless transparency, as if modelled in the
+purest wax; the lips only of both were of a
+lively red; those of the elder, perhaps, a little
+too thin, but boasting the glossy scarlet of the
+coral; while those of the younger, full and bewitching
+in their expression, were of the tender
+tint of the rose's ambrosial centre. The hair,
+eye-brows, and eye-lashes of both were absolute
+jet; but while the firm braiding of the elder
+lady's tresses betrayed the usual defect of black
+hair&mdash;strength of texture&mdash;the raven ringlets of
+the younger rivalled the flaxen locks of childhood
+in their silken softness. The line of her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>
+eye-brow, too, was the most delicately penciled,
+and her eye-lashes the longest, or they seemed
+so, her eyes being cast down; while those of
+the elder lady were raised and fully visible.
+They were dark, large, and brilliant; but the
+supercilious vanity with which they moved
+slowly round, courting the universal admiration
+they drew towards them, without once shrinking
+from its glare, made it impossible for their
+lustre, splendid as it was, to reach any heart.</p>
+
+<p>Alfred observed an elderly gentleman with
+whom he was acquainted join the two ladies,
+and converse for a time with the air of an old
+intimate of the elder. As soon as he quitted
+them Alfred joined him; and with as much circumlocution,
+preparation, and management, as
+though he had in view nothing less than the
+place of prime minister, demanded if he could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>
+venture to introduce him to his fair friends, as a
+candidate for the hand of the younger lady for the
+next quadrille. Nothing could be easier: Lord
+Darlingford was intimate with the parties;
+accordingly, he presented our hero to Lady
+Palliser and her daughter, Lady Caroline Montague.</p>
+
+<p>The eyes of the latter were, at the moment of
+introduction, of necessity lifted to Alfred's face.
+In colour, size, and liquid lustre they resembled
+her mother's; but oh, how unlike were they in
+their mild, beseeching expression; and in the
+tremulous movement of the lids; which, as if
+weighed down by their sable veil of silken lashes,
+hastened again to overshadow them. The transparent
+cheek too, at the same instant that the
+eyes were raised, had been visited by a deep
+blush; gifting, though but for a fleeting instant,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>
+this beautiful, this almost too unearthly being
+with the warm glow of life.</p>
+
+<p>The effect on Alfred of the momentary vision
+was decisive of his fate.</p>
+
+<p>During the dance, to which this introduction
+led, the snatches of most exquisite pleasure experienced
+by our hero were when, by directly
+addressing his partner, he could again induce
+her to look up. On each such occasion, the
+beseeching expression already described, excited,
+despite the cooler suggestions of reason, a
+feeling as though the gentle appeal were addressed
+to him in particular. What was there
+so entreated that he would not have undertaken?
+The most difficult feats of ancient chivalry, nay,
+the impossibilities of necromancy itself, would
+have seemed tasks of easy performance in such
+a cause! His beautiful partner said very little;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>
+yet, from her general demeanour, and the fluttering
+frequency with which her changing colour
+came and went, it might be inferred that her
+reserve was neither that of haughtiness, nor of cold
+calculation, but rather an excess of almost painful
+timidity. This reserve, however, did not affect her
+performance of the quadrille, which was perfect;
+it was the harmony of motion realized. The
+absolute accordance was such that it seemed to
+be the influence of the musical sounds on the
+undulating air, which wafted the light form,
+"like the thistle-down floating on the breeze,"
+through each evolution of the dance. Or when
+called upon to quit her original position in the
+quadrille for a few seconds and again return to
+it, such was the quiet grace with which she executed
+the task, that it seemed as though the delicate
+vision, fading away like Scott's White Lady<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>
+of the Mist, had but ceased for a moment to be
+visible, and, in a moment more, again became
+palpable to sight.</p>
+
+<p>From time to time she looked at Lady Palliser;
+not, however, as though it were there she
+sought a refuge; for, on the contrary, there was
+an indescribable something in the manner of the
+glance, which conveyed the idea that her ladyship
+was the principal object of her daughter's
+fears. Yet again, the moment the quadrille
+was concluded, Lady Caroline expressed a
+wish to rejoin her mother. Lady Palliser received
+our hero with a coldness that very soon
+made him feel obliged to take himself off. At
+once captivated and mortified, he felt disinclined
+to dance any more, and rather disposed to indulge
+in reveries, while pursuing with his eyes
+the form of his new acquaintance through the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>
+moving crowd. Instead, however, of reclining
+indolently on a sofa, or lounging about with
+other men, he devoted himself, in the most
+amiable manner possible, to his mother and sisters
+for the remainder of the evening; and though
+they found him somewhat deaf, performed, when
+they did make him hear, any little service they
+required of him with great alacrity. Notwithstanding
+which, ere the evening was over, each
+of his sisters had severally informed him that he
+was already in love. Such secrets are generally
+discovered by others before they are known to
+the parties themselves.</p>
+
+<p>A friend of Lady Arden's, forgetful that her
+ladyship objected on principle to all younger
+sons, <i>except her own</i>, had introduced Henry
+Lindsey to Louisa. Her exquisite beauty dazzled
+and delighted him, while her gratified<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>
+vanity, at the enthusiasm of his admiration,
+made her manner so encouraging, that he believed
+himself well received, and gave himself
+up to hopes and feelings destined to cost him
+many a bitter pang.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Darlingford, though a widower and a
+man, by his own account upwards of fifty, was
+much disposed, on the strength of his rank, to
+be a serious admirer of Jane Arden. This
+evening he found himself better received than
+usual; he did not deem it necessary to make a
+fool of himself by dancing, but was sitting
+apart with the lady, conversing very earnestly,
+and was just beginning to weigh the propriety
+of availing himself of so favourable an opportunity
+for making her an offer of marriage,
+when Lord Nelthorpe came up and asked her
+to dance. The moment before she had deter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>mined,
+if he did do so at this late period of the
+evening, to reject his offer. As soon, however,
+as he approached, and preferred his request, her
+spirited resolve vanished: with one of her
+sweetest smiles she rose and took his arm, and
+in the flurry of her spirits, forgetting to make
+even a parting bow to poor Lord Darlingford,
+left him sitting alone, looking what he was,
+quite forsaken, and cursing himself for an old
+fool.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Nelthorpe now took pains to be particularly
+agreeable, and either from vanity or
+lingering attachment, was evidently anxious to
+discover if he still retained the power he knew
+he had long possessed over the feelings of his
+fair partner. He made allusions to her late
+companion, and half jest, half earnest, ventured
+several whispered comments, almost amount<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>ing
+to tender reproaches, watching her countenance
+while he did so. As he handed her
+into the carriage, he secretly wished, with
+something like a sigh, that he had no brothers
+and sisters to pay off. She went home in high
+spirits.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish, Jane," said Lady Arden, as they
+drove from the door, "you would make up your
+mind to marry Lord Darlingford."</p>
+
+<p>Jane made no reply.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The next morning Willoughby confided to
+his brother the determination he had come to on
+the last evening, of proposing for Lady Anne
+Armadale, the daughter of Lord Selby.</p>
+
+<p>He described with great exultation how much
+attached the lady had been to a gentleman of
+whom her friends disapproved, and whom she
+was notwithstanding determined to marry up to
+the time he had become his rival; but that he
+had not been long in driving the former lover<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>
+from the field, and securing the preference of
+the lady.</p>
+
+<p>Alfred, in his anxiety for his brother's happiness,
+forgot for the moment his usual dread of
+offering advice.</p>
+
+<p>"For heaven sake," he said, "Willoughby,
+pause! Be <i>quite</i> certain that you have secured
+her real preference!"</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>am</i> quite certain," said Willoughby, taking
+up his hat impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, do not be hasty either with the lady
+or with me."</p>
+
+<p>"You think it is impossible for any woman to
+prefer me, I suppose. I have, I confess, no
+pretensions to be an Adonis," he added with a
+sneer, for he knew that Alfred was considered
+remarkably handsome; "at the same time all
+people's taste are fortunately not alike!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Nay, my dear Willoughby, do not be childish!
+Is it not wiser to use a little caution?
+Have you no fear of finding yourself, when too
+late, the husband of a woman capable of sacrificing
+her feelings to her interest?"</p>
+
+<p>Willoughby abruptly quitted the room. He
+went directly to Lord Selby's, and in less than an
+hour had proposed for, and been accepted by
+Lady Anne Armadale.</p>
+
+<p>Unhappily for Willoughby, the slender share
+of sense he possessed was not only at all times
+hoodwinked by vanity, but in general superseded
+in its operations by temper. For if any
+friend happened to offer him the slightest advice,
+so jealous was he of having it supposed
+his judgment required assistance, that, without
+waiting to consider if any offence was
+intended, he would feel perhaps but a momen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>tary
+resentment, yet, while under its dominion,
+as the readiest and most appropriate revenge,
+would resolve hastily on an opposite line of conduct
+to that suggested by his adviser; and having
+once so resolved, obstinacy would put its
+seal on a determination which in fact had never
+been examined by his understanding, while
+had there been no interference, he would at
+least have considered the subject, and might,
+possibly, have come to a just conclusion.</p>
+
+<p>A man of a decidedly superior mind, on the
+contrary, having no private misgivings respecting
+his own capacity, is always well pleased to
+take under consideration any new views of a
+subject, which the suggestions of a friend, or
+indeed of any one, may present. It is of course
+his own judgment which finally decides, but
+like a just judge, after first hearing every wit<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>ness,
+that is to say every argument which can
+be brought to bear upon the subject. Acuteness
+in prejudging is the boast of the fool.
+Discrimination to give its due weight to every
+part of the evidence, the privilege of the man
+of sense. The fool is always telling you he can
+see with half an eye. We would request such
+persons to employ in future the whole of both
+orbs, and possibly with a vision so extraordinary,
+they might be enabled to pierce even to
+the bottom of that far-famed well, in which it is
+said that truth has hitherto lain hid from the researches
+of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>Certainly no claim to merit or distinction can
+be more absurd than that which is founded on
+the wilfully limited means employed for producing
+the desired end.</p>
+
+<p>Excellence, to challenge admiration, should<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>
+be excellence in the abstract; while he who
+would be even a respectable candidate for the
+prize, should use every power that Providence
+has given to man, avail himself of every ray of
+light that the experience of past ages has elicited,
+and bringing all to a focus, pour the concentrated
+beam on the path to be explored.</p>
+
+<p>Thus only can each generation hope to gain
+some step on the road towards perfection unattained
+by its predecessor.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Gloucester Villa, the residence of Mr.
+Salter, at Cheltenham, was in a state of high
+preparation for a dinner to be given to Lady
+Flamborough.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Johnson had no leisure to assist the
+<i>young</i> ladies to dress, they were therefore left
+to perform that office for each other.</p>
+
+<p>"By-the-by, I have been so much hurried,
+I forgot to tell you," said Grace, "but Lady
+Arden is now really coming: Mrs. Dorothea's
+maid has been telling Johnson all about it."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I dare say it's just talk as usual," said
+Miss Salter.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, it's quite certain now," persisted
+her sister, "for Violet Bank is taken for her
+ladyship for six months certain, and the adjoining
+villa, Jessamine Bower, for another titled
+lady; and I daresay they'll be acquainted, so
+you see what we've lost!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that is really provoking!" exclaimed
+Miss Salter. "I wonder would there be any
+use in sending her an invitation for this evening?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sending who an invitation?" said Grace.
+"Mrs. Dorothea do you mean? Oh, quite ridiculous
+at this late hour; and after leaving her
+out of the ball too!"</p>
+
+<p>"I know all that," replied Miss Salter;
+"but let me see, I'll write her a long apology<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>
+about having sent a card for our ball to her old
+lodging in mistake! and for the short notice I'll
+say, that I know she likes friendly invitations
+better than formal ones, and that our party
+this evening is to be so particularly select,
+just what I know she likes; and then I'll
+give a list of the titles, and that I think will
+decide her, even if she does see through the
+excuses."</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly Miss Salter, in great triumph at
+her own diplomatic abilities, wrote and dispatched
+her note.</p>
+
+<p>"After all," she added, as she resumed her
+toilette, "these are sorrowful rejoicings for us,
+for I suppose with this fine lady coming to dinner,
+and being so gracious, and all that, she
+means to marry my father; and if she does,
+though to be sure it'ill bring fine acquaintance,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>
+I suppose, but will it bring us husbands?&mdash;on
+the contrary, if it gets abroad that we're not to
+have a shilling&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We'll have but a poor chance, I'm afraid,"
+interrupted Grace.</p>
+
+<p>"But I'll tell you what I have done to endeavour
+to obviate that," said her sister; "I
+have been telling Johnson, and I have told her
+too that she may tell it where she pleases,
+for it's no harm that the truth should be
+known, that our mother's fortune was a hundred
+thousand pounds, and was so settled
+upon us that my father can't keep it from us;
+and she has begun already with Sir William
+Orm's man, and he has told his master, and Sir
+William is full of it; so we shall see how he
+behaves to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"But what a shocking lie!" said Grace.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Lie! Nonsense!" replied her sister, "Who
+tells the truth, I'd be glad to know?"</p>
+
+<p>Here the answer to the note interrupted the
+conversation. It was of course a formal apology.
+Mrs. Dorothea had not been at a loss
+to see through the motives of her <i>friends</i> the
+Salters.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>young</i> ladies now descended to the drawing-room,
+where Mr. Salter was already standing
+at a window, in high dress; with the bright
+white, angular points of a fresh put on collar,
+contrasting finely with the shining ruby of his
+cheeks. A carriage with a coronet drove up
+to the door; bless me, how fine! thought the
+Misses Salter; it was almost enough to reconcile
+their father's marrying again.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Flamborough was announced. Her
+ladyship entered; her round, fat, rosy face,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>
+smiling in a round wreath of red roses. Her
+dress, a colour de rose satin, her ornaments,
+necklace and earrings of pink topaz.</p>
+
+<p>The broad daylight, or rather sunshine, of
+the first day in May, in weather unusually fine,
+and even hot for the season, in a three windowed,
+south-west drawing room, at six o'clock,
+did ample justice to the glow of her ladyship's
+appearance, which nothing less than the entrance,
+immediately after, of Lady Whaleworthy,
+in a crimson velvet, could have at all subdued.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Shawbridge arrived next. Her dress was
+a gold coloured velvet, and gold tissue turban,
+the wide circumference of which displayed the
+fiery countenance hinted at by Mrs. Dorothea
+to great advantage. Indeed the whole assembly
+was of a fiery order; although being, as
+we have said, hot weather, there was no oc<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>casion
+for fire. But the very furniture of the
+room, unluckily for the day and aspect, was
+crimson, while in addition to the red and reddish
+countenances already enumerated, Miss Salter's
+face, on all warm occasions like the present, was
+much too apt to emulate the glow of her father's.
+While even poor Miss Grace, though in general,
+from hardness and thinness, a chilly object, was
+subject with peculiar provocation, to a dullish
+red knob, like a winter cherry, just at the end
+of her nose.</p>
+
+<p>The rest of the party having arrived, and
+among them Sir William Orm, Sir James Lindsey,
+Sir Francis Brierton, and the general, dinner
+was announced. Mr. Salter gave his arm to
+Lady Flamborough, and leading the way, was
+followed by the rest of the company, to the
+dining-room; which, having the same aspect<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>
+as the drawing-room, and being, besides
+over the kitchen, was by no means calculated
+to cool the already heated guests. The two
+turtles, we mean Mr. Salter and Lady Flamborough,
+every way so well <i>entitled</i> to the <i>title</i>,
+being in their forms turtles, and in their present
+dispositions towards each other turtle doves,
+took their loving seats side by side, opposite
+to the turtle-soup, at the head of the table.
+(Men who have no wives of course head their
+own tables.)</p>
+
+<p>The dinner having been entirely provided at
+so much a-head, by a pastrycook, who was to
+remove its remains, was of course only too good,
+we mean too fine, too much ornamented, too
+technical; in fact the display of each course resembled
+more a confectioner's counter than a
+gentleman's table. Every thing, in short, was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>
+so befrosted, and so beglazed, that if one had
+been at all absent, one might have put one's
+hand in one's pocket, and asked what was to pay.</p>
+
+<p>It is an acknowledged fact, that to act the
+gentleman is impossible. It is equally impossible
+for people, though possessed of the purse
+of Fortunatus, to ape successfully, on special
+occasions, a style of living not habitual to
+them.</p>
+
+<p>We hope we have not cooled the turtle-soup
+by our digression. Poor Mr. Salter, instead of
+quietly conveying ladles of soup to soup-plates,
+till the demand ceased, was most unnecessarily
+prolonging his own labours, and delaying the
+progress of the feast, by deliberately inquiring
+of every several member of the assembly by
+name, if they chose turtle-soup, and poising the
+while, his insignia of office over the tureen,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>
+till their ear caught the question and his the
+reply.</p>
+
+<p>By the time similar rites had been performed
+over every steaming remove, it may be believed
+that the countenance of our host had lost nothing
+of its brilliancy. During the dessert he had
+more leisure to turn its lustre, adorned with
+smiles, on his fair companion; whose uplifted
+eyes languishingly met his, till there wanted but
+the pipe to make the pair an excellent study for
+a painter of the Dutch school. The attitude too,
+leaning back at their ease in their chairs, so
+favourably displayed their forms, that the couple
+in this particular very much resembled a <i>pair
+of globes</i>; though we must confess that, except
+in courtesy to the lady, we should not have been
+disposed to designate either the celestial.</p>
+
+<p>Sir William Orm, who had handed in Miss<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>
+Salter, was descanting with much feeling on
+the interested motives which governed the matrimonial
+views of but too many men in the
+world, and declaring that such must ever be
+secondary considerations with him. Miss Salter
+confessed that amiable sentiments like his were
+very rare now a days, and consequently the
+more to be admired. On the opposite side, Sir
+James Lindsey was giggling with silly self-satisfaction,
+as he sat receiving the assiduous
+attentions and pointed compliments of Miss
+Grace. While Lady Shawbridge was remarking
+aside to Sir Matthias Whaleworthy, that Lady
+Flamborough's youthful airs were quite disgusting;
+and Sir Matthias in return, made some
+comments on Mr. Salter's dancing, which
+sounded very ungrateful, proceeding from lips<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>
+which had just finished a <i>second</i> plate of the
+man's turtle-soup.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Whaleworthy, good soul, was telling
+Sir Henry Shawbridge one of the long stories
+about herself, her father and mother, brothers
+and sisters, husband, children, and servants,
+which she inflicted on all who had the misfortune
+to sit near, and the patience to listen to
+her.</p>
+
+<p>Ere the ladies left the dining-room, the now
+completely enamoured Mr. Salter had determined,
+that in the course of the evening he would
+take a sly opportunity of making Lady Flamborough
+an offer of his heart and hand. Alas!
+how vain are human resolves, when we know
+not what an hour or at most an hour and
+a half may bring forth; for it could not have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>
+exceeded that time, when the gentlemen followed
+the ladies to the drawing-room, and yet Mr.
+Salter's visual organs by some process, possibly
+connected with a certain series of toasts, which
+despite of fashion, he might have felt it his
+duty to propose, had in that short period undergone
+such an extraordinary change, that when
+he approached what ought to have been the
+<i>sole</i> object of his affections, he beheld as it were
+two Lady Flamboroughs, sitting, or rather attempting
+to sit, on the same chair! He gazed
+in utter amazement, and strove to concentrate
+the powers of sight: for a second the mysterious
+vision amalgamated, and was but one! again,
+however, it glided asunder, and became two!
+nor did this happen but once, so as to leave any
+room for doubt or mistake, on the contrary, while
+our astonished host still stood staring, the ex<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>traordinary
+process was frequently repeated.
+Nay, once, as lured by the smiles of the fair
+shadow nearest him, he ventured to address
+some complimentary remark to its ear in particular,
+it slid away as if for refuge behind its
+representative, and immediately after popped in
+view on the other side!</p>
+
+<p>Whether it is that supernatural appearances
+have a tendency to awe the passions into stillness,
+or whether this glaring infringement on the
+classical laws of unity, by dividing, destroyed
+the interest; or whether possibly, some vague
+dread of being betrayed unconsciously into the
+sin of bigamy, might have presented itself to
+the imagination of Mr. Salter, we have not
+philosophical lore nor critical acumen sufficient
+to decide; we can only speak to the effect,
+which was, that Mr. Salter, instead of finding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>
+with this double provocation a double share of
+love inundating his heart and overflowing his
+lips, was struck perfectly mute, and continued
+so for the remainder of the evening.</p>
+
+<p>So much for lovers continuing their libations
+at Bacchus' shrine until they see double.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Well, there is nothing like getting into
+<i>select</i> society after all!" said Miss Salter to her
+sister, when they had retired for the night.
+"Who would have thought, six months ago, of
+both of us having baronets for lovers? I dare
+say you are right, Grace, and that this marriage
+of my father's (for I suppose now it will take
+place), is the best thing that could have happened
+for us. And I know, I'm determined
+when I'm married to Sir William Orm (and he
+has gone great lengths, I assure you), that I will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>
+visit none but titled people. And tell me, how
+did you and Sir James get on?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, delightfully!" answered her sister, "he
+asked me if I thought him very handsome; and of
+course I said I did; and then he laughed so. And
+then he asked me if I thought the silk of his
+waistcoat a pretty pattern; and I said I did;
+and he told me a lady chose it for him. And
+he asked me if I was inclined to be jealous; and
+I said if I thought he had any regard for me, I'd
+be jealous of every lady that looked at him; and
+he said, 'would you indeed?' and laughed again.
+And he asked me if I admired his dancing as
+much as most people did, for that he was thought
+a first rate dancer; and I said that nobody could
+help admiring his dancing. And he asked me
+if I could think what in the world it was that
+made so many young ladies refuse to dance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>
+with him; and I said it was, to be sure, because
+he danced so well that they were afraid it would
+make their own bad dancing the more noticed.
+'And do you really think so?' said he, laughing
+again. And so, at last, only think! he asked
+me if I'd like very much to be my lady! and I
+said I should of all things. And so then he
+laughed, and said he could make any body a
+lady he chose."</p>
+
+<p>"And I hope you said you wished he'd make
+you one," interrupted her sister.</p>
+
+<p>"Why I thought of it," replied Miss Grace,
+"but I was afraid people would hear me; if we
+had been quite by ourselves, I would have
+said it."</p>
+
+<p>"What nonsense!" exclaimed Miss Salter.
+"If you can get to be my lady, and have fifteen
+thousand a-year at your command, I think you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>
+can afford to defy people's comments about how
+you came by it! You said, the other day, that
+if luck knocked once at your door, it shouldn't
+have to knock twice. I'm sure it knocked then,
+with a vengeance, and such a knock as comes
+to the doors of but few, I can tell you; and you
+the fool not to answer it. It's such as you'll
+never hear again, with your little ugly black-a-moor
+face. And when you had the good fortune
+to get hold of a fool that didn't know the difference,
+if you dosed his draught with flattery
+enough, you should have said or done anything
+to please him, blockhead that you are."</p>
+
+<p>"You needn't be so abusive, Eliza," said poor
+Grace, almost whimpering, "I'm sure I thought
+I was barefaced enough, this time, to please you."</p>
+
+<p>"Such stuff, with your mock modesty," interrupted
+Miss Salter.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And as for a black face, it's as good as a
+red one, any day," continued Grace, "and rather
+<i>genteeler</i> for that matter," she added, "since
+you're grown so mighty fond of gentility."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Salter's rage now knew no bounds, and
+consequently became so coarse and disgusting
+in its manifestation, that we shall forbear any
+further representation of the scene.</p>
+
+<p>Vulgar people are bad enough in good humour.
+Propitious fate deliver us from them when they
+are out of temper!</p>
+
+<p>Before proceeding further with our history,
+we may as well take the present opportunity of
+sketching slightly the origin of this same titled
+personage, by a connection with whom the
+Misses Salter expected to gain so much consequence.
+Lady Flamborough was the only child
+of an hotel-keeper, who, in his hospitable calling,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>
+had amassed enormous wealth. He had not
+always, however, been the great man, even in
+his own line, which he ultimately became. His
+daughter, therefore, to the age of five or six,
+was brought up, literally running about in a
+very minor establishment, little better, in short,
+than a road-side posting-house; and, being a
+pretty, rosy, fat child, had, up to that age, been
+the pet and plaything, not only of her father,
+(she had no mother living), but of every waiter
+and hostler in and about the house. And often
+had she sat on her father's knee, while he drank
+his ale in the bar, and, when the jest and the
+tale went round, which were, as yet, to the ear
+of the child, a foreign tongue, laughed merrily
+for very glee at seeing others laugh. But alas!
+amid the sounds and sights of scenes like these,
+native delicacy, even at this early age, was lost.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>
+For callousness is not so much a wrong bias
+given, as a class of feelings, out of which some
+of the most valuable traits of character are hereafter
+to be formed, destroyed; and if the material
+be gone, how can the superstructure be
+raised?</p>
+
+<p>The child was, after this, sent to expensive
+boarding-schools, and as her father's fortunes
+rose, given every possible accomplishment. In
+these, and her being very pretty, Mr. * * * *,
+afterwards Lord Flamborough, but then a
+younger brother, and of course poor, found some
+apology for overlooking the lady's want of birth,
+and appropriating her immense wealth, which
+was his true object.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after his marriage, his brother died, and
+he succeeded to the title and estates; and now,
+bitterly repenting his ill-assorted union, behaved<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>
+with neglect, and even contempt, towards his
+wife. Upon which the lady, partly out of revenge,
+and partly out of levity, gave a favourable
+reception to the addresses of a lover in no
+very exalted sphere of life.</p>
+
+<p>Proceedings were immediately instituted to
+obtain legal redress; but before the divorce had
+passed the house, his lordship, who had previously
+been in a bad state of health, chanced
+to die.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Flamborough, therefore, though of
+course banished from all tolerable society, still continued
+to be Lady Flamborough, and to enjoy a
+handsome jointure. On her total expulsion
+from the set among whom her marriage had, for
+a time, given her a place, she descended till she
+found her level among that, rationally speaking,
+only disreputable class, made up of those<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>
+who have lost caste by their own wilful departures
+from principle, and those who are contemptible
+enough to be willing to associate with
+vice, for the love of the <i>tarnished tinsel</i> which
+once was rank; forgetful that titles and honours
+were first invented as badges of the virtuous or
+heroic deeds of those on whom they were bestowed;
+that only as such they have any meaning;
+and that, when borne by the vicious, they
+become, in a peculiar degree, objects for the
+finger of scorn to point at, and seem to claim,
+as their especial privilege, the contempt and
+derision of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'Tis phrase absurd to call a villain great."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Titles are attainted for high treason, why
+should they not be so for every treason against
+good morals? Are not good morals as essential<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>
+to the well-being of the community as good
+Government?</p>
+
+<p>Nay, what is Government? Power to enforce
+moral order. Why then should not a sin
+against the end be visited as severely as a sin
+against the means?</p>
+
+<p>Are men, whose vices invade the peace of the
+domestic hearth, and sunder the sacred ties of
+life,&mdash;or men who court luxury in foreign climes,
+while evading the payment of their just debts
+at home; consigning the while industrious
+tradesmen and their helpless families to ruin;&mdash;are
+men, in short, who are no longer men of
+honour, to be still misnamed <i>noble men</i>? Is it
+not the natural tendency of such misnomers to
+bring nobility into contempt? And is not this
+an injustice to the truly <i>noble</i>?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Are the vicious to be allowed to sully honours
+till the honourable cannot wear them?</p>
+
+<p>Nobility would indeed be beautiful were it a
+guarantee of virtue! titles would indeed be
+honours, if the men who bore them must be
+pure! And if the certainty that those titles for
+ages had existed in that family, were thus an
+assurance that morality for centuries had not
+been sinned against in that house, then indeed,
+would rank be nobility. Let us not be misunderstood:
+let us not be supposed to mean
+that men of rank are more likely to offend
+against the laws of morality than other men; on
+the contrary, education and circumstances ought
+to render them less so: we simply assert, that
+when they do so offend, such offence ought to
+degrade them from their rank as <i>noble men</i>.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>How glorious would be that land that first
+enacted such a law! how worthy its monarch
+of that greatest of his titles, "Defender of the
+Faith!" For what is this faith? Religion!
+and the author of Religion has defined it thus:</p>
+
+<p>"True religion and undefiled, before God and
+the Father is this: to visit the fatherless and
+widows in their affliction, and keep himself unspotted
+from the world."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Mrs. Dorothea had been so busy all day,
+changing her lodgings again, that she had
+hardly had time to ask Sarah a word about the
+Salters' dinner-party.</p>
+
+<p>On this occasion, however, we must remark,
+that she had moved to a furnished house, not to
+a mere lodging; for she was determined to make
+an exertion, while the Ardens were in Cheltenham,
+live how she might the rest of the year,
+having a great horror of living like a poor
+relation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Most people have a particular objection to
+seeming to be what they really are.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed Lady Arden had written most kindly
+to Mrs. Dorothea, inviting her to spend the
+time they should be at Cheltenham with them.
+Had the expense of a house or lodging been no
+object to Aunt Dorothea, she would gladly have
+availed herself of this invitation for the pleasure
+of the thing; but the arrangement would have
+been so very convenient, that her <i>pride</i> took the
+alarm, and would not suffer her to accept the
+offer. In her father's life time, as a daughter of
+the then head of the family, she had acquired
+notions of her own consequence, which became
+a painful incumbrance from the moment her circumstances
+underwent that violent revolution
+to which those of the daughters of the proudest
+and most ancient families are peculiarly liable.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><i>Pride</i> in any situation is a moral disease,
+which it would be highly desirable to see for
+ever banished from the world! but <i>pride</i>, when
+complicated with poverty, is apt to render the
+unhappy sufferer not only always very uncomfortable,
+but often very ridiculous. Added to
+which, it must ever be impossible for the heart
+that harbours <i>pride</i> to know contentment.</p>
+
+<p>At present, however, Mrs. Dorothea was quite
+delighted. The house she had taken for six
+months certain for Lady Arden, though designated
+by the rural title of Violet Bank, was a
+splendid mansion. The one she had taken for
+herself for the same period, was both pretty and
+agreeably situated; it was accommodated with a
+cook, or maid of all work, who was taken with
+it as a part of the furniture. Mrs. Dorothea had
+also hired a footman for the great occasion, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>
+put him into livery; so that with Sarah, her own
+maid, she had now, for a single lady, quite a respectable
+little establishment, and could look
+forward to returning the evening entertainments,
+at least of her relations, on something of
+an independent footing. Dinners of course she
+could not give, nor need she accept them; she
+did not care what she eat. She certainly liked
+the best society, and that she should now have,
+without laying herself under obligations to any
+one. For, much as she liked Lady Arden, (one
+whom no one could help liking, she was so truly
+amiable,) she could not forget that her ladyship
+was a stranger in blood, from whom, consequently,
+an <i>Arden</i> could not receive even a
+courtesy without requital.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Dorothea was so glad too, as she told
+Sarah, while she stood in the centre of her new<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>
+drawing-room, looking round her, to get out of
+that horrid place where she had been for the
+last two months, sitting every evening on those
+tiresome little chairs, for, as Sarah had prophesied,
+her landlady had never given her the sofa,
+nor put the drops to the chimney-light, nor even
+got a key for the chiffonier. Then, the woman
+of the house could not or would not afford a
+decent servant, so that the cooking was shocking,
+and the attendance wretched; and then the
+oven of the bakehouse next door she found out
+at last was just on the other side of the one
+brick thin wall, against which her bed stood, so
+that she had been nearly baked to death, and
+had been losing her health without knowing
+why. To be sure the carpet looked respectable,
+but then the lodging had no other recommendation,
+as in addition to its many dis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>comforts, it had
+proved one way or other very
+expensive; for mistaking the heat and restlessness
+she felt at nights for the consequences of
+the lassitude and want of appetite of which they
+were in fact the cause; she had got frightened
+about herself, and had called in doctor after
+doctor, and taken ever so much medicine in
+vain, till at last happening to go in next door to
+correct an error in her baker's bill, in which she
+had been charged with all the bread supplied to
+her landlady, she became acquainted with the
+geography of the premises, and so discovered
+the whole mystery. Then being without a key
+to the chiffonier too, made a great difference in
+the groceries, though having no proof of the
+fact, it would not do to say so. This might
+have brought down the lawyers upon her; then
+indeed would the cup of her afflictions have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>
+been full. Poor Aunt Dorothea felt almost restored
+to the days of her youth by the comparative
+comforts which now surrounded her. She
+moved into her regular dining-room when her
+dinner was ready, and was there decently and
+respectfully attended by her own footman in
+livery. There was a sideboard, and her few
+articles of plate were arranged upon it, and
+things looked orderly and comfortable; it was
+enough to give one an appetite, and made her
+boiled chicken and quarter of a hundred of
+asparagus seem a dinner for an emperor. Instead
+of dining in the comfortless scramble she
+used to do, in her haste to send the tray out of
+the drawing-room lest some one should come
+in, she now ate as slowly as possible to prolong
+the gratifying sense of dignity which accompanied
+the ceremony.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The very next day the Misses Salter had the
+impudence to call, and the new footman not
+being in the family secrets, admitted them.</p>
+
+<p>On their entrance Aunt Dorothea looked her
+astonishment with great dignity.</p>
+
+<p>"What a sweet situation," exclaimed Miss
+Salter.</p>
+
+<p>"What a charming house," said Miss Grace.
+Mrs. Dorothea bowed.</p>
+
+<p>"How fortunate we were in finding you at
+home," said Miss Salter.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, very fortunate indeed!" added Miss
+Grace. Mrs. Dorothea bowed again.</p>
+
+<p>"How sorry we were you could not come to
+us last night," said Miss Salter, "we had such
+a <i>select</i> party, just what you would have liked."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, just what you would have liked,"
+echoed Miss Grace.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I hope we shall be more fortunate the next
+time," said Miss Salter. "We shall have a
+great many of those agreeable <i>select</i> parties just
+now. Our <i>particular friend</i>, Lady Flamborough,
+you see, and our <i>particular friend</i>, Lady Whaleworthy,
+and our <i>particular friend</i>, Lady Shawbridge,
+and all that pleasant set being here just
+now, naturally induces one to see a great deal
+of company. Then there are such delightful
+young men here at present, and that you know
+always makes parties pleasant, there's <i>our friend</i>,
+Sir William Orm, <i>such</i> an elegant fashionable
+young man."</p>
+
+<p>"And Sir James Lindsey," observed Miss
+Grace, "an old baronet, with fifteen thousand
+a-year."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Miss Salter, "such an agreeable
+good tempered little man, so affable and unas<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>suming.
+And there is General Powel too, in
+short we quite abound in <i>nice young</i> men. And
+I hope," added Miss Salter, with an air of great
+friendship, "that we shall soon and often have
+the pleasure of seeing you, Mrs. Arden."</p>
+
+<p>"You are very obliging," replied Mrs. Dorothea,
+bowing gravely, "but my arrangements
+will for some considerable time be controlled
+entirely by those of my sister, Lady Arden, and
+her family, with whom I shall consider myself
+engaged, either at home or abroad, every day
+during their stay."</p>
+
+<p>"So you expect Lady Arden," said Miss
+Salter, with well affected surprise. "Dear me,
+I'm sure we should be most happy to pay attention
+to any friend of yours."</p>
+
+<p>"You are very obliging," observed Mrs.
+Dorothea, with if possible increasing stiffness,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>
+"but Lady Arden does not mean to extend her
+acquaintance."</p>
+
+<p>The discomforted Misses Salter finding lingering
+and last words useless, at length took
+their departure.</p>
+
+<p>The Ardens dined on the road, but arrived
+in time to take tea with Aunt Dorothea. The
+weather was beautiful; the rural appearance
+of the little villa, situated among the plantations
+and pleasure grounds of the public walks, its
+own miniature lawn and veranda, adorned with
+flowers and flowering shrubs, and garlanded
+with roses as if for a festival, the fine trees of
+the Old-Well-Walk in view, and bands of music,
+as if hid in every grove, sending forth on each
+breeze some strain of melody, all seemed delightful
+and refreshing to people just escaped
+from the heat and fatigue of London. While<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>
+the large and joyous looking family party, some
+seated within the open glass door, some standing
+in the veranda, some straying on the fresh
+mown turf of the little lawn, formed a picture
+of social felicity quite delightful to the usually
+solitary Aunt Dorothea; to whom the idea of
+the party being not only her near relatives,
+but also her guests, was altogether so pleasing
+that she had not been as happy for many years.
+To her kind heart must be ascribed the chief of
+the pleasure she experienced; if, however, there
+was a slight admixture of gratified vanity we
+cannot be surprised, when we consider that a
+pretty comfortable house of her own, in which
+to receive her friends, was to her so great a
+novelty.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+
+<p>So fond is youth of novelty, that Alfred and
+his sisters, though fresh from all the gaieties a
+London season has to offer, were quite impatient,
+the very morning after their arrival, to visit the
+public walks, of which they had had peeps the
+evening before from Aunt Dorothea's veranda.
+They had been told that about seven was the
+hour. Accordingly, as it was a fine sunny morning,
+the girls were all up soon after six. They
+had been told too, that notwithstanding the
+hour, it was usual to be extremely fine; but for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>
+this their habits of good taste were too inveterate;
+they equipped themselves therefore
+in quite close bonnets, and having roused and
+enlisted the goodnatured Alfred, set off for
+Mrs. Dorothea's, Lady Arden having by an arrangement
+of the evening before, committed
+the young people to the charge of their aunt,
+knowing that she should be too much fatigued
+herself after her journey to rise so early.</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Dorothea was quite ready. She was
+too happy in feeling herself necessary to her
+nieces, too happy in having the charge of them,
+too justly proud of them, proud of their beauty,
+and all their many attractions and recommendations,
+to feel anything like laziness, this first
+morning that she was to show, not only the
+walks to them, but them to the walks.</p>
+
+<p>Thither then they proceeded immediately,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>
+guided through each shady maze, as in the play
+called <i>Magic Music</i>, in which the sounds become
+louder to denote nearness to the object of
+pursuit. So did the swelling notes of the band
+grow on the ear as they approached the immediate
+spot, which it is fashion's whim to
+throng as closely as any crowded assembly-room,
+while all around is comparative solitude.</p>
+
+<p>Here all-kind Aunt Dorothea's proud anticipations
+were fully answered by the sensation
+her nieces produced; every eye was turned towards
+them, and in ten minutes after their first
+appearance all the company who sat on the
+benches on either side the walk had asked each
+other who they were; the mammas who had
+daughters, and the <i>young</i> ladies who were <i>not
+young</i>, decided that they were not the style of
+beauty they admired, while the very young girls<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>
+and all the men, had pronounced them the loveliest
+creatures they had ever beheld. As for
+the mothers who had sons, they prudently suspended
+their judgments till they should hear
+what fortunes the Miss Ardens were likely to
+have.</p>
+
+<p>Our party were joined instantly by Henry
+Lindsey. He had ascertained their movements
+from themselves, and quitted town when they
+did to be in Cheltenham before them. He was
+at Louisa's side in a moment, and was received
+with a blush and a smile which, though produced
+in part at least by gratified vanity, seemed
+to his generous nature all he could desire of
+encouragement. He was of course introduced
+to Aunt Dorothea, who, until she found out
+that he was a younger brother, was quite delighted
+with him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The Arden party now took advantage of
+vacant seats which presented themselves, and
+for a time became in their turn spectators of
+the moving crowd.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after which, announced by noise, and
+with many coloured streamers flying, the fleet
+of the Salters, and their <i>select</i> friends hove in
+sight.</p>
+
+<p>There was in the first place Mr. Salter, with
+a white hat on, which duly set off by contrast,
+that true secret for producing effect, a countenance,
+the hue of which we flatter ourselves
+we need not again describe. Lady Flamborough
+embellished his arm; her head thrown back,
+and adorned by a pink crape hat and feathers,
+her eyes raised, and practising their most becoming
+roll, her complexion heightened by the
+heat of the weather and the long walk up<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>
+through the Sherbourn. Not that her dress was
+oppressive, on the contrary, it was light enough
+in all conscience, consisting of the softest India
+muslin, trimmed with superfine Mechlin lace,
+and ornamented at the neck, and at the wrists
+round the top, and round the bottom, down the
+sleeves, and down the front, with ties, bows, and
+ends innumerable, of pink ribbon, while a broad
+long sash of the same encircled the waist, tied
+behind in dancing-school fashion. The dress
+was made nearly as low round the bust as a
+dinner costume, while what shelter there was
+to compensate for this was derived from the
+long pendant white gauze-ribbon strings, and
+deep blond-lace edge of the hat, with merely a
+slight pink gauze-scarf, scarcely wider or longer
+than the said strings.</p>
+
+<p>The next in the line (as it approached cross<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>ing
+the walk abreast), was Lady Whaleworthy,
+defying hot weather and sunshine in a crimson
+velvet pelisse. It was a thing which, as she
+told her own maid when putting it on, had cost
+too much money to be ever either out of season
+or out of fashion: it was only your dabs of
+things which every body could have that were
+sure to go out again before you could turn yourself
+round in them, so that there was no saving
+in the end. "I always <i>tells</i> Sir Matthias that
+a right good article, cost what it will at the
+first, is sure to be the cheapest in the long
+run."</p>
+
+<p>Poor Lady Whaleworthy! a crimson-velvet
+pelisse had been the dream of her youth when
+she did not think she should ever possess such
+a treasure! and still such the hold of early impressions
+in a crimson-velvet pelisse was con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>centrated her
+ladyship's notions of the <i>ne plus
+ultra</i> of magnificence. Next came little Sir
+James, fantastically fine, with a lilac figured silk
+waistcoat, as many gold chains as a lady, and a
+glaring brooch, the gift of Miss Grace Salter,
+and taken for the purpose of being so bestowed
+from her own dress, and with her own brown
+hands transferred to the breast of his open-work-fronted
+and diamond buttoned inner garment;
+while the little man, during the whole
+performance of the flattering operation, had
+laughed almost hysterically.</p>
+
+<p>Three titles were very well to muster for a
+morning walk; so next came the Misses Salter
+themselves. They never dressed alike, having
+each their own notion of the colours that became
+them. In shape, however, both their hats
+had been made by the same pattern, borrowed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>
+for the purpose from Lady Flamborough's. Miss
+Salter's was of yellow crape, Sir William Orm
+having been his own jockey at a late race, and
+rode in a yellow jacket; while Miss Grace's, in
+compliment to Sir James's waistcoat was lilac;
+both, of course, flaunted with feathers, blond,
+and streaming strings, and had artificial flowers
+stuck in the inside. Nor had such a show of
+beauty and fashion been a mere lucky hit; the
+Misses Salter, on quitting Mrs. Dorothea's, had
+fully weighed the subject, and resolved to show
+the Ardens, who might else be prejudiced against
+them, that they were not people to be looked
+down upon; they had gone to infinite pains in
+making their arrangements.</p>
+
+<p>Alas! little did they think that this very morning
+was marked in the book of fate to cost them
+both their lovers: they, too, who had none to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>
+spare. But unhappily ladies so situated are so
+fond of showing off a supposed conquest&mdash;so
+fond of being suspected of being about to be
+married, that in their haste to be congratulated,
+they too often cast away all cause for gratulation;
+and by the noise they raise themselves, put
+a man on his guard before he is above half
+caught, whom they might perhaps have secured,
+had they been satisfied to delay their triumph,
+and keep him nodding at the home fireside till
+they had quietly netted him round. We speak of
+course only of ladies in <i>distress</i>, like the Misses
+Salter. The lovely sisters of Arden, on the contrary,
+so far from being under the necessity of
+laying snares for lovers, found them at their feet
+wherever they went; the only difficulty was to
+select from among them such as might both
+please themselves, and come up to their mamma's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>
+and brother's ideas of matches suitable to their
+family consequence. We left our party seated
+on one of the benches, which, as we have already
+stated, were ranged on either side this favourite
+portion of the walk. The eye of Sir James, as
+he passed with the Salters, was instantly caught
+by the extreme loveliness of the beautiful sisters.
+For the poor little man, though he had neither
+sense nor judgment to direct him in the formation
+of any thing approaching to an opinion, was
+not without some of the natural elements of
+taste, and was especially a great admirer of
+beauty: it dazzled and delighted him, as new and
+splendid toys would a child; and it was much
+that he had been taught to say, like the good
+child, "I'll only look!" for he would often stand
+with his hands behind his back, as if the attitude
+were intended to keep them out of the way<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>
+of temptation, and to stare at strangers whose
+appearance happened to strike him, till people
+would be first offended, and finally guess the
+truth, that poor Sir James was silly.</p>
+
+<p>On the present occasion, seeing his brother
+with the party which had drawn his attention,
+he joined him instantly; and even while speaking
+to him, as well as for some time after, eagerly
+passed his eyes again and again along the row
+of ladies, till they were finally fixed by the peculiar
+lustre of Louisa's beauty.</p>
+
+<p>Henry now introduced his brother, and the
+party rose to renew their walk. Sir James attached
+himself to them entirely, and contrived,
+too, to make a good position next to Louisa,
+whose appetite for admiration was so insatiable,
+that even his was acceptable. While the whole
+party were so goodnatured, so agreeable, and so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>
+much amused; yet so much too well bred to
+show it in the rude and flagrant manner indulged
+in by too many towards those labouring
+under natural infirmities, that poor Sir James
+was perfectly delighted, and felt as if he was
+among the most charming, kind, agreeable
+people in the whole world.</p>
+
+<p>The Misses Salter had in the mean time
+made several attempts to bow to Mrs. Dorothea;
+but that lady always took care to be so much occupied
+with other people, as to make it impossible
+for them to catch her eye. She however noticed
+their proceedings; and observing that some
+time after the desertion of Sir James, Sir William
+Orm arrived and joined them, she laid her plans
+accordingly. Sir William would not do to introduce
+to her nieces, but he should nevertheless
+desert Miss Salter.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The walk now began to thin; on which the
+Arden party, having invited Sir James and
+Henry Lindsey home with them to breakfast,
+an invitation very usual on the Cheltenham promenade,
+took the path which led to their own
+villa.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+
+<p>When breakfast was over, and the gentlemen
+had taken their departure, Louisa was amazingly
+laughed at by her sisters about her new
+lover.</p>
+
+<p>He was mimicked and ridiculed in every possible
+way; walk, air, manner, voice, modes of expression,
+ways of looking, &amp;c. &amp;c.; till the girls
+had perfectly fatigued themselves with laughing.</p>
+
+<p>We have heard it said, that it was a service
+of danger for any man to become the admirer of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>
+one of a large family; for that, let him be ever
+so successful in talking the lady of his choice
+into love, she was sure the moment he absented
+himself to be laughed out of it again by her sisters.
+It is no wonder, then, that poor Sir James
+did not escape. Lady Arden, however, and Mrs.
+Dorothea came from time to time to the rescue
+of the little baronet's memory.</p>
+
+<p>"Heedless creatures!" said Aunt Dorothea,
+"how little thought you give to the future!"</p>
+
+<p>"I only hope he may be serious, and really
+propose for Louisa," said Lady Arden; "and if
+he should, I trust she will have the sense to
+pause before she rejects so advantageous an
+offer."</p>
+
+<p>"But then, mamma, is he not a fool?" asked
+Louisa.</p>
+
+<p>"Why no, my dear, not exactly that. In<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>deed,
+I know a great many ill-tempered, reserved
+sort of men, without a grain more sense,
+who pass for Solomons! He is a vain little
+man, certainly; and perhaps too goodnatured.
+But then, only consider what a vastly <i>eligible</i>
+establishment it would be: you would have rank
+yourself, and be at once restored to the wealth
+and station lost to you all by the death of your
+father; and what, my dear, is still more important,
+you would be rescued <i>in time</i> from the
+comparative poverty, and consequent obscurity
+into which you must ultimately sink, if you survive
+me unmarried."</p>
+
+<p>What dilemmas so humiliating as those to
+which <i>Pride</i> reduces its votaries!</p>
+
+<p>Lady Arden, by nature amiable, affectionate,
+and high-minded; but by education tainted with
+false pride, thus stooped to the very depth of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>
+meanness, unconscious of degradation; and sacrificed
+her purest feelings to the supposed necessity
+of securing to her daughters that artificial
+station in life which a system of unjust
+monopoly had for a time given them, and of
+which the same system had again deprived them.</p>
+
+<p>Artificial positions in society, like unnatural
+attitudes of the body, cannot be long persisted
+in without pain and weariness. Where is the
+dignity of human nature? Forgotten! for were
+it remembered, the beggar, when educated, might
+share it with us; and at this false pride takes
+alarm! And, therefore, do we leave man out
+of the account, and worship idols of silver and
+idols of gold, and titles made of the breath of
+our own lips.</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"From <i>Pride</i> our very reasoning springs."</span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Louisa had nothing to say against such unanswerable
+arguments as those Lady Arden had
+used; but she thought of Henry Lindsey, and
+could not help wishing that he had been the
+elder brother, or, at least, that the fortune had
+been divided: even seven thousand five hundred
+with him would have been better, she could not
+help thinking, than the whole fifteen thousand
+with Sir James.</p>
+
+<p>"It is always desirable," continued Lady
+Arden, "that a girl should marry in the same
+station as her father; but it is not always practicable,
+particularly if she is a daughter of the
+elder branch; for no family can have more than
+one elder son, while many may have half a dozen
+daughters, no one of whom ought, in common
+prudence, to marry a younger brother!!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay," said Alfred, "is not this sufficient to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>
+show how absurdly society is constituted? What
+is to become, then, of five out of every six daughters,
+and all the younger sons in the world?
+What is to become of my hapless self, for instance?"</p>
+
+<p>"We must hope, my dear, that you may be
+fortunate, and meet with an heiress."</p>
+
+<p>"But consider, ma'am, how few heiresses
+there are. Parliament ought to make a new
+batch every session. It would, however, be of
+no use to me if they did," he added, despondingly,
+"for heiresses, of course, consider themselves
+entitled to marry, not only elder sons, but
+noblemen. I have often thought what is to become
+of me, if I should ever have the misfortune
+to fall in love."</p>
+
+<p>"You did, I think, fall half in love one evening
+in town," said Jane.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And, by-the-by," observed Lady Arden,
+"Lady Caroline Montague is an heiress."</p>
+
+<p>Alfred coloured, and rising, sauntered towards
+a window as he replied, "And, therefore, very
+unlikely to be allowed to cast away a thought
+on an unfor&mdash;&mdash;" Here he broke off, and after
+gazing for a time from the window, exclaimed,
+"That was certainly she&mdash;I had but a momentary
+view, but I am quite sure it was she I saw
+pluck a rose in that next garden, and run into
+the house again. Can they be living in the adjoining
+villa to us?"</p>
+
+<p>The grass gardens or little lawns of these twin
+villas were separated only by wire palings, along
+which sweet briar and flowering shrubs were
+trained.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The family party, with the addition of Lord
+Darlingford, Sir James Lindsey, and his brother,
+were assembled round the luncheon-table at
+Lady Arden's.</p>
+
+<p>Henry Lindsey had been amazingly piqued
+that morning by Louisa's reception of Sir
+James. The little baronet was now seated next
+to her, and making, if possible, a greater fool of
+himself than usual; while, in consequence of
+the lesson she had received, she was yielding
+him her attention with marked complacency.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>
+Henry sat opposite, and trembled with a
+mingling of agitation and indignation. He
+thought he could already foresee that he was
+to be deliberately immolated to avarice; yet,
+so thoroughly was he the slave of Louisa's
+beauty and his own passion, that no worthlessness
+on her part could have set him free. He
+felt, that were she already the wife of his
+brother, her image might drive him mad, but
+that he could not banish it from his imagination.</p>
+
+<p>The hardship of Henry Lindsey's case as a
+younger brother was conspicuous, and displayed
+in a striking manner the evils consequent
+upon sacrificing justice to <i>pride</i>.</p>
+
+<p>From a boy he had felt much on this subject;
+but being of a generous, warm-hearted,
+liberal nature, he did not long brood over his
+own individual wrongs; his mind, however,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>
+following the impulse thus received, though in
+the first instance from a selfish feeling, gave itself
+to the contemplation and discussion of natural
+rights generally, till it became enamoured
+of abstract justice, and learned to apply its
+searching test to every subject, especially the
+all absorbing topic of the day&mdash;Political
+Economy; while, with his characteristic enthusiasm,
+despising the sophisms of expediency,
+he embraced, without perhaps sufficient caution,
+theories which soon caused him to be considered
+by his friends a reformer, by his enemies
+almost a revolutionist, and by himself the warm
+advocate of the rights, not of younger brothers
+only, but of those whom he emphatically termed
+the step-children of the laws&mdash;<i>The People</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Such were at all times his opinions, while
+the irritable state of his mind, at the moment<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>
+of which we are speaking, added asperity to his
+manner of expressing himself, and caused him,
+in answer to some jesting remark of Alfred's
+on the old topic of younger brothers, to give
+vent to his feelings in a long, and almost angry
+political discussion. He objected, he said, to
+the law of primogeniture on the ground of its
+being a wretched system of monopoly, which
+placed in the hands of a simple individual what,
+if divided, would suffice to restore thousands of
+his degraded and oppressed fellow-creatures to
+the rank of humanity. The times were gone
+by when communities, formed for the general
+weal, would wilfully sacrifice prosperity to
+<i>pride</i>, and not only parcel out the whole land
+to, comparatively speaking, a few families, but
+the succession to those lands being limited to
+the elder branches, allow all place, preferment,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>
+and emolument, to be confined to the younger
+sons of the same families, because the land
+had given them influence; and the mass of
+the people to be thus reduced to do the work
+of the ass and the mule, and because they
+cannot also eat their food, the grass and the
+thistle, be often in danger of starvation.</p>
+
+<p>The old feudal system itself was better than
+this: the ancient baron was at least bound to
+feed not only his relations but his vassals, and
+he did so in his own hall, at his own table.
+While, now-a-days, a man, as soon as his
+father's funeral is over, turns his brothers
+and sisters out of doors, to exist as they may,
+on a pitiful portion, the principal of which is
+in general infinitely less than one year's
+income of the property, on the scale of which
+they have been accustomed to live in their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>
+father's time; while the new master permits
+his servants to collect their wages by showing
+the empty baronial hall to strangers at so much
+per head, by which creditable means he is
+himself enabled to reserve all his rents to stake
+at hazard in London, or at <i>rouge et noir</i> in Paris.
+When parliament is sitting, he must of course
+attend, to vote against any infringement on
+his monopoly, which the enlightened spirit of
+the times may chance to propose. Thanks,
+however, to the Reform Bill, the holders of
+the monopolies are no longer our sole law-givers;
+we have now some <i>chance</i> of justice <i>one
+time or another</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Besides," he added, "to return to the
+ancient baron, he was not only bound to
+feed his retainers, but in time of war to provide
+the government with a certain number of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>
+them, fitly clothed and armed; which was virtually
+bearing the burdens of the state. The
+baron was, in point of fact, but the trustee to a
+certain property, which property was to feed a
+certain number of the population, and to contribute
+its due proportion to the defence of the
+community. Instead of this, when the feudal
+system becomes dangerous to government the
+barons are forbidden to arm, and exonerated from
+feeding their retainers; yet, the trust-property
+left in their hands for <i>pocket-money</i>, while their
+late followers are not only turned out on the
+wide world to starve, but the taxes necessary
+to maintain the army which the barons are
+forbid to provide, are levied on the <i>bare palms</i>
+of the <i>hands</i> of the thus turned out and starving
+vassals; and not satisfied with this injustice,
+those who thus keep possession of the trust-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>lands,
+have arrived at literally billeting their
+younger sons on those said vassals, thus turned
+out and starving."</p>
+
+<p>"Explain! explain!" cried Lord Darlingford,
+"How can you make that out?"</p>
+
+<p>"Are not," replied Henry, "the salaries and
+pensions of all the posts and sinecures they
+hold paid by means of taxes, a great proportion
+of which are levied on industry? Is
+this as it should be? If the <i>pride</i> of the great
+demand that their properties shall be inherited
+by their elder sons, and the offspring of that
+<i>pride</i>&mdash;if <i>false necessity</i>, require that places and
+sinecures be provided for their younger sons,
+should not the <i>rich co-operate</i> in raising a fund
+for the payment of the salaries of such, and not
+grind their thousands by pittances from the
+<i>real necessities</i> of the <i>poor</i>?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What then is your panacea for so many
+crying ills?" asked Lord Darlingford, "Do
+you call on us to render up our trusts and proclaim
+an Agrarian law?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; those whose motives are honest dare
+not go such lengths. This would be to resolve
+society into its mere elements, to open the flood-gates
+of anarchy, and awake the savage spirit
+of wanton plunder. Many large landed properties
+too have been purchased with the wages
+of industry; so that besides the horrible convulsions
+attendant upon the dissolution of the
+social system, there would be no such thing as
+drawing the line; to avoid, therefore, worse
+evils, I would allow the 'frightful disparities,'
+as an able writer of the day terms them, to exist
+till industry, unchecked, unladen, could work
+out for itself a gradual emancipation from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>
+bondage of want. But I would not add to
+evils I dare not too suddenly remedy! I would
+not require the children of Israel to make
+bricks without straw! I would not lay the
+burdens of the state on shoulders already
+weighed down by nature's demand for daily
+bread. I would exempt from the whole weight
+of taxation the labourer, whether of brain or
+limb; he has no stake in the stability of the
+state; he can carry his head or his hand wherever
+he goes. He who keeps back the hire of
+the labourer is denounced in holy writ: I would
+not be worse than such, and rob the labourer of
+his hire. I would, therefore, repeal every tax
+<i>direct</i> and <i>indirect</i>, which now exists, and substitute
+for <i>all</i> a graduated property-tax, on
+<i>independent</i> property <i>only</i>, trifling in amount, say
+one per cent., where the property was small; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>
+doubling, trebling, nay, quadrupling, if necessary,
+as it rises. What, if a man with thirty thousand
+per annum, pay twenty thousand, can he not
+live on ten? or if the man with two hundred
+thousand per annum, pay one hundred and fifty
+thousand, can he not live on fifty? This,
+some people are not ashamed to answer me
+would be robbing the rich; while they talk as
+loudly as vaguely of the sacredness of property
+and vested rights. But I would answer such,
+that starvation in the midst of plenty, on the
+plea of the sacredness of justice, is a practical
+blasphemy! What, therefore, relief from taxation
+did not effect for the absolutely destitute,
+I would complete by an amended system of
+poor-laws;&mdash;such assessments, however, to be
+levied on independent property only."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor-laws are bad things," interrupted Sir<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>
+James, who having finished his luncheon, was
+now lolling on a sofa, "they make the common
+people so lazy."</p>
+
+<p>"As long as industry is not taxed in support
+of idleness," answered Henry, "the lazy rich
+man is entitled to no commiseration for being
+compelled to assist his brother, the lazy poor
+man! Poor-laws," he added, turning to Lord
+Darlingford, "as far at least as food goes, I
+consider the most sacred of vested rights.
+God said, 'Behold, I have given you every
+herb bearing seed which is upon the face of all
+the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit
+of a tree yielding seed, to you it shall be for
+meat.'"</p>
+
+<p>"But you allow," said his lordship, "that
+many of the great landed properties you would
+tax thus heavily are purchased with the pro<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>duce
+of the owner's own exertions; state your
+reasons for giving immunity to present industry
+and not to past?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because," replied Henry, "when once a
+man has realized property he has acquired a
+stake in the country, a stake in the stability of
+the government; his property requires protection,
+whether from the foreign enemy or the
+home depredator; and, therefore, he should
+pay for such protection. If a man desires a
+wall round his garden, who pays for building
+the wall? The man who owns the garden!
+If a man wishes to insure his premises against
+fire, who pays the insurance? The man whose
+premises are guaranteed. Would either of these
+persons dream of calling a parish meeting to
+demand of their neighbours as a right, that they
+should subscribe towards the expense so incurred;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>
+nay, that every pauper subsisting on some shilling
+or two per week, should be compelled to
+pay two-pence for his penny loaf until the sum
+was made up; yet, such is the spirit of every
+tax, direct or indirect, levied on any thing but
+independent property. The machinery of government
+is the garden-wall of the landed
+interest, the insurance office of the fund-holder.
+Any tax, therefore, levied on those who have
+neither land nor money is a crying injustice,
+except, indeed," he added with bitter irony,
+"we admit of a small pole-tax to keep down
+burking. It is, no doubt, the houseless, nameless,
+friendless wretch, who has no one to ask
+what is become of him; the poor creature, who
+has nothing to be protected but the limbs and
+sinews he was born with, who runs the greatest risk
+of contributing these to the promotion of science."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But," observed Lord Darlingford, "it is not
+the very destitute who pay taxes."</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon," said Henry, "indirect
+ones they do. If the beggar in the street succeeds
+in exciting the compassion of the passenger,
+and receives one penny, ere he can appease
+his hunger with a mouthful of bread, do
+not the corn laws, by doubling the price of the
+loaf, exact from him one half of the penny so
+obtained? And is not his mite, thus cast into
+the treasury, like that of the poor widow in the
+Gospel, taken from his <i>want</i>; and, therefore,
+more than all they (<i>the rich</i>) did cast in of their
+abundance?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it is all but too true!" said Lady Arden,
+feelingly. "I do think your scheme of taxation
+would be but justice. Willoughby would certainly
+have a great deal to pay; but he can<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>
+surely afford it better than poor creatures who
+have nothing but what they earn, or what they
+beg. I see the subject now in quite a new
+light. I have always been in the habit of thinking
+people <i>poor</i> who had but <i>one</i> or <i>two</i> thousands
+a-year; and I never took the trouble of
+considering that there was any difference between
+hundreds a-year and nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"How would you apportion this property-tax
+of yours?" asked Lord Darlingford; "and how
+ensure its being sufficient for the exigencies of
+the state?"</p>
+
+<p>"On a graduated scale, as I have already
+said," replied Henry, "from justice to individuals:
+let those who have the largest property
+to ensure, pay, as at all other insurance offices,
+the most; but, as to details and calculations, I
+leave those to Mr. Hume, or some of the multi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>plication
+table people; I only advocate the principle.
+Indeed, one of the great recommendations
+of this plan is, that the principle once established,
+the work is done: when those who tie up the burdens
+have to carry them, they may be trusted to
+find scales of sufficient nicety in which to weigh
+them: we need, in that case, no longer call for
+estimates, or petition against sinecures; nay, we
+may give the very voting of the subsidies to the
+<i>Lords</i> themselves!&mdash;many of whom, I make no
+doubt, would forthwith become immortalised by
+the economical or '<i>twopenny halfpenny</i>' ingenuity,
+developed in the devising of future
+budgets. '<i>Twopence halfpenny</i>,' I would have
+the noble lords to know, though no object to
+them, is a sum which many of their destitute
+fellow-creatures would, at this moment, receive
+with joy of heart! Then, remember, in further<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>
+recommendation of this scheme, the millions a-year
+of unprofitable expense that would be saved
+to the nation, by having but one instead of innumerable
+taxes to levy."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think," said Sir James, looking as if
+he had made a discovery, "that the people with
+large fortunes will like this law of yours, Henry."</p>
+
+<p>"Many people, too," replied Henry, contemptuously,
+"don't like paying their Christmas
+bills."</p>
+
+<p>Alfred, who had been looking over a morning
+paper near a window, and from time to time
+lending a share of his attention to the disputants,
+now joined them.</p>
+
+<p>"We cannot, I think," he said, "blame any
+particular government, or set of men, for the
+ills of which you complain. The fault is in
+human nature; and the remedy, if there be one,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>
+is only to be found in laying step by step the
+wisest general restrictions we can on individual
+selfishness. The advance of civilization has
+already placed a salutary check on plunder by
+force; it remains for the march of intellect to
+discover one for plunder by stratagem. But we
+must be cautious; in desiring the higher steps
+of the ladder of wisdom and virtue, we must not
+undervalue those we have attained, and in our
+headlong haste, stumble; and, like our neighbours
+of the continent, fall back on the frightful
+abyss of anarchy that lays below! 'Tis well to
+rise in excellence; I hate the cant of dreading
+all chance: but, to keep to the simile of the ladder,
+let us take care that the lifting foot be
+firmly placed on the step above, ere the standing
+one be removed from the step below."</p>
+
+<p>"Is there not some danger," said Lord Dar<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>lingford,
+"of a property-tax sending capital out
+of the kingdom?"</p>
+
+<p>"It must be very easy," replied Henry, "for
+the inventors of all sorts of protecting duties to
+devise a means of meeting that difficulty, by
+some ingeniously arranged tax on the exportation
+of property, whether income or capital, with
+a tremendously deterring fine on any attempt at
+imposition; and minor exactments, to hunt evasion
+through all its windings. There might,
+also," he added, "be an alien tax, to prevent
+the foreign artizan from sharing the immunity
+from taxation, purchased by our own rich for
+our own poor."</p>
+
+<p>"Is there not some danger," said Lady Arden,
+"that the deteriorated incomes of the great, by
+obliging them to lessen their establishments and
+expenditure, would throw many people out of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>
+employment, and so increase the numbers of the
+poor?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should think not," answered Henry; "recollect
+there would be the same property in the
+kingdom, only in more general and more equal
+circulation. The servants dismissed, and the
+luxuries foregone by the few, would in all probability
+be more than compensated by the
+increased establishments and more numerous
+comforts of the many, though each only in a
+small degree. The standard of splendour might
+be lowered, but that of comfort would be raised.
+The change, too, is likely to be in favour of
+home productions: the overflow of inordinate
+wealth, the <i>too much</i> of the few, is frequently
+squandered on luxuries obtained from abroad;
+while the fertilizing sufficiency, the <i>enough</i> of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>
+the many, would probably be expended on comforts
+produced at home.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not, however," he added, "mean to
+assume the character of a prophet, or even to
+argue the point of future consequences; I take
+higher ground, and end every such discussion
+with the same appeal to duty:</p>
+
+<p>"Let each generation do what is clearly justice
+in their own day, and leave the future to the
+All-wise Disposer of events.</p>
+
+<p>"If there were, indeed, a theory through the
+mazes of which moral rectitude knew no path,
+we might be excusable in taking calculation for
+our guide; but when our road lies before us, indicated
+by duty's steadily pointing finger, we are
+not entitled to balance ere we proceed, even
+though it should be where four frequented
+highways meet."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Dorothea, the sisters, and Sir James, had
+got tired of politics, and wandered into the garden.
+Henry, perceiving that Sir James was still
+in attendance on Louisa, became impatient,
+broke off the conversation abruptly, and following
+them, joined her, saying, "Lord Darlingford
+is too prudent a politician for me. I hate prudence
+and calculation, and worldly mindedness,"
+he added, with impetuosity, and a provoked
+and mortified tone of voice, which Louisa was
+at no loss to comprehend. "The present artificial
+state of society," he proceeded, "has banished
+into the poet's dream every thing worth
+living for!&mdash;there alone all things deserving
+the ambition of an intellectual being now hold
+their unreal existence! Beauty has become a
+snare&mdash;feeling a folly, or a curse!&mdash;love a farce,
+and lovely woman, nature's most cunning<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>
+workmanship, a <i>toy</i>, a <i>trinket</i>, which the rich
+man may draw out his purse and purchase!!!&mdash;heart
+and all!" he subjoined, in an under and
+somewhat softened voice, for Louisa had looked
+round, and their eyes had met for a moment.
+"Is it so?" he continued; "or are the beautiful
+looking deceptions now made to suit the <i>market</i>
+for which they are intended, <i>without hearts</i>?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Whether Alfred's study was pamphlet,
+newspaper, or magazine, he could never contrive
+to discern the print by any light but that of the
+window, or rather glass door, at which we left
+him standing on the morning on which he first
+discerned the fleeting semblance of a fair vision
+in the adjoining garden. The glass door was
+generally half open, a muslin blind drawn half
+down across it, and the eyes of the student, like
+those of the naughty child in the pictures of
+bold Harry, just visible over the top of his book.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>On such occasions one of his sisters would
+often glide behind him, and startling him with a
+loud burlesque sigh, exclaim, "She is not there
+to-day." "Nonsense!" Alfred would say,
+rising. "This is a very well written thing,"
+he added one morning, throwing his book on a
+table.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it about, Alfred?" asked Madeline
+archly. He took up the book again to examine
+it before he could answer the question; "I declare
+he can't tell," she cried, "without looking
+at the top of the page;" a general burst of
+laughter followed, from which Alfred escaped
+into the garden. He had long since made it his
+business to ascertain that Lady Palliser and her
+daughter inhabited the next villa; but few, very
+few indeed, and "far between," had been the
+glimpses of his beauteous enslaver which his late<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>
+studious habits and love of good light had procured
+for him.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Caroline appeared to be conscious that
+the garden was exposed to the view of their
+neighbours, and was therefore timid about entering
+it; or, when she did so, as on the first
+occasion noticed, it was only to pluck a flower,
+for she seemed fearful of remaining in it for
+a moment. This morning, however, both mother
+and daughter had appeared on the lawn and
+with bonnets on, which, combined with the
+early hour, had caused Alfred to suspect
+them of an intention of visiting the walks;
+and his consequent anticipations of a possible
+meeting, had, we must confess, made him rather
+absent.</p>
+
+<p>He now called in at the window to his sisters
+to know if they were not yet ready, assuring<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>
+them that the band had played several tunes,
+and that they would be late.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you know that the Duke of Gloucester
+has arrived?" he continued, "did you not hear
+the joy bells yesterday evening? He is so punctual
+to seven, that the fashionables are always
+early when he is here."</p>
+
+<p>This remonstrance had the desired effect;
+final arrangements were quickly completed and
+the party set forth.</p>
+
+<p>On entering the Montpelier walk, Alfred beheld,
+quite near and coming towards them, Lady
+Palliser and her daughter, in company with the
+duke, and attended by two or three of his
+grace's aides-de-camp.</p>
+
+<p>Alfred saw that Lady Caroline perceived and
+recognised him, for she coloured instantly, but
+looked as if she did not know whether she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>
+ought to acknowledge him or not; while he was
+so much startled and confounded, that he had
+not presence of mind to look for a recognition.
+Lady Palliser happened to be conversing with
+his grace, and did not see him. He passed,
+therefore, unacknowledged by either lady.</p>
+
+<p>The next turn, the next and the next again,
+he was determined to manage matters better,
+and accordingly kept a regular look out for
+the duke's party, but they were nowhere to be
+seen; it was evident they had been going off
+the walk at the time he met them.</p>
+
+<p>How dull the whole gay scene became the
+moment this conviction reached him! How irksome
+the frivolity of every body's manner;
+while all the world, seeming to have made the
+discovery simultaneously with himself, kept
+telling each other as they passed that the duke<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>
+was gone, just as if it was done on purpose to
+torment him.</p>
+
+<p>In vain did Miss Salter, every time he encountered
+the party, address Lady Flamborough
+by her title, in an unnecessarily loud tone, to
+endeavour to draw his attention by showing him
+what exalted company she was in. Every effort
+was thrown away upon him, as well as all the
+extra finery sported this day on purpose for the
+duke. Little did his grace think how many
+husbands and fathers he had caused to grumble.
+As for poor Lady Whaleworthy, in her loyal zeal
+to make herself fit company for royalty, she
+actually crowned herself with the gold tissue
+turban which she wore at Mr. Salter's dinner; so
+that with this and her everlasting crimson velvet
+pelisse, to which she had added a gold waist-band
+for the occasion, she was altogether as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>
+fine as the hammer cloth of a lord mayor's
+coach.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Flamborough trusted more to her natural
+attractions; these she displayed for the
+great occasion with a liberality which certainly
+did succeed in calling forth a remark from his
+grace, though by no means a complimentary
+one.</p>
+
+<p>The new bonnets sported this morning would
+require the calculating boy to count them; and
+as for shoes, many a simple-hearted girl fresh
+from the country, submitted to hours of actual
+torture, in order that the Duke of Gloucester
+might go back to London convinced that she
+had very small feet.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The next morning Alfred was on his guard,
+and watched the first approaches of the duke's
+party with a palpitating heart.</p>
+
+<p>But, alas! Lady Palliser, as before, was occupied
+and saw him not; while, what was much
+worse, it was evident that Lady Caroline did see
+him at a distance, and from that moment kept
+her eyes fixed on the ground. They passed each
+other, and he could discern the glow of consciousness
+steal over her cheek as they did so.
+Again and again they passed&mdash;still without<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>
+recognition; till at length he scarcely ventured
+to look that way. Lord Darlingford now appeared.
+He attached himself to Lady Arden's
+party&mdash;Jane in particular. After a turn or two,
+he apologised for quitting them, saying he must
+go and speak to Lady Palliser. Alfred, forming
+a sudden and desperate resolve, at which he
+often afterwards looked back with astonishment,
+took his lordship's arm, and accompanied him.
+The duke had just quitted the walk, and Lady
+Palliser, quite <i>désoeuvrée</i>, happened at the
+moment to be in what she called a humour
+for being spoken to. She received, therefore,
+not only Lord Darlingford but Alfred with the
+utmost graciousness. Caroline, after a timid
+glance at her mother's countenance, looked round
+and recognised our hero with a smile that
+seemed to open to him in an instant the gates<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>
+of Paradise. Nay, the Montpelier walk itself
+became, as by a sudden revelation, the very garden
+of Eden to his delighted eyes. He was
+walking next to Caroline&mdash;he did not know how
+he had got there! He was speaking to her&mdash;he
+did not know what he was saying! Her countenance
+was turned towards him to reply, while
+the close bonnet which, while it was so turned,
+hid its loveliness from every eye. It was a slight
+summer one of simple snowy sarcenet, and though
+it warded off the glare of the out-door sun-beam,
+it admitted through its half transparent texture a
+heavenly kind of light, which at once accurately
+defined, and seemed a fitting shrine for the perfectly
+angelic features around which it dwelt:
+the pure lively red of the lovely moving lip,
+where all else was so white; the smile of enchantment,
+exposing to view the pearly teeth; the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>
+delicately pencilled brow; the large dark eyes,
+which yet were so soft, so modestly raised, so
+meek in their expression, that their very lustre
+seemed that of compassion's tear ere it o'erflows
+the lid! Yet did their mild beams make such
+an unmerciful jumble of all Alfred's ideas, that
+he was quite sure he must be talking nonsense.
+But there was no help for it; if he spoke not, he
+saw but the fluted outside of the white sarcenet
+bonnet; it was necessary to make ceaseless appeals
+to Caroline's attention, or the graceful
+head would not be turned towards him; the
+lovely eyes would not be raised to his, the
+beauteous lips, fresh as rose leaves moist with
+morning dew, would not be parted in reply; to
+purchase delights such as these he was compelled
+to risk his reputation as a sage, and go on
+without an effort to think. At length, however<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>
+he came to an unlucky pause, and instead of
+jumping over it, unfortunately began to weigh
+what subject he should next propound. But,
+alas! the precious moments flew past in rapid
+succession, and, one after another, became absorbed
+in the gulph of eternity, while our poor
+hero was still at a stand.</p>
+
+<p>And now strange uneasy sensations began to
+blend with the dream-like felicity he had hitherto
+enjoyed, though he was not yet awake to the
+cause, which was simply this: the band was
+playing that well known note of dismissal&mdash;the
+national anthem&mdash;and anticipations of approaching
+separation began to steal over his senses.
+To his surprise and infinite delight, however,
+Lady Palliser suddenly asked Lord Darlingford
+and himself, with the prettiest and most petitioning
+manner possible, to go home with her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>
+party to breakfast. We need scarcely say that
+Alfred consented; so did Lord Darlingford,
+though not quite so willingly, for he had intended
+to return to Lady Arden's party.</p>
+
+<p>After this morning, Alfred not only joined his
+new friends whenever they appeared, but became
+in a short time almost a daily visitor at
+Jessamine bower; and apparently with the entire
+approbation of Lady Palliser. Indeed, it was
+in general some message or some commission of
+her ladyship's, or some allusion to the morrow
+made at parting, almost amounting to an appointment,
+which furnished him with an excuse for
+calling. He, poor fellow, was flattered, delighted,
+filled with hope and joy! But, alas!
+he was not sufficiently acquainted with the
+character of Lady Palliser to understand his
+own position. Her ladyship was a being with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>out
+affections and without occupation; who in
+her intercourse with others, and from total heartlessness,
+cared not whose best feelings were
+the springs of the puppet-show, so the movements
+of the puppets amused her&mdash;and he happened
+to be the whim of the hour;&mdash;to order
+him about, to see him perfectly at her disposal,
+chanced to be what, just then, afforded a species
+of excitement to her restless idleness and morbid
+selfishness.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Meanwhile much of Caroline's excessive
+reserve, or rather fearfulness of manner wore
+off. In her mother's immediate presence indeed
+she was ever the same; but if Lady Palliser
+quitted the room for a moment, or was
+occupied conversing with some other visitor,
+Caroline's countenance would brighten, and her
+manner become comparatively easy and happy.
+Fully, however, to comprehend our heroine, it
+will be necessary to cast a retrospective glance
+over the manner of her education.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The most painful silence of the heart and all
+its best affections had from infancy been habitual
+to Caroline. She was an only child, and
+had no recollection of her father; while her
+mother's strange, unfeeling character, had made
+her from the very first shrink within herself.
+When arrived at an age at which young people,
+not self-opinionated, naturally wish to ask those
+older than themselves what they ought to do on
+various little occasions, which seem to them
+important from their novelty, poor Caroline
+would sometimes, in what she deemed a
+case of urgency, make a great effort and apply
+to her mother, on which Lady Palliser would
+treat her simplicity as the best of good jokes,
+laugh to excess, then rally her for blushing,
+and next perhaps for shedding tears; and,
+finally, either leave her question without reply,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>
+or give one turning the subject into absolute
+ridicule; till at last Caroline learned to
+feel a terror surpassing description of having
+any one thought, feeling, or opinion even
+guessed at by her mother. Yet her mother was
+her only companion. There was also a strange
+inconsistency in the character and conduct of
+Lady Palliser; for while she never condescended
+to advise, she was tyrannical in her commands,
+exacting implicit, unquestioned, instantaneous
+obedience to every whim.</p>
+
+<p>Either there was something in the thorough
+kindliness of Alfred's disposition which appeared
+in his manner, and secretly won the
+confidence of our heroine; or fate had ordained
+that they were to love each other.
+Whatever the cause, the consequence was,
+that Caroline, after the intimacy we have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>
+described had subsisted for some weeks, no
+longer felt alone in the world&mdash;she was no
+longer without thoughts that gave her pleasure;
+while those thoughts, though for their ostensible
+object they had a walk, a song, a book, or a
+flower, were always associated with the idea of
+Alfred&mdash;of something that he had said&mdash;or some
+little kind service he had performed&mdash;or, perhaps,
+some chance encounter of his eye&mdash;or the
+consciousness of his fixed gaze, felt without daring
+to look up, and which, though it had produced
+strange confusion of ideas at the time, was remembered
+with delight. Neither was she any
+longer without hope, though but a hope that
+they might meet on the walks, or that he
+might come in about something she had heard
+her mother mention to him.</p>
+
+<p>It may be asked why should Caroline not al<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>ways
+have had the hopes with which most
+young people enter life; merely because the
+buoyancy of youth had been pressed down, and
+the elasticity of its spirits destroyed, by the unnatural
+restraint under which every thought and
+feeling had been held during the period that her
+earliest affections had, as is generally the case,
+endeavoured to fix themselves on her parent.</p>
+
+<p>As for Alfred, he had misgivings certainly,
+respecting his being a younger brother, and his
+consequent want of fortune. At the same time,
+when he felt that he was justified in harbouring
+the restless, delightful hope, that he was already
+not quite indifferent to Caroline, and that he
+received such decided encouragement as he
+did from her mother, what could he think,
+but that he was the most fortunate fellow in existence,
+and that he had met with the most<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>
+generous, liberal minded, delightful people in
+the whole world!</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes, indeed, he would take a fastidious
+fit, and murmur a little in his heart against fate,
+for compelling him to be the one to receive,
+and denying him the pride and pleasure of bestowing;
+but so absorbing was his passion
+for Caroline, that he soon closed his eyes
+against this objection, almost as absolutely as
+he would have done against the contrary had it
+existed. He was incapable, in short, at the time,
+of weighing any subject deliberately: a look, a
+smile, or the unbidden brightening of Caroline's
+countenance when they met, would have been
+sufficient to have upset the firmest resolves, had
+he even been visited by a lucid interval in which
+to have formed them; but on the contrary, from
+the first morning he had been so unexpectedly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>
+invited home by Lady Palliser, his head had
+become giddy with rapture; the pulsations of his
+heart had never settled down to their steady
+original pace, nor had any one thought or feeling
+ever once been summoned before the bar of
+reason. That it must be a fairy tale&mdash;a dream&mdash;too
+much happiness to be true, would sometimes
+cross his imagination for a moment, and strike
+his heart with a sort of panic; but such
+thoughts not being agreeable enough to meet
+with a welcome within, were therefore quickly
+dismissed.</p>
+
+<p>Whenever he was neither at Lady Palliser's
+nor at his old post at the window, he was wandering
+in some unfrequented walk, or reclining
+listlessly on a remote sofa in a deep reverie,
+calling to mind looks, smiles, or half uttered re<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>plies,
+from which, while they said nothing, every
+thing might be inferred.</p>
+
+<p>He studied and learned to comprehend as a
+language hitherto unknown, the timid, shrinking,
+as yet undeveloped character of Caroline.
+To him her very silence now conveyed more than
+the eloquence of others; and however long he
+watched the downcast lid, if it was raised at
+last but for a second, he was amply rewarded.</p>
+
+<p>And when he repaired to Jessamine Bower,
+to pay his now daily morning visit, and on entering
+addressed Lady Palliser first, as he made
+a point of doing, he literally trembled with concealed
+emotion as he noted the slight tinge,
+faint as the reflection from a rose leaf, steal over
+Caroline's delicate cheek, while she continued
+to bend over her employment, whatever it might
+be, and acting her part unnecessarily well, en<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>deavoured
+to betray no consciousness of his presence,
+till her attention was absolutely claimed
+by some such formal address as&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"How is Lady Caroline this morning?"
+Formal as were the words, the tone of the voice
+was sufficient. The faint tinge would increase
+to a deep blush, ere the equally formed reply
+was articulated. On many occasions, Alfred
+would continue to converse with Lady Palliser,
+or perform any of her frivolous and whimsical
+commands, and nothing more apparently would
+pass between the young people; yet would he,
+the while, trace in slight variations of countenance,
+imperceptible to any other eye, all that
+Caroline thought or felt with regard to what was
+said. Sometimes Lady Palliser herself would
+suddenly fling down her netting or knotting, or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>
+whatever nonsense she was about, with an expression
+of disgust, declare she was sick of it,
+and ordering Alfred to look for her pet book of
+Italian Trios, and Caroline to put away her drawing
+and join them, seat herself at the instrument.</p>
+
+<p>This to Caroline and Alfred was a wonderful
+improvement of position. Standing together
+behind Lady Palliser's chair, their voices
+united in the thrilling harmonies of the music,
+and sometimes in the utterance of words expressive
+of thoughts, which else one at least of
+the voices had never dared to pronounce. On
+one of these favourable occasions a circumstance
+occurred, trivial in the extreme, yet which forwarded
+Alfred's cause amazingly, and indeed
+conveyed to both a tacit conviction of each
+other's attachment.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A hand of each while they sang rested on the
+back of Lady Palliser's chair, and after a simultaneous
+attempt to turn over the leaf of the
+music-book, accidentally came in contact as they
+returned to their former position. It had been
+long ere a modest younger brother, like our poor
+hero, had found courage to possess himself
+by any direct means of the fair, soft, taper
+fingered, rosy palmed, little hand, of the
+great heiress, the beautiful Lady Caroline
+Montague; but an occasion like this was not
+to be resisted: Alfred's trembling fingers closed
+upon the fond treasure; while a hasty but faint
+effort of Caroline's to withdraw it, was met by
+a beseeching look that seemed to have the desired
+effect; for, though covered with blushes,
+she did not immediately succeed in disengaging
+the hand, while the little scene was at the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>moment supplied by the duet with appropriate words.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><img src="images/image01_musicscore01.png" alt="" /></p>
+<p class="center">Langue il mio co-re per te d'a-mo-re.</p>
+
+<p>Sang Alfred, while Caroline in faltering notes
+replied</p>
+
+<p class="center"><img src="images/image02_musicscore02.png" alt="" /></p>
+<p class="center">Non so re-sis-te-re.</p>
+
+<p>When our hero had taken his departure
+Caroline hastened to her own apartment. She
+felt unfit for any society, particularly her
+mother's.</p>
+
+<p>Her pure unpractised delicacy of mind caused<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>
+her to look back on the incident which had
+just passed as an event of the utmost importance;
+as, in short, not only a proposal,
+but also an acceptance. Nay, had she
+wished it, she would no longer have thought
+herself at liberty to retract; for she knew
+that she would not have allowed a man
+who was indifferent to her to have retained
+her hand in his for a single second. That she
+had permitted Alfred then to do so, she felt
+amounted to a confession of preference! Deep
+was the blush which accompanied this
+thought.</p>
+
+<p>At other times Lady Palliser would be extravagantly
+late in the morning; and, if consequently
+not in the drawing-room when our
+hero called, she would send word that Mr.
+Arden was not to go away till she came down;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>
+and then so whimsical were all her movements,
+not perhaps make her appearance for an hour,
+or possibly two. Those were the occasions on
+which Alfred best succeeded in drawing Caroline
+into easy and familiar conversation, and thus
+inducing in her a feeling of confidence towards
+himself, which a young creature who had been
+blessed with any friend in her own family,
+would not have thought of mingling with her
+love for a lover: but the affection poor Caroline
+was beginning to feel towards Alfred was not
+only her <i>First Love</i>, but it was also the first
+friendship her heart had ever been encouraged
+to know. Thus it was, that to a being hitherto
+so totally alone in the world, he became in so
+short a time every thing. While the idea,
+however vaguely entertained, of being at some
+period of the future of existence protected by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>
+his affection from every harshness&mdash;sheltered by
+his tenderness from every sorrow, had almost
+unconsciously became the hope, the home, the
+resting place of all her anticipations.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"But how are you to ask us to the wedding,
+Alfred, considering we don't even visit?" said
+Louisa one morning to her brother, who stood
+as usual at the window, but now without even
+the pretext of a book.</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, Louisa!" he replied. "Wedding,
+indeed! I wish it were come to that! and it
+would be easy to arrange the visiting. By-the-by,
+ma'am," he added, turning to his mother,
+"independent of Louisa's jesting, I wish we did
+visit."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"So do I, my dear," replied Lady Arden,
+"but Lady Palliser, of the two, was here rather
+before I was; besides she is a person of the
+highest rank, so that I think the first advances
+ought to come from her. They say too, her
+ladyship is going to give a great fancy ball, and
+it would look as if I wanted to have the girls
+asked. However, I should suppose we must
+visit soon, one way or other; for Louisa's jesting
+as you call it, appears to me to go on in as
+serious a manner as you could desire."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;I&mdash;a&mdash;don't know, ma'am," said Alfred,
+colouring, and pulling off and on an unfortunate
+glove, which seemed destined to be
+martyred in the cause.</p>
+
+<p>"Why certainly," persisted Lady Arden,
+"neither Lady Caroline, nor her mother for her,
+would be justified in receiving either your public<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>
+attentions or your daily visits in the manner they
+do, if they meant to make the only objection
+which could be made to you&mdash;your being a
+younger son."</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;I hope you may be right, ma'am;"
+said Alfred, laughing, and escaping into the
+garden to hide his confusion.</p>
+
+<p>"He will be a fortunate young man if he
+gets Lady Caroline Montague," said Aunt
+Dorothea.</p>
+
+<p>"Not more fortunate than he deserves, Mrs.
+Dorothea," replied Lady Arden, "for he is the
+best creature in the world, as well as the handsomest
+and the most agreeable."</p>
+
+<p>"No one can be more sensible of my nephew's
+merits than I am," said Mrs. Dorothea; "but I
+still maintain that few, even of the few who deserve
+as well, are as fortunate. Lady Caroline<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>
+Montague, I understand, inherits the whole of
+the family estates, and her son, should she have
+one, will I suppose have the title."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, no doubt she could command any
+match," replied Lady Arden; "'tis however a
+most fortunate circumstance that Lady Palliser
+has the good sense to see the advantage of her
+daughter marrying so thoroughly amiable a
+young man, who will make her so truly
+happy."</p>
+
+<p>"Talking of happiness," said Mrs. Dorothea,
+"I hope poor Jane may be happy with Lord
+Darlingford."</p>
+
+<p>"I trust she will," replied Lady Arden, with
+a half suppressed sigh; "and in point both of
+rank and fortune you know it is a most desirable
+match."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt of it," rejoined Mrs. Dorothea,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>
+"and people are very foolish who neglect such
+serious considerations, and allow their time to
+glide by them. Were I, at this moment, as I
+might have been but for my own folly, Countess
+Dowager of Ravenscroft;" and here Mrs. Dorothea
+drew up her head with great stiffness,
+"such people as the Salters would never have
+had it in their power to insult me; nor should I
+have been in danger of losing my life by being
+baked to death in that horrid lodging. To be
+sure the carpet looked respectable, and that was
+all it had to recommend it."</p>
+
+<p>"By-the-by," said her ladyship, "I have
+often wondered, Mrs. Arden, how you, who have
+in general a very proper sense of your own
+dignity, came to make the acquaintance of
+such people as those Salts, was it you called
+them?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Your ladyship's remark is very just," replied
+Mrs. Dorothea, "but the old friend from
+whom they brought me a letter, is a highly respectable
+and gentlemanly man, and I was not
+aware till lately that he had only made their
+acquaintance himself casually at a boarding-house,
+where it seems they persecuted him with
+attentions, and then worried him for a letter to
+some one at Cheltenham, where they said they
+were going perfect strangers. He was afraid to
+enter into those particulars in the note he sent
+by them, lest they should contrive to open and
+read it: and the letter he since wrote me to
+say how little he himself knew of them, and to
+apologise for the liberty he had taken, by explaining
+that they made such a point of his
+giving them a line to some friend, that he did
+not know how to refuse, was unfortunately de<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>layed,
+waiting for a frank (he knows I don't like
+postages), till with my usual silly goodnature
+I had taken a great deal of trouble about those
+worthless people. Their vulgarity too disgusted
+me all the time; yet they so overwhelmed me
+with their thanks, their gratitude, as they called
+it, that I literally did not know how to shake
+them off."</p>
+
+<p>"Really my dear madam," said Lady Arden,
+"you are quite too goodnatured."</p>
+
+<p>"That has always been my weak point," replied
+Mrs. Dorothea: "when I see that it is in
+my power to serve people, I am fool enough
+to fancy that alone gives them a claim upon
+me."</p>
+
+<p>And such was really the case, for poor Mrs.
+Dorothea, though she had been all her life
+threatening to grow wise, in other words selfish,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>
+had never yet attained to any degree of proficiency
+in this art of self-defence, if we may so
+term it. Too great goodnature was indeed her
+only apology for being still at fifty-five, what
+people of the world emphatically call young!
+For she had not been all her days blinded by
+the dazzling sunshine of unclouded prosperity;
+on the contrary, her horizon had been frequently
+overshadowed by those unfavourable changes,
+from which, as variableness of weather teaches
+the sailor seamanship, knowledge of the world is
+in general collected.</p>
+
+<p>"But we were speaking of Jane," proceeded
+Mrs. Dorothea, "I have not the least doubt of
+my niece's good sense. Indeed Jane is a sweet
+girl, as amiable as sensible. I was only afraid
+that Lord Darlingford had rather a jealous
+temper."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I hope not!" her ladyship replied, again
+sighing, "and you know, my dear Mrs. Arden,
+the impossibility of having every thing one's own
+way in this world. The connection, establishment,
+and all that, are in the highest degree
+desirable. And then between ourselves, Lord
+Nelthorpe has not behaved very well to poor
+Jane."</p>
+
+<p>"In that respect, it is so far fortunate," said
+Mrs. Dorothea, "that she is now making a still
+higher connection. And then Sir James, with
+his fifteen thousand per annum, will certainly be
+a splendid match for Louisa; but she must mind
+what she is about, and not laugh at him as she
+now does after they are married."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course she will have too much good sense
+for that," replied Lady Arden; but her eyes
+filled with silent tears as she thought of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>
+infinite sacrifice Louisa would make, if she did
+indeed marry Sir James.</p>
+
+<p>The three sisters had followed Alfred into the
+garden, and were collecting flowers to supply
+the vases in the drawing-room, and laughing in
+their usual light-hearted way, if but a blossom
+fell to the ground instead of into the basket
+held out to catch it. Caroline the while was
+standing in her mother's drawing-room, behind
+a Venetian blind, through which unseen she was
+observing their movements, and envying their
+happiness, which to her appeared to be satisfactorily
+accounted for by Alfred's being their
+brother. How fervently did she wish at the
+moment that she too were his sister, were it but
+that she might be privileged to go out and join
+the cheerful group, on which she thus wistfully
+gazed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>With her solitary musing, however, a thrill
+pleasure mingled, when from time to time she
+saw Alfred steal a glance of interest at the very
+window where she stood; and which, from the
+blind being down, he suspected was occupied by
+Caroline.</p>
+
+<p>The Arden girls, at the moment, were all occupied
+plucking blossoms from various parts of
+a long trailing branch of woodbine, which as
+it hung from above their heads, it cost them an
+effort to reach.</p>
+
+<p>"Look, look! Caroline," cried Lady Palliser,
+who was standing at another window, "how like
+they are to the drawings of the graces. I must
+go and see Lady Arden directly, and send them
+all cards; for I am determined to have those
+three nice girls to do the graces at my fancy
+ball."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Out of this mere whim of Lady Palliser's
+arose a visiting acquaintance with the Ardens.</p>
+
+<p>Alfred and Caroline were, therefore, more
+than ever together, a consequence which Lady
+Palliser made no effort whatever to prevent.
+The fact was that her ladyship was in the habit
+of considering Caroline, who was but seventeen,
+a mere child; while her own excessive vanity,
+and Alfred's unremitting efforts to make himself
+agreeable to her for Caroline's sake, had completely
+deceived her into a belief that he was
+under the dominion of one of those absurd boy
+passions, which very young men sometimes conceive
+for women much older than themselves;
+particularly if they happened to be, as her ladyship
+well knew she was, still extremely beautiful.
+And though Lady Palliser was too proud
+and too cold to have the most remote idea of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>
+making a fool of herself, she looked forward to
+seeing our hero in despair at her feet as to the
+<i>denouement</i> of an excellent jest; while in the
+meantime she amused herself by drawing him
+on to commit every absurdity she could devise.
+And such, no doubt, if meant as attentions to herself,
+would have been many humble assiduities,
+which, for Caroline's sake, he willingly paid her
+ladyship.</p>
+
+<p>During the progress of this amiable proceeding,
+the honest-hearted Alfred received every
+symptom of kindliness of manner, as an indication
+of maternal feeling, and as a proof that
+Lady Palliser already considered him her future
+son-in-law.</p>
+
+<p>One evening they happened to be alone, when
+he was about to take his departure; her ladyship,
+on bidding him good night, held towards him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>
+her beautiful white hand in a very coquettish,
+but, as he thought, in the most frank, obliging
+manner possible. The idea struck him, that
+considering his comparative want of fortune, it
+might be more honourable in him to make some
+disclosure of the state of his feelings to Lady
+Palliser, previously to addressing Caroline herself;
+accordingly, in a paroxysm of grateful and dutiful
+affection, he seized her ladyship's proffered
+hand, respectfully pressed it to his lips, and began
+to murmur something about his own unworthiness.
+Lady Palliser, snatching her hand
+away, laughed and said, "Go, you foolish child."</p>
+
+<p>Alfred, thus discouraged for the moment, took
+his departure in silence, with some idea that
+Lady Palliser, however kindly and liberally
+disposed towards his humble pretensions,
+very possibly thought both Caroline and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>
+himself too young at present. What else could
+she mean by calling him a foolish child? Little
+did he dream of the construction put on his manner
+by his intended mother-in-law.</p>
+
+<p>As little had he suspected on former occasions,
+that her ladyship had believed him to be making
+a complete fool of himself, and had been in proportion
+well amused, when, in conversation with
+her, while every word was intended for the ear of
+our heroine, who sat silently by at her drawing,
+he had ventured on topics, which when alone with
+Caroline he dared not introduce; and eloquently
+painted his idea of an ardent, genuine, and worthy
+attachment, and the devotion of a whole
+life consequent upon it till he had became
+breathless with agitation: yet, seeing that
+Lady Palliser only smiled at the uncontrollable
+warmth which quite carried him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>
+away, he believed that he was tacitly approved
+of, and so thoroughly understood, that explanation,
+whenever the proper time for it should
+arrive, would be merely matter of form.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The triumphs of Aunt Dorothea over all
+her enemies, particularly the Salters, were so
+numerous, that to avoid prolixity we have not
+recounted them. As for Miss Salter, she had
+brought on a most inconvenient pain in the
+back of her neck by the reiterated bows with
+which she had again and again, morning after
+morning, vainly endeavoured to draw the attention
+of Mrs. Dorothea Arden.</p>
+
+<p>One day, however, when that lady was driving
+up and down the High-street, seated at her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>
+ease in her sister, Lady Arden's peculiarly
+splendid open barouche, she beheld, trudging
+along the flag-way and coming towards her,
+Mr. and the Misses Salter, with countenances
+which betrayed that they were not insensible
+to the heat of the weather; and shoes so
+assimilated by dust to the dust on which
+they trod, as to be nearly invisible. Mrs.
+Dorothea was not aware that the Salters had
+ever before seen her in this elegant carriage:
+so anxious was she therefore that they should
+do so now, that on the impulse of the moment,
+in defiance of having long since given them the
+cut direct, she made an almost involuntary, yet
+very conspicuous bow. Electrified and delighted,
+the whole party stopped short and performed no
+less than three bows each in return; while
+Miss Salter, who had by much the greatest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>
+portion of moral courage of the whole trio,
+added even a kiss of the hand.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Dorothea had not been long returned
+home when she received a card of invitation
+from the Misses Salter to a quadrille party,
+accompanied by a long servile note, to say
+that they were much concerned at not having
+had earlier it in their power to offer some
+attention to her friends, Lady Arden and
+family, and also to her friend Lady Palliser,
+and begging to know if their waiting upon,
+and sending cards of invitation to these respective
+ladies would be agreeable.</p>
+
+<p>To this was added a hint, that indeed the
+party was in a great measure made for her
+friends and would be very <i>select</i>.</p>
+
+<p>To the invitation for herself, Mrs. Dorothea
+sent a formal rejection, without assigning any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>
+reason. Of the absurd and forward proffer
+of <i>attention</i> to her <i>friends</i> she took no notice.</p>
+
+<p>Nor were those dignified proceedings the
+sole mode of vengeance practised by Mrs.
+Dorothea against her pitiful foes; for much
+as she was herself engaged at present with
+more agreeable occupations, she had placed
+the affair from the commencement in such
+able hands, namely, those of her prime minister,
+Sarah, that no circumstance, however minute,
+had been lost sight of.</p>
+
+<p>The origin of the Salters, by its coarsest
+appellation, had been diligently disseminated
+in every servant's hall, and thence arisen to
+the respective dining and drawing-rooms, till
+it had reached the ears of many, who else had
+never known that there were such people in
+existence as the Salters.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>What was if possible worse, Sir William
+Orm's servant in particular had been put on
+his guard about the deception practised on him
+by Mrs. Johnson, respecting the young ladies'
+fortunes; on which Sir William had without
+the slightest ceremony cut the connexion altogether.
+He never called or even left a card;
+he never joined them any where, and as to the
+bows he gave them in return for those they
+made to him from a mile off, they were really,
+except to persons in desperate circumstances,
+not worth having.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James, it may be remembered, had deserted
+on the very first morning he had encountered
+Louisa Arden; so that disconsolate
+indeed were now the pair who had so lately
+congratulated themselves on having two
+baronets for their lovers.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Their <i>select</i> acquaintance too, the Shawbridges
+and Whaleworthys, began to play
+fine; for in a watering place a title is a title,
+whether got by accident or by cheese, and though
+both beef and cheese, like all other necessaries,
+are sad vulgar things, experience had taught
+even the innocent hearted Lady Whaleworthy,
+that with a certain class, and she poor woman
+dreamed of no better, a title could cover a
+multitude of <i>cheeses</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Not so, alas, with the Misses Salter's <i>family
+secret</i>, which seemed for the present to have
+abolished all variety of diet, for (crying injustice!)
+while scarcely any body would visit
+Mr. Salter, Mr. Salter's beef was, to quote
+Sarah's polite pun, "in every body's mouth!"</p>
+
+<p>People could not even propound the flattering
+probability of his having amassed a large<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>
+fortune without some one more witty than
+elegant adding the characteristic remark, that
+while salting his beef it was supposed he had
+taken care to save his bacon.</p>
+
+<p>To complete the unfortunate position of the
+family, Mr. Salter had unluckily found it
+necessary of late, in consequence of an aggravation
+of his old complaint of the eyelids, to
+wear, protruding from beneath the brim of his
+white hat, a <i>green</i> silk shade, which gave occasion
+to the idlers on the Mountpelier-walk,
+green being the well known colour of disappointment,
+to assert that he had done so in
+consequence of the cruel desertion of Lady
+Flamborough, who had, simultaneously with
+the appearance of the said badge of despair,
+jilted him for a half-pay lieutenant; a gentleman
+who having received a hint to retire<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>
+from the service of his Majesty, for reasons
+best known to himself and his brother officers,
+had come to Cheltenham to devote himself to
+the service of the ladies.</p>
+
+<p>Nor had poor Mr. Salter, while dragged
+every day to the walks by his daughters, who
+now had no one else to walk with, a chance
+of forgetting his fair deceiver; for there she
+was to be seen morning and evening as gaily
+<i>undressed</i> as ever, flaunting away and smiling
+and languishing as usual; her white ostrich
+feathers too, at the highly improper instigation
+of the breezes, mingling from time to time with
+the bright red whiskers of the ci-devant
+lieutenant; while she, ungrateful woman, had
+the barbarity to pass poor Mr. Salter again
+and again, without so much as a recognition.
+"And that after," as he himself remarked,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span>
+"having had the face to eat his good dinners;"
+the remembrance of the cost of which now
+added bitterness to the thoughts of slighted
+love.</p>
+
+<p>This was the morning too of the very day,
+or rather evening, fixed for Lady Palliser's
+fancy ball, with the expectation of which the
+whole town was ringing. Even the walks
+were thinned by its prospective influence, or
+rather picked of fashionables; for those who
+were to be there, were keeping themselves up,
+that they might be quite fresh for an occasion
+to which the very capriciousness of her ladyship's
+character had lent, in anticipation at
+least, a more than common interest.</p>
+
+<p>The Misses Salter, after weighing for two or
+three turns the poor chance which sad experience
+had taught them there was of their picking up a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>
+beau of any kind, against the certain disgrace
+of showing by their wretchedness of fatigue
+that they were not to be among the <i>élite</i> of the
+evening, decided on going home to their
+breakfast, which social meal commenced in a
+sulk and ended in a storm.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Grace began again about the improvidence
+of cutting Mrs. Dorothea in the premature
+manner they had done. "And it was
+all your fault, Eliza," she continued, "that insolent
+temper of yours is always longing so for
+an opportunity to break out; and yet there is
+nobody that can sneak and cringe in the mean
+fawning manner that you can when you think
+there is any thing to be got by a person. If
+my advice had been taken, we would have been
+acquainted with all these genteel people, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>
+going to this ball to-night, no doubt. To do
+Mrs. Dorothea justice, she was quite indefatigable
+in her kindness, and in getting
+people to call on us and invite us as long as we
+showed her any kind of gratitude; so we have
+ourselves to thank, or rather you for it all."</p>
+
+<p>"Your advice indeed, you fool!" was all
+Miss Salter could find to say; having, as she
+could not help knowing, the worst of the
+argument.</p>
+
+<p>"It all comes of <i>pride</i>, and upstartishness,
+and nonsense," said Mr. Salter. "Grace, the
+girl, however, is so far right; Mrs. Dorothea
+Arden is a very worthy gentlewoman, and
+showed us a great deal more civility than in
+our station of life we had any right to look
+for; and it certainly was our place to be very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>
+grateful for it, and if we have not been so it
+is no fault of mine; I knew nothing of the
+carryings on of you Misses with your boarding-school
+breeding forsooth."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>In consequence of the expected ball in the
+evening, neither the Palliser nor Arden party had
+been at the walks in the morning. But soon
+after breakfast Alfred called at Lady Palliser's
+with his usual offering of sweets.</p>
+
+<p>Caroline had just entered the drawing-room,
+and was proceeding towards a conservatory at
+its further extremity, when the appearance of
+Alfred arrested her steps.</p>
+
+<p>He assisted her in arranging the flowers he
+had brought, and in selecting from them the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>
+favoured few she was to wear herself. This
+task drew from him some playful remark, more
+love-like than rational, on the good fortune of
+the happy blossoms thus chosen.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Palliser had been particularly harsh
+that morning about some trifle, and Caroline
+was consequently in very bad spirits.</p>
+
+<p>"Why should it be good fortune to be chosen
+by me," she said, "when I am myself the most
+unfortunate of beings? The poor flowers that
+I choose," she added with a faint effort to laugh,
+fearful she had said too much, "will be the
+first to fade away," quoting Moore's little
+song.</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Or the young gazelle, with its soft black eye,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If it <i>loved you well would be sure to die</i>,"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>proceeded Alfred, humming the air and continuing
+the quotation; then in a half playful, half<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>
+tender whisper, he subjoined, "The death-warrant
+of many of whom your ladyship little
+thinks would be already signed and sealed were
+this the case." But perceiving while he spoke
+that though Caroline tried to smile her lip trembled,
+he checked himself, and with an altered
+tone exclaimed, "I beg a thousand pardons!
+You are&mdash;you seem&mdash;what can have&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, nothing," she replied, "only other
+young people are light-hearted and cheerful
+together; there are your sisters for instance,
+how happy they always seem to be; and how
+kind to you all&mdash;how indulgent, how affectionate,
+Lady Arden appears. While I have
+neither sister, nor brother, and yet my mother"&mdash;here
+checking herself, she added hesitatingly,
+"I dare say&mdash;it must be my own fault&mdash;I suppose
+I don't deserve to be loved&mdash;but I am<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>
+quite sure that&mdash;that&mdash;my mother does not love
+me&mdash;and oh, if you knew how miserable the
+thought makes me!"</p>
+
+<p>"You cannot be serious," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I am indeed!" she replied, looking up
+with innocent earnestness, while her eyes swam
+in tears.</p>
+
+<p>Alfred caught her hand, pressed it to his lips,
+talked incoherently about the impossibility of
+knowing without loving her, then of his own
+unworthiness, his presumption, his poverty, his
+insignificance, &amp;c. &amp;c.; his being in short a
+younger son; and at length wound up all by
+making, notwithstanding, a passionate declaration
+of his love. If affection the most devoted,
+the most unalterable, had any value in her eyes,
+affection that would study her every wish,
+affection such as he was convinced no lover had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>
+ever felt before; if such affection could in any
+degree compensate for the absence of every
+other pretension, such, unable longer to suppress
+his feeling, he now ventured to lay at her feet.</p>
+
+<p>Caroline trembled and remained silent. He
+entreated her to speak, to relieve him from
+the fear that he had offended her past forgiveness
+by the very mention of his perhaps too
+daring suit.</p>
+
+<p>"Does&mdash;my mother&mdash;know?" she whispered
+at last, "because&mdash;if not&mdash;I fear&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Palliser I think," he replied, "must
+know, must understand; nay, I have ventured
+to allude slightly to the subject, and have even
+been presumptuous enough to translate her
+ladyship's kindly and indulgent admission of
+my constant visits as, however liberal on her
+part, a tacit consent to my addresses."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I hope you are right!" exclaimed Caroline,
+with an inadvertent earnestness which called
+forth from Alfred gratitude the most profuse, expressed,
+not indeed loudly, but in whispers so tender,
+so eloquent, that for some moments, Caroline,
+forgetting every thing but their import, felt
+a happiness she had never known before. New
+and delightful prospects of futurity seemed
+opening before her youthful imagination, hitherto
+so cruelly depressed. Her countenance,
+though covered with blushes, and studiously
+turned away to hide them, so far indicated what
+was passing within, as to encourage Alfred in
+adding,</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow, then, when Lady Palliser may
+possibly be at home, may I venture to speak to
+her ladyship on this subject?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>After a short silence, Caroline replied with
+hesitation,</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;I&mdash;suppose&mdash;you had better."</p>
+
+<p>But she sighed heavily as she said so, for she
+dreaded the strange and whimsical temper of
+Lady Palliser; yet she now found that a feeling
+of consolation accompanied what had hitherto
+been her greatest sorrow, the sense of her
+mother's want of affection; for perhaps, she
+thought, she may not care enough about me
+to mind what I do! Here all her efforts at self-possession
+gave way, and she yielded to a passion
+of tears.</p>
+
+<p>Alfred had been holding her hand, and anxiously
+watching her countenance; he became
+alarmed, and began to suspect, that perhaps
+she was herself undecided. "What can this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>
+mean?" he cried. "You do not repent of the
+permission you have given me? Caroline!
+say you do not! Say I am wrong in this!"</p>
+
+<p>She raised her eyes and moved her lips to
+reply, when a loud electrifying knock was heard
+at the hall door. The look however had so far
+reassured Alfred, that he again pressed her
+hand to his lips, and repeated with an inquiring
+tone, "To-morrow, then?" Footsteps were heard
+in the hall; the drawing-room door opened, and
+Alfred hastily disappeared, while a servant entering,
+laid cards on the table and retired.</p>
+
+<p>Caroline was hastening towards the conservatory
+to take refuge there till her agitation
+should subside, when the Venetian blind which
+hung over its entrance was moved aside, and her
+mother appeared before her, scorn and rage depicted
+in her countenance.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Our heroine, her footsteps thus unexpectedly
+arrested, stopped short in the centre of the
+apartment, and stood trembling from head to
+foot.</p>
+
+<p>From behind the Venetian blind, Lady Palliser
+had witnessed the whole of the interview
+between the lovers.</p>
+
+<p>She was not herself previously aware that the
+heartless coquetry in which she had been indulging
+had taken so strong a hold even of her
+bad feelings; but disappointed vanity was perhaps
+a mortification she had never known before.
+She therefore scarcely herself understood
+the species of rage with which she was now
+animated; the almost hatred with which she
+now looked on the perfect loveliness of her
+blushing, trembling child. Of course, on prudential
+considerations she would have disap<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>proved
+of the match at any rate; and of this
+she now made an excuse to herself.</p>
+
+<p>She stepped forward, and when close before
+Caroline, stamped her foot, uttered an ironical,
+hysterical laugh, and almost gasping for breath,
+stood some moments ere she could well articulate.</p>
+
+<p>"You piece of premature impudence!" were
+the first words she at length pronounced. After
+pausing again for a moment, she recommenced
+with a sneer, "So you have made your arrangement.
+I must congratulate you on Mr. Arden's
+obliging acceptance of your liberal offer, of
+heart, hand, and fortune!"</p>
+
+<p>Caroline looked the most innocent astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"You really do not understand me," proceeded
+her ladyship, in the same tone of mock<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>ery.
+"Are you then not aware that I have been
+a witness to the scene which has just passed?
+and have, of course, heard your modest ladyship
+stating to Mr. Arden how much at a loss
+you were for some one to love you, forsooth!
+Barefaced enough, certainly! Upon which the
+young man could not in common politeness do
+less than offer his services. Besides, it was
+much too good a thing to be rejected; few
+younger brothers, and therefore beggars, would
+refuse the hand of an heiress of your rank and
+fortune. Go! you disgrace to your family and
+sex; go to your room, and remain there till you
+have my permission to leave it. As for Mr.
+Arden, I shall give orders that he is never again
+admitted beneath this roof. Should you hereafter
+meet him in society do not dare to recognise
+him. Go!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Caroline was moving towards the door, without
+attempting a reply, well aware that remonstrance
+or entreaty would be perfectly vain.</p>
+
+<p>"Stay!&mdash;I have changed my mind," recommenced
+her ladyship. "Mr. Arden comes to-morrow,
+it seems&mdash;let him come&mdash;I shall not
+see him. Receive him yourself, reject him yourself,
+now and for ever! Tell him that on reflection
+you have repented of your folly; and that
+the subject must not be even mentioned to me.
+Let the interview take place in this room&mdash;let
+your rejection be distinct, and let him suppose
+it comes from yourself. I shall be again
+in the conservatory&mdash;I shall hear and see all
+that passes; and on your peril, by word or look,
+say more or less than I have commanded."</p>
+
+<p>Caroline flung herself on her knees, and with
+clasped hands and streaming eyes looked up in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>
+her mother's face. "Oh, do not, do not," she
+exclaimed, "ask me to see him, and in all else
+I will submit!"</p>
+
+<p>Lady Palliser laughed out with malicious
+irony, saying, "So you offer conditional obedience.
+Do," she proceeded, frowning fiercely,
+and extending her clenched hand in the attitude
+of a fury, "precisely as I have commanded!"</p>
+
+<p>"This evening," continued her ladyship, with
+affected composure, looking contemptuously
+down on Caroline, who was sobbing ready to
+break her heart, "this evening, deport yourself
+as though nothing had happened: dance as
+much as usual; and do not dare to have red
+eyes, or to show the slightest depression of manner.
+Should Mr. Arden make any allusion to
+what has occurred this morning, merely tell<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>
+him to say nothing more on the subject till to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>Here Lady Palliser quitted the apartment,
+while Caroline remained on her knees, overwhelmed
+by utter despair, and shedding, with
+all the innocent vehemence of childhood, the
+large pure tears, which like summer showers fall
+so abundantly from the eyes of the young in
+their first sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>The alternative of daring to disobey her harsh
+and heartless mother never once presented itself
+to her mind as possible.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
+
+
+<p>It was night&mdash;arrivals had commenced&mdash;the
+lights, the music, the decorations, the sight and
+scent of the flowers, all added to the aching of
+Caroline's temples and the confusion of her
+ideas, as she stood in a sort of waking dream,
+conscious only of wretchedness, near the door
+of the first of the reception rooms, courtesying
+with a mechanical smile to each new group that
+appeared. She would have given the world to
+have been any where else, but this was the post
+her mother had commanded her to fill.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When the ladies of the Arden party entered,
+she felt a childish impulse to fling herself into
+the bosom of Lady Arden, and drawing all the
+daughters round her, entreat them to hide her
+from her cruel mother.</p>
+
+<p>Alfred next appeared, accompanied by Sir
+Willoughby and Mr. Geoffery Arden. The
+two latter named gentlemen had been expected
+for some days, but had arrived only about two
+hours before.</p>
+
+<p>Alfred presented both, and some unmeaning
+conversation passed about the heat of London,
+how long they had been on the road, &amp;c. Our
+hero, the moment he came in, missed the flowers
+Caroline had promised to wear, and felt disappointed.
+If she had forgotten them in the
+hurry of dressing it was no very flattering token
+of her regard. If, on the other hand, Lady<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>
+Palliser had noticed and forbid her wearing
+them, it was a bad symptom of his ultimate
+success. He longed for an opportunity of venturing
+some playful reproach which might lead
+to an explanation. When his companions moved
+on a step or two he drew very near, and asked
+in an emphatic whisper, if the chosen blossoms
+had faded already. A rush of colour, which the
+peculiar fairness of Caroline's complexion already
+described made the more remarkable,
+covered her cheeks in a moment; but she attempted
+no reply. After a short and somewhat
+anxious pause Alfred asked her to dance; she
+looked up suddenly but vacantly, as if scarcely
+comprehending what he had said, but still spoke
+not. He was just about to repeat his words,
+when Willoughby, who had been conversing
+with Lady Palliser, turned round and made the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>
+same request. Caroline, glancing towards her
+mother, and seeing her eye upon her, started,
+assented quickly, took Willoughby's arm, and
+walked to the quadrille.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Palliser noted the chagrin of our hero
+with secret triumph, and suddenly forming one
+of her usually whimsical and tyrannical resolves,
+determined, as an appropriate punishment for
+the lovers, to marry her daughter to Sir Willoughby,
+whose match in town she had heard
+it confidently reported was off. Though he
+was but a baronet, his immense property made
+it at least an eligible marriage; and such, little
+as she cared about Caroline, she had always
+considered it a necessary part of etiquette some
+time or other to provide.</p>
+
+<p>That Alfred, however, might ascribe Caroline's
+change to her own caprice, and be the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>
+more mortified, Lady Palliser took his arm,
+walked about with him for a considerable time,
+and treated him with more than her usual
+cordiality.</p>
+
+<p>It had the desired effect, it threw him into
+complete despair; he could not now even console
+himself with the thought that Caroline was
+acting under the influence of her mother.</p>
+
+<p>When the dancing had ceased, and Caroline
+was seated with her evidently delighted partner
+on a distant sofa, Lady Palliser led our hero up
+to her, and said, "Come, Caroline, I have no
+notion of giving up old friends for new ones
+altogether: you must dance one set with poor
+Alfred; do see how forlorn he looks."</p>
+
+<p>Caroline was utterly confounded: had her
+mother forgiven them&mdash;was she going to relent.</p>
+
+<p>Such happy thoughts, however, were soon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>
+scattered, for Lady Palliser, on pretext of arranging
+a stray ringlet, drawing very near,
+whispered, with a menacing frown, "Take care
+how you behave, and what you say." The
+frown and whisper destroying as they did the
+momentary hope, caused Caroline, on taking
+Alfred's arm, to look so much disappointed that
+it was impossible not to infer that she would
+rather have remained on the sofa. Yet Alfred
+could not bring himself to believe this! he was
+miserable, however, and did not know what to
+think; while he was so much occupied forming
+painful conjectures, that he himself behaved
+strangely and coldly.</p>
+
+<p>Caroline thought with intense agony of the
+task she had to perform in the morning, while
+with a feeling allied to terror she stole from
+time to time a momentary glance at the features<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>
+of him she must so soon mortally offend; to
+whom she must so soon give apparently just
+cause to view her henceforward with hatred
+and contempt. She even fancied that his countenance
+wore already a severity of expression
+she had never seen in it before. She bewildered
+herself too with the thought, that if she
+could get an opportunity and venture just to
+whisper, "Mr. Arden, don't mind any thing
+I am obliged to say to you in the morning," it
+might prevent his thinking so very very ill of
+her as he must otherwise do. This sentence
+she repeated to herself above an hundred times
+during the quadrille, yet whenever she was
+going to address it to Alfred, and more than
+once she moved her lips to begin, she either
+caught her mother's eye turned upon her, or
+she fancied it might be, and dared not look to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>
+see lest it should give her a conscious and
+guilty appearance; or the impression that Alfred
+was already displeased became so strong
+as to deprive her of the courage to speak to
+him; besides all which, her heart at each
+abortive attempt she made to articulate, leaped
+up into her throat, and by its excessive fluttering
+quite choked her utterance, till the convenient
+moment was gone by. On the music
+ceasing, Lady Palliser came up and took her
+away, as if in great haste to make some arrangement,
+yet, in so obliging a manner, and
+with so many pretty excuses, that Alfred
+thought her ladyship at least was unchanged.</p>
+
+<p>And so must Caroline, he told himself again
+and again; "it can be but fancy on my part, or
+rather, all that seems strange and altered in
+her manner must proceed from her extreme<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>
+delicacy, her excessive timidity, her consciousness
+that we now perfectly understand each
+other's thoughts makes her fearful to meet my
+eye, at least with others present; makes her
+afraid that all the world will know the moment
+they see us together what is passing in our hearts.
+I can well imagine one so gentle, so young, so
+fearful, feeling the newness of her situation,
+almost as though she were already a bride;
+having listened but this very morning, for the
+first time in her life, I should suppose favourably,
+to the accent of a lover."</p>
+
+<p>Alfred had wandered into the conservatory,
+where, amid the intoxicating odours of ten thousand
+exotics&mdash;pursuing this train of thought&mdash;he
+luxuriated for a time in dream-like meditations
+on the delicacy, the devotion, the exclusive
+tenderness, which must necessarily charac<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>terise
+the attachment of a being so pure, so
+innocent, so unpractised in the world's ways
+as Caroline&mdash;his Caroline! Yes, he was now
+entitled to combine with her idea this endearing
+epithet.</p>
+
+<p>He was standing the while with his arms
+folded and his eyes unconsciously uplifted to a
+brilliant lamp, as if lost in contemplation of
+its brightness.</p>
+
+<p>A change in the music broke his reverie;
+when his discerning vision passing along a
+vista of orange trees, found its way into the
+drawing-room, and fell on a group preparing to
+waltz. Among these, and occupying the very
+spot hallowed to memory by the interview of
+the morning, he beheld Caroline standing with
+the arm of Willoughby round her slender waist,
+and her hand resting on his shoulder&mdash;a mo<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>ment
+after the couple had launched amid the
+tide of changing forms; but Alfred's eye still
+traced them as they floated round and round
+the prescribed circle, till, what with the moving
+scene, and his own thoughts of agony, his brain
+went round also. He had never been able to prevail
+with Caroline to waltz, her plea of refusal
+had always been that she did not waltz. Was
+she then changed in every sentiment&mdash;in every
+opinion&mdash;in every feeling! Had she become
+hardened to the world&mdash;lost to personal delicacy&mdash;lost
+to affection&mdash;lost to him! What had
+she&mdash;what had she not become! and all within
+a few short hours.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2>
+
+
+<p>In vain had our heroine, when Sir Willoughby
+had asked her to waltz, pleaded the same excuse
+alluded to in our last chapter. Lady Palliser,
+who was near, and heard Sir Willoughby's
+request, interfered, and commanded compliance;
+while poor Caroline, who seems to have been
+born but to be the victim of her mother's caprices,
+was led away to join the gay circle,
+trembling and broken-hearted.</p>
+
+<p>The report that Willoughby's marriage had been
+broken off was quite true: he had written the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>
+account to Alfred a day or two before. The
+lady had the very day previous to that fixed for
+the wedding eloped with her former lover; while
+Sir Willoughby had found himself, his preparations
+being all made, in rather an absurd situation.</p>
+
+<p>The newspapers, too, had taken unwarrantable
+liberties with his name, and made some
+witty comments on the superior personal attractions
+of his rival.</p>
+
+<p>His vanity it was which had in the first instance
+been gratified&mdash;his vanity now suffered
+proportionately. And so irritable was his temper
+and so depressed his spirits, on his arrival in
+Cheltenham, that Alfred, who had but just returned
+from his interview with Caroline, felt
+that it would be mistimed to mention her, or
+allude at all at present to his own happier pros<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span>pects.
+He limited the confidential conversation,
+therefore, to kind condolence with his
+brother, being too delicate to remind Willoughby
+that he might have escaped this mortification
+had he taken his advice.</p>
+
+<p>Thus was the foundation unintentionally laid
+of a concealment which finally led to many disastrous
+consequences.</p>
+
+<p>The moment Willoughby was introduced to
+Caroline he was captivated by her beauty. After
+they had danced together, when our heroine
+was so unexpectedly desired by her mother to
+dance with Alfred, Geoffery Arden, who may be
+termed Willoughby's evil genius, took possession
+of the seat beside him on the sofa, which
+had been just vacated by Caroline; and well
+knowing his cousin's weak point, said, "Well,
+that is one of the most pointed things I ever saw."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"To what do you allude?" asked Willoughby.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you not see how mortified her ladyship
+looked at having her flirtation with you disturbed."</p>
+
+<p>"Flirtation, indeed!" repeated Willoughby,
+laughing; "the acquaintance is rather short for
+that, I should think."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, we hear of love at first sight; and it
+was certainly something very like it. You were
+not many minutes in the room when you asked
+Lady Caroline to dance; and I don't know
+whether you noticed it, but a moment or two
+before Alfred, who has been so long acquainted,
+had made the same request; the lady pretended
+not to hear: she heard, however, when you
+spoke, and consented with marked alacrity."</p>
+
+<p>Willoughby's vanity, which had been so lately
+wounded, gladly welcomed suggestions so flat<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>tering.
+To woo and win the young, the beautiful,
+the rich Lady Caroline Montague, might
+well silence the jeers of those who were disposed
+to make impertinent comments on his late
+disappointment.</p>
+
+<p>As for Geoffery Arden's motive for offering
+the incense of flattery to Willoughby, it was the
+same which in most cases governs most men&mdash;self-interest.
+It was by the grossest flattery
+that he had long since made himself necessary
+to his cousin; and by the same means he still
+sought to retain an influence over him, which,
+in a pecuniary point of view, was particularly
+convenient to himself. On the present occasion
+also, he had seen with half a glance sufficient
+to make him suspect, at least, that Lady Caroline
+Montague was an object of interest to
+Alfred. If he was right in his conjecture, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>
+circumstance might afford a favourable opportunity
+for sowing the seeds of dissension between
+the brothers, an object of which he never
+lost sight, well knowing that his own influence
+and that of Alfred could never go hand in hand&mdash;the
+one being for evil, the other for good.</p>
+
+<p>Added to this, it was always more or less an
+object with him to throw obstacles in the way
+of any love affair of either of the brothers; for
+though he was not so romantic as to expect by
+such means to succeed in preserving them both
+old bachelors, should they reach old age&mdash;for
+such a chance could not be very important
+to him, who was so much their senior&mdash;it
+was just as well to keep the book of fate
+open as long as possible. There was no use
+in increasing the chances against himself.
+The fewer names, in short, above his own<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span>
+on the list of even improbable advantages the
+better.</p>
+
+<p>While the cousins continued to occupy their
+sofa, and observe the dancers, Geoffery was eloquent
+in the praises of Caroline's beauty; quoting,
+as he well might, many high authorities for
+her being the acknowledged belle of the late
+season in town. He knew that weak men, with
+all their obstinate devotion to their own opinions,
+unconsciously see with the eyes, hear with the
+ears, and even speak in the language of others;
+and that their love most especially is a mere
+reflection!</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, to gain an entire ascendency over
+weak people only requires a little management;
+but unfortunately it is of that uncandid sort
+which their best friends are the least likely to
+adopt.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>If you say to an ill-governed child, "My
+dear, you have eaten enough of that cake, give
+it me, and take this pretty toy to play with."
+The child says, "No, I won't; it's not a pretty
+toy," and eats faster than before. But lay
+down the toy carelessly within his sight, and if
+he has eaten sufficiently, he will drop his cake
+on the floor, and fly to seize the toy.</p>
+
+<p>Men and women of weak minds are but children
+of a larger growth.</p>
+
+<p>When the company had all retired, Lady
+Palliser thus addressed her daughter: "Your
+avoiding to dance with Mr. Arden was quite
+unnecessary. I have no desire that your manners
+towards him in society should be at all
+altered: such conduct would draw down remarks
+which I do not choose should be made.
+As for to-morrow," continued her ladyship,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>
+"remember that I shall witness the scene;
+therefore let your obedience be perfect! Also,
+if you have any regard to decency left, take
+care that no folly on your part gives Mr. Arden
+an opportunity of boasting that Lady Caroline
+Montague, in despite of the impropriety of the
+alliance, was indelicately ready to fling herself
+into his arms, if Lady Palliser had not interfered."</p>
+
+<p>Her ladyship here quitted the room; and
+Caroline, her ideas confused by this new view
+of the subject, stood transfixed to the spot,
+till aroused from her reverie by the entrance of
+servants to extinguish the lights.</p>
+
+<p>She retired, but it may be believed not to
+rest. She flung herself on her bed without undressing,
+and wept away the early morning, the
+brightness of which entering freely through the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>
+shutterless windows of a Cheltenham bed-room,
+shone with incongruous lustre alike on her glittering
+ornaments and her falling tears. We
+speak of morning, because the night, of course,
+had been over before the ball concluded.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Alfred had no opportunity for private conversation
+with his brother before he went to
+his appointment at Lady Palliser's; nor indeed
+did he now desire it till he should have come
+to some explanation with Caroline.</p>
+
+<p>In strange perplexity of spirits, trying in
+vain to persuade himself that he had every thing
+to hope and nothing to fear, he repaired to Jessamine
+Bower.</p>
+
+<p>On entering the drawing-room he perceived
+Caroline, seated and alone. When he was an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>nounced,
+she did not move. He approached;
+her eyes still remained fixed on the ground,
+while the paleness of her complexion was
+even more remarkable than usual, and a
+very slight but universal tremor pervaded her
+whole frame. He stood before her, and as he
+did so, trembled himself with undefined apprehension.</p>
+
+<p>"Good heavens, Caroline!" he exclaimed,
+sinking on one knee, and attempting to take her
+hand. She withdrew it hastily, and her cheeks
+crimsoned while she cast one involuntary glance
+in the direction of the conservatory. Alfred
+rose, folded his arms, and stood for a moment
+silent, then said&mdash;"If I have been presumptuous,
+Lady Caroline, I have much to plead in
+my excuse, and the interview of yesterday in
+particular; I was certainly led to hope for a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>
+more favourable reception, however little I may
+be deserving of it."</p>
+
+<p>"I was&mdash;to blame," said Caroline, in a voice
+scarcely articulate, and still without looking up.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it possible! Do I interpret you right?
+Were those hopes, to me so full of joy, altogether
+fallacious? But no, Caroline, I will not,
+I cannot believe it! Lady Palliser objects, and
+you deem it your duty to submit: even this
+thought would be happiness, compared with
+that of your indifference! Or&mdash;or&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"My caprice!" said Caroline, looking up almost
+wildly for a moment, "Yes, think it my
+caprice!"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot believe it," he replied.</p>
+
+<p>There was a considerable pause, during which
+he anxiously observed Caroline, and perceived
+that silent tears were stealing down her cheeks.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Those tears are not caused by caprice," he
+said in a tone of tenderness; "in compassion
+say," he added with sudden and vehement earnestness,
+"that you are acting in obedience to
+Lady Palliser's commands, and I too will submit."
+While speaking again he sank on his knee
+before her, and tried to take both her hands.
+The terror however with which she resisted, hastily
+rising as she did so&mdash;the more effectually to
+avoid him&mdash;so much for the moment resembled
+aversion, that he rose as hastily, and looking his
+amazement, said with a hysterical intonation of
+voice, "If it is indeed so, I have a thousand
+apologies to offer to Lady Caroline Montague
+for my impertinent intrusiveness. To retire,
+however, and offend no more, will perhaps be
+better than entering further into the subject."
+He was about to depart, when pausing he said,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>
+"I will ask one question&mdash;Am I rejected? Do
+you finally withdraw the hopes you yesterday
+bestowed?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do," she replied.</p>
+
+<p>He stood for a few moments to master his
+emotion, then pronouncing a haughty good morning,
+hastily quitted the room and the house.
+In a few moments after, he was pacing, without
+plan or intention, one of the many shady
+and usually quite solitary walks, which branch
+off in every direction from the general scene
+of gaiety, and near to which both villas stood.</p>
+
+<p>His pride, as well as every tenderer and worthier
+feeling, was wounded beyond description.
+He now appeared, even to himself, in the light
+of one who had indelicately, unfeelingly, and
+presumptuously sought a match of worldly advantage,
+to which he had no pretension; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span>
+though he could acquit himself of interested
+views in so doing, he felt that it would be a romance
+and absurdity to expect so candid an interpretation
+from any one else. The one continued
+dream, which had made up his whole
+existence for many weeks past, was now dissipated
+in an instant. Nay, he sought in vain
+among his own meditations for the apologies,
+even to himself, which had before seemed
+sufficient. Caroline, so silent, so fearful at
+the commencement of their acquaintance, had
+seemed to derive a new existence from his
+growing attentions, while Lady Palliser, instead
+of checking those attentions, and showing
+alarm at the visible pleasure with which her
+daughter received them, had herself given him
+what he then considered the most unequivocal
+encouragement, being always the first to make<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>
+intercourse easy to both, by desiring the always
+timid Caroline to dance with him, walk with
+him, and sing with him. And then the silent
+glow of secret pleasure with which the welcome
+command was obeyed, confirmed sometimes
+perhaps by a momentary expression caught
+when the eyes accidentally met, or at other
+times merely by an alacrity of movement, or
+cheerfulness of tone in obeying or replying,
+which, notwithstanding, betrayed volumes in a
+character too fearful and gentle to let itself be
+regularly read aloud, yet too artless, too unpractised,
+to know how utterly to seal its
+pages.</p>
+
+<p>While such things had been, the prejudices
+of society had faded from his mind; he had
+believed it not impossible that where an only
+child already possessed immense estates, a pa<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>rent
+might prefer the happiness of that child to
+the unnecessary addition of other estates. Now
+all the artificial estimates of life and manners,
+taught by early education, returned in their
+fullest force, and he thought himself a madman
+ever to have entertained such an opinion.</p>
+
+<p>He now believed that every one who knew
+he had had the presumption to pay his addresses
+to Lady Caroline Montague, would reprobate
+him and say, that because he was a
+younger brother, and of course a beggar, he
+wanted to make his fortune by marrying an
+heiress. How bitterly did he now regret that
+he had ever had the rash folly to confess his
+passion. Yet, so thoroughly disinterested had
+that passion been, that he had even for the
+time lost sight of the possibility of being suspected
+by others of motives of which he was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>
+himself incapable: all that through the happy
+intoxication of his feelings had presented itself
+respecting fortune, was a vaguely delightful
+remembrance that his poverty could never entail
+any privations on Caroline. What was
+now to be done? The wretched state of his
+feelings would have induced him to quit
+Cheltenham immediately, but wounded pride
+prompted him to remain; he wished to let
+Lady Caroline Montague see that her caprices
+should not govern his conduct; that he could
+behave with composure in her society&mdash;with
+polite self-possession even towards herself.
+But in this first moment of just resentment,
+he knew not the difficulty of the task he courted.
+He resolved to conceal the whole affair from
+Willoughby, and if his mother and sisters persisted
+in making allusion to the subject of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>
+admiration of Lady Caroline Montague, to assure
+them gravely that he never meant, in
+his circumstances, to subject himself to the suspicion
+of seeking an heiress because she was an
+heiress.</p>
+
+<p>Having come to so dignified a resolve, he
+flattered himself for the moment that he was
+almost composed. Scarcely however had he
+arrived at this conclusion, than fond memory,
+more at leisure than it had been during the late
+angry burst of disappointed passion, began retracing
+scenes, recalling looks, repeating words,
+recounting circumstances, till his mind again
+became a troubled sea, from amidst the breakers
+of which he beheld, but now with all the
+aggravated feelings of one sent adrift in a bark
+without rudder or oar, tantalizing views, but
+too distant to admit a hope of reaching a smiling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>
+happy shore&mdash;a haven of bliss to fancy's eye,
+which appeared the more perfect now that it
+was unattainable.</p>
+
+<p>At one time he stopped short, and stood for
+about ten minutes like an absolute statue, quite
+unconscious of any outward object. He was
+asking himself, if it were not still possible that
+Caroline was acting under the influence of Lady
+Palliser and if there might not come a time when
+that influence would cease?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>No language can paint the utter desolation of
+poor Caroline's mind; for she was too young,
+too inexperienced, too much accustomed from
+infancy, to be the unmurmuring slave of her
+mother's capricious tyranny to have any thing
+like a just estimate of her own situation.</p>
+
+<p>Had she ventured to think, which she had
+never yet done, that when of age she should be
+her own mistress, she would, as very young
+people do when they look forward three or four
+years, have thought the period so remote as to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>
+be scarcely an object of hope; while she would
+still have trembled at the thought of venturing
+at any time, however distant, to disobey her
+mother, unless indeed she could be quite sure
+of never seeing her again.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Palliser's plan of government when
+Caroline was a mere infant, had been a system
+of terror; nor had any thing in her subsequent
+conduct tended to soften that first impression.
+Frowns and menacing attitudes had been used
+towards the baby before it could understand
+words, if when occasionally brought into its
+mother's presence it had happened to stretch
+its little hand towards any attractive object.
+Hours of solitary imprisonment in a dark room
+had been inflicted on the child, for but a fancied
+dilatoriness of movement in the execution
+of a command, till poor Caroline had learned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>
+to start with nervous alarm, and fly with the
+alacrity of terror at the very sound of her mother's
+voice; while it was melancholy to see,
+during the seemingly willing movement the
+little innocent face of the child filled with the
+contradictory expressions of anxiety and dread.</p>
+
+<p>Thus had early associations followed up by
+constant tyranny, imposed at the dictates of a
+temper unreasonable, capricious, and unfeeling,
+taught Caroline to view with a sinking of the
+heart the very smiles of her mother's countenance,
+as played off in company; none of them
+she knew were intended for her, even when
+their light, perchance, was turned upon her.</p>
+
+<p>Overweening, all-engrossing vanity, was Lady
+Palliser's ruling passion; society therefore in
+which she could be the object of universal admiration
+was her only element. Not that she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span>
+was what is commonly called a flirt:&mdash;she was
+too haughty&mdash;too exacting of general adoration
+for such a condescension towards any individual
+in particular; while yet within her
+hidden thoughts, concealed beneath an appearance
+of statue-like coldness, she had a secret
+delight in imagining every man with whom she
+was acquainted, as much in love with her as he
+dared to be, and withheld from a declaration of his
+passion only by her own haughty reserve: nay,
+so far did she carry this dream of vanity, that
+she felt more or less of resentment towards every
+man of her acquaintance who married or attached
+himself to any other woman.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the person with whom poor
+Caroline had hitherto spent every domestic
+hour she could remember. Her home, which
+had thus never been a happy one, now by con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>trast
+with the vague hopes in which she had
+latterly ventured to indulge, presented to her
+imagination a long perspective of tenfold dreariness.
+The frowns in private, the artificial
+smiles in public of her unkind parent, were
+all that she anticipated in future. Her very
+youth seemed an aggravation of her misery,
+for the grave itself, which, in her present
+exaggerated and hopeless state of feeling,
+was she believed, the only refuge to which
+she could look forward, appeared at an immeasurable
+distance, the path to it stretching
+before her mind's eye an interminable pilgrimage
+of weariness.</p>
+
+<p>We do not mean to support these views of
+the subject as rational or just; but Caroline
+in experience and knowledge of the world, as
+well as in chancery phraseology, was still an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>
+infant; even her love had at present something
+in it of the feelings of the child turning to the
+kind and gentle, as a refuge from the harshness
+of the more severe; and with the idea of
+Alfred was blended thoughts of his sisters and
+of Lady Arden, and of their happy home&mdash;that
+scene of cheerfulness and general goodwill,
+which she had latterly enjoyed the privilege of
+entering without ceremony, and which she had
+never quitted without regret.</p>
+
+<p>The most severe, however, of all her sufferings
+was the thought that Alfred must now
+hate and despise her.</p>
+
+<p>She was shut up in her own apartment
+weeping bitterly and giving way to a succession
+of dreary reflections, when she received a summons
+from her mother to appear in the drawing-room.
+So much was she accustomed to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>
+obey implicitly that she did not dare to excuse
+herself.</p>
+
+<p>On descending, she found with Lady Palliser,
+Sir Willoughby Arden and his cousin
+Geoffery. Willoughby was turning over new
+songs and professing himself a great admirer
+of music; the true secret of which was that
+he sang remarkably well himself. After some
+trivial conversation, he discovered several duets
+in which he had often taken a part with his
+sisters, and intreated that Caroline would try
+one of them. She excused herself on the plea
+of a headache caused by the music, lights,
+and late hours of the previous evening; but
+Lady Palliser interfering, she was compelled to
+make a wretched attempt; the manner spiritless,
+the voice tremulous and even out of tune.
+Willoughby's performance, however, was really<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>
+good; he was therefore quite delighted. As
+the song was being concluded, Lady and the
+Misses Arden came in, and the latter being
+prevailed on to assist Willoughby with some
+more of his favourite duets, the visit was prolonged
+into quite a morning concert.</p>
+
+<p>When the Ardens were about to take
+their departure for the avowed purpose of a
+walk, Lady Palliser insisted on Caroline's accompanying
+them, saying that the air would
+take away her headache. Caroline made a
+faint effort to excuse herself, but in this, as in
+every thing, was obliged to submit.</p>
+
+<p>They soon met and were joined by Lord
+Darlingford and Sir James Lindsey; and it
+not being an hour at which any part of the
+walks was particularly crowded, they wandered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span>
+on to where the shade by its coolness was
+inviting.</p>
+
+<p>Willoughby attached himself entirely to our
+heroine, with whom he already fancied himself
+in love. Lord Darlingford walked soberly
+beside Jane, who after many relapses of a
+hope, fainter at each return, had resigned her
+early dream of first and mutual love, and was
+now quietly receiving his serious addresses.
+She had at length brought her mind to anticipate,
+with a placid sort of happiness, the hope
+of obtaining for life the companionship and
+protection of a friend whom she could respect;
+together with the certainty of securing a perfectly
+eligible establishment, and thus escaping all
+those miseries inflicted by the unfeeling world's
+scorn on the poor and the unprotected;&mdash;miseries<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>
+against which her mother and her aunt had so
+often warned her.</p>
+
+<p>Louisa was attended by Sir James, her expected
+marriage with whom was now the
+universal theme. She had herself, however,
+by no means made up her mind; she could not
+even approach a decision, her meditations on
+the subject always ending in a fruitless wish
+that Henry were the elder brother.</p>
+
+<p>Madeline, who did not happen to have a
+lover present walked and talked with her cousin
+Geoffery.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Dorothea had been called for as they
+passed her door; she was the companion of
+Lady Arden.</p>
+
+<p>Arranged in the order we have described,
+our party came suddenly upon Alfred, standing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span>
+where we last left him, and having just brought
+his solitary musings to the final summing
+up with which we concluded the last
+chapter.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Alfred could not without an appearance of
+great singularity avoid joining the party; he
+turned, therefore, and making his salutation to
+Caroline, and what other recognitions were necessary,
+in as hurried a manner as possible, took the
+unoccupied side of Madeline. Geoffery saw a
+good deal, and suspected more. "Where have
+you been all the morning, Alfred?" he said. "We
+have had some delightful music at Lady Palliser's."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed!" replied our hero.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," added Willoughby, "Lady Caroline<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>
+was so obliging as to try one or two charming
+duets, in which her ladyship permitted me to
+attempt a part."</p>
+
+<p>Alfred could scarcely credit that he heard
+aright&mdash;was it possible!&mdash;could Caroline indeed
+be so utterly devoid of feeling? What, but a
+few moments after having driven him from her
+presence, overwhelmed with despair by her capricious
+perfidy? However strangely changed,
+however indifferent she had herself become, had
+she not even the grace to compassionate the sufferings
+she had wilfully inflicted? Could she within
+the very same half hour be in such exuberant
+spirits that it was necessary to exhaust them by
+singing for the amusement of her morning
+visitors? Or was it indeed possible, that young
+as she was, she had already learned worldly
+wisdom sufficient to prefer the possessor of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>
+Arden estates to his landless younger brother?
+So indeed it would appear. Had she not last night
+danced with Willoughby in preference to himself?&mdash;Had
+she not afterwards departed from her
+usual line of conduct to waltz with him also?&mdash;This
+morning, had not every thought and feeling
+undergone an evident and sudden revolution.
+That prudential considerations had been strongly
+represented to Caroline he made no doubt; it
+was highly improbable that such views had
+arisen spontaneously in her own mind; but
+of what value could the merely fanciful preference
+be that could be so easily turned aside?
+To believe Caroline worthless cost him a more
+cruel pang than even the knowledge that she
+was lost to him for ever.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the Arden family had reached home,
+after having left Caroline at Lady Palliser's,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>
+and parted from Lord Darlingford and Sir
+James at the door, the sisters began as usual
+to banter Alfred about his love; and Lady
+Arden observed laughingly, "But you seem to
+have quite resigned your post to Willoughby."
+Alfred made a strong effort to treat the subject
+with seeming carelessness, and replied generally,
+that younger brothers had no pretensions.</p>
+
+<p>"That is," replied his mother, "as the lady
+may think. And I am sure Willoughby would
+be very sorry to interfere with your prospects;
+an heiress can be no object to him."</p>
+
+<p>Willoughby looked amazed. Alfred begged
+Lady Arden would not treat the subject with
+such unnecessary solemnity, and assured his
+brother, with an earnestness that surprised the
+ladies of the family, that he had not the most
+distant intention of ever addressing Lady Caro<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>line
+Montague, nor the slightest reason to suppose
+that if he were guilty of so silly a presumption,
+his forwardness would not meet with the
+repulse it should deserve.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that," said Geoffery; "it must
+depend on the share of encouragement a lady
+pleases to give."</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Caroline Montague," observed Willoughby,
+"is certainly much to be admired; at
+the same time," he added, with evident pique,
+"I should be sorry, were I ever to enter the
+lists among her ladyship's adorers, to owe my
+success to being an elder brother, as my mother
+would infer!"</p>
+
+<p>The girls persisted in laughing, and declaring
+there must have been a lover's quarrel; for
+that Alfred did not speak of Lady Caroline
+in the least like the way he used to do.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"There is certainly a great change," said
+Mrs. Dorothea; "every thing appeared to be
+going on just as Alfred's best friends could
+have wished."</p>
+
+<p>"How busy people make themselves," thought
+Willoughby, "but they shall not influence my
+conduct."</p>
+
+<p>To avoid the painful topic, Alfred sauntered
+into the lawn by one of the open French
+windows. He was almost instantly followed
+by Willoughby, who took his arm and walked
+for some time up and down in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish Alfred you would be candid with
+me," said Willoughby at last, "I certainly admire
+Lady Caroline Montague, but mine is the
+admiration&mdash;the acquaintance of a day&mdash;an
+hour. If you are seriously attached, still more,
+if the attachment is, as my mother and sisters<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>
+seem to think, mutual, tell me so honestly,
+and I am sure you will do me the justice to
+believe, that had I the vanity to suppose I
+could succeed in such an attempt, I would be
+the last being in existence to wish to interfere
+with your happiness; so far from it, that if
+fortune is the obstacle, say so, and I will make
+a settlement on you so splendid, as to leave no
+room for objection on that head."</p>
+
+<p>Alfred, quite overcome by his brother's generosity,
+was unable to articulate; he drew
+Willoughby's arm closer to his side in token of
+his gratitude, and they walked on a little, till
+finding themselves sheltered from the immediate
+view of the windows by a drooping
+acacia-tree, they paused by a sort of mutual
+consent, and Alfred, making an effort to master
+his emotion, said&mdash;"I feel Willoughby, if pos<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>sible,
+more gratitude than if I were about to
+accept and be made happy by your noble offer.
+I feel too," he added, hesitating, "that I&mdash;owe
+it to your generous nature to make a confession,
+which else I had gladly avoided. I&mdash;I have
+been already rejected&mdash;rejected not by Lady
+Palliser on the plea of want of fortune, but
+by Lady Caroline Montague herself. You are,
+therefore, of course&mdash;free&mdash;to&mdash;to&mdash;" but he
+could not bring himself to give the palpable
+form of words to the remainder of the inference.</p>
+
+<p>"Rejected already! and by Lady Caroline
+herself!" repeated Willoughby. "Thank heaven
+then, my interference at least can never
+be alleged. What occurred before my arrival
+cannot be laid to my charge. This, under
+whatever circumstances may arise, will be an
+infinite consolation to my mind."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Alfred did not judge it necessary to correct
+the slight error in chronology which his brother
+had made, and a protracted silence followed; at
+length Willoughby said, "Do you think it probable,
+Alfred, that you will be induced to renew
+your addresses?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not!" replied Alfred.</p>
+
+<p>"In that case," said Willoughby, again breaking
+the silence, "who may or who may not ultimately
+succeed in making themselves acceptable
+to Lady Caroline Montague can in no wise
+affect your happiness?"</p>
+
+<p>"My happiness," replied Alfred, in a strange
+hurried manner, "is quite irrelevant to the present
+subject: but I am not, I trust, so selfish
+as to feel any desire to condemn a lady to a
+life of celibacy, merely because&mdash;but let us lay
+aside this painful subject; I shall endeavour as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>
+quickly as possible to forget all things connected
+with it, except, indeed, the feelings of
+heartfelt gratitude so justly due to you, my dear
+Willoughby."</p>
+
+<p>While this conversation was passing in the
+lawn, Geoffery, whom we left in the drawing-room
+with the ladies of the family, addressed
+Mrs. Dorothea Arden thus:</p>
+
+<p>"So you really think it will be a match
+between Alfred and Lady Caroline Montague?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should think so, certainly," replied Mrs.
+Dorothea; "his attentions have been very
+marked, and have been received with decided
+approbation, both by mother and daughter; and
+I am sure that he is, poor fellow, very sincerely
+attached."</p>
+
+<p>"We all thought it quite settled," said<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>
+Jane. Her sisters echoed nearly the same sentiment.</p>
+
+<p>"There can be no doubt," observed Lady
+Arden, "that Alfred would have a right to
+consider himself very ill treated, if any objection
+to his pretensions were started at this late period."</p>
+
+<p>"There was a great difference, however, last
+night," said Louisa, "in Lady Caroline's manner."</p>
+
+<p>"And a still greater this morning," added
+Madeline.</p>
+
+<p>"Your ladyship thinks Alfred attached to
+Lady Caroline?" asked Geoffrey.</p>
+
+<p>"Unquestionably!" replied Lady Arden.
+"If the affair should not go on, it will be a
+very serious disappointment to him, I am convinced."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And her ladyship received him well up to
+last night?" persisted Geoffrey.</p>
+
+<p>"I should certainly say so," Lady Arden
+replied.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p class="center">END OF VOL. I.<br /></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p class="center">C. WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSE, STRAND.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Dilemmas of Pride, (VOL 1 OF 3), by Margracia Loudon
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+Project Gutenberg's Dilemmas of Pride, (VOL 1 OF 3), by Margracia Loudon
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Dilemmas of Pride, (VOL 1 OF 3)
+
+Author: Margracia Loudon
+
+Release Date: April 4, 2011 [EBook #35769]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DILEMMAS OF PRIDE, (VOL 1 OF 3) ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Heather Clark and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                             DILEMMAS OF PRIDE.
+
+                        BY THE AUTHOR OF FIRST LOVE.
+
+                             IN THREE VOLUMES.
+
+                                  VOL. I.
+
+
+                                  LONDON:
+
+                       BULL AND CHURTON, HOLLES STREET.
+
+                                   1833.
+
+
+
+
+                             DILEMMAS OF PRIDE.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER I.
+
+
+The immense extent and beautiful irregularity of the grounds, the
+unfathomable depth of the woods, the picturesque ramifications of some
+of the most conspicuously situated of the very old trees, the hour, for
+it was almost midnight, the numerous bonfires scattered in all
+directions, the innumerable tenantry gathered round them, the crowd of
+moving forms extending as far as the eye could penetrate into the
+darkness; and, quite in the fore-ground, the figure of a blind old man
+who had been born in the family, and grown grey in its service, playing,
+with the most extravagant demonstrations of delight, on a rude harp,
+that instrument so surrounded with poetic associations; seated too
+beneath a spreading cedar, the trunk and undermost branches of which,
+together with his countenance and white hair, were strongly illuminated
+by an adjacent heap of blazing pine,--all gave to Arden Park a demesne
+of such unlimited magnificence, that it formed in itself a sort of
+sylvan empire, a powerful resemblance, at the moment of which we speak,
+to what our imaginations are prone to figure of the feasts of _Shells_,
+as described by that poet of ancient bards and burning oaks, the
+venerable Ossian.
+
+On an abrupt and rocky eminence, at some distance, but still within the
+park, stood the picturesque remains of Arden Castle, once the residence
+of the ancestors of the family. Its round towers of different
+dimensions, some still perfect, its perpendicular site, the trees and
+turn of the river at its base, were all rendered conspicuous by the
+clear light of the moon now about to set behind the ruins.
+
+In all the ancient deeds the landed property derived its designation
+from this castle, and it was still customary for the heir to take formal
+possession of the roofless walls, ere he was considered true Lord of the
+Manor; a ceremony which had in the course of the day just passed, been
+duly performed.
+
+A little removed from the old castle, emerging from the trees, appeared
+the square turret of another ruin, called the Grey Friary, once the
+residence of monks, to whom at that time a portion of the lands
+appertained, while along the verge of the horizon, the spires of several
+churches were just visible, breaking the dark line formed by seemingly
+interminable woods.
+
+The modern house, a magnificent structure, standing on a commanding
+eminence, the approach to which was gradual in the midst of a park and
+woodlands comprising above thirty thousand acres, now poured from every
+door and window streams of cheerful light.
+
+Figures were discernible within, some moving in the merry dance, others
+thronging to and from halls dedicated to hospitable cheer.
+
+We have already said it was near midnight: the day had been spent in
+festivities, held to celebrate the coming of age of Sir Willoughby
+Arden, now (his father having been sometime dead,) the head of the
+ancient family to whom the property belonged.
+
+The rejoicings, not only those going forward beneath the sheltering roof
+of the mansion but those also out of doors, were kept up thus late in
+compliment to Alfred Arden, the twin brother of the heir. The elder twin
+had been born about nine in the evening, the younger not till after
+twelve at night. To unite, therefore, the two distinct birth-days in the
+one festival, and thus preserve unsevered the more than brotherly tie,
+it had been resolved that no guest, of whatever denomination, should
+depart till the hour of midnight had been ushered in with every possible
+demonstration of joy.
+
+The county-town, though not above a quarter of a mile removed, was quite
+planted out: the spires already noticed, and which were highly
+ornamental to the landscape, being all pertaining of city scenery, which
+was visible over the tops of the trees.
+
+The clocks of some of the churches now began to strike. A spell at the
+instant seemed to fall upon all: the music ceased, the voices of
+revelry were hushed, and that peculiar stillness prevailed which seemed
+to indicate that every individual in the crowd was occupied in counting
+the solemn chimes. The nearest and loudest bell took the lead, and was
+quite distinct from the rest, while the others followed, like answering
+echoes, in the distance. A second after the number twelve was completed,
+one universal shout rent the air! The health of Alfred Arden was drank
+within the mansion, and arms might be seen waving above the heads of the
+guests: after which, Sir Willoughby, leading his brother forward, issued
+from the open door, and stood on the centre of the steps.
+
+Servants held up lighted flambeaux on either side, and the old butler,
+with hair as white as the harper's, presented a goblet of wine. Sir
+Willoughby announced his brother with enthusiasm, and then drank to the
+health of Alfred Arden. A simultaneous movement among the groups around
+the bonfires indicated that they were following his good example, and
+the next moment three times three resounded from the crowd.
+
+In about an hour after this all was still, save the solitary voice of a
+distant waterfall. Every light was quenched, and dying embers, which
+from time to time as they fell together flashed for an instant, were all
+that remained of the scattered bonfires. The merry crowd had sought
+their respective homes, and the inhabitants of the mansion had retired
+to rest, with the exception of Lady Arden, who sat at an open window,
+taking leave as it were of familiar scenes which, when the light of
+morning next dawned upon them, would no longer be her home.
+
+In marrying the late Sir Alfred, the then head of the family, in
+obedience to the wishes of her parents, she had sacrificed an early
+attachment to his youngest brother.
+
+Sir Alfred had, however, proved a very polite husband, and she had for
+years been the mistress, nay, the very princess of a princely mansion, a
+splendid establishment, and a magnificent demesne; she had possessed
+every luxury that art and wealth could procure, and at the same time had
+been surrounded by all the beauties of nature on the most extensive
+scale.
+
+All had now passed away! It was to her son, 'tis true, and he was
+dutiful and affectionate, and would always, she had no doubt, make her
+welcome, but of course as a visitor; and whenever her son should marry
+(which she certainly wished him to do), a stranger would be mistress of
+all; and to the courtesy of that stranger she must owe permission to
+cross the threshold of her long accustomed home.
+
+She did not mean absolutely to murmur; but there was something pensive,
+at least, if not melancholy in such thoughts.
+
+While her son was a minor, Arden Park had still been hers, at least the
+right of living there; but to-morrow she was to set out for town; she
+was to take her daughters from under the shelter of their father's roof,
+to become wanderers as it were, on the world's wide wilderness. She
+would have a house in town, 'tis true: a short season of each year would
+be spent there, and the remainder in temporary and probably agreeable
+homes in the various watering-places. But she felt a painful
+consciousness, that, of the adventitious rank which the mere
+_prejudices_ of society bestow, herself and daughters would now lose
+many steps; and that the latter must, whenever she should die, if they
+were not married, lose many more; nay, be probably reduced, at last, by
+the insufficiency of their portions as younger children, to the state of
+poor aunt Dorothea, whom she had herself often held up to them as a
+warning of the miseries attendant on remaining single.
+
+Aunt Dorothea's afflictions were not always of the tragic order, and the
+remembrance of some of them called up, at the moment, despite her solemn
+reflections, a faint smile on the countenance of Lady Arden; followed,
+however, by a sigh, for the subject now came home to her feelings in a
+manner it had never done before.
+
+So absorbing had been her reflections, that she had not noticed the
+gathering clouds which had gradually extinguished every star, and
+darkened the heavens, till all on which she still looked out had become
+one black and formless mass. At the instant, a vivid flash of lightning
+gave to her view, with the most minute distinctness of outline, not only
+the grand features of the landscape generally, but, prominent above all,
+the ruins of the castle, the rocky eminence on which they stood, the
+river at its foot, and the trees that surrounded its base. Thunder and
+violent rain followed, and the wind rose to a hurricane. There existed a
+superstitious belief among the country people that a tremendous tempest
+always preceded or accompanied any event fatal to a member of the Arden
+family. A remembrance of this crossed the mind of Lady Arden at the
+moment, but was of course rejected as silly to a degree. Besides, she
+added mentally, if an idea so absurd required refutation, the present
+occasion being one of rejoicing, would be quite sufficient to satisfy
+any reasonable mind. She retired to rest, however, with saddened
+feelings, while the castle, crowning its rocky site, as already
+described, floated before her eyes, even after their lids were closed;
+and when she slept, the vision still blended with her dreams, as did the
+forms of the Baron and his two sons, described in the legend of the
+castle, and all strangely mixed up with the festivities of the previous
+day, and the forms of her own happy blooming family.
+
+The legend alluded to, and which had given rise to the superstition we
+have mentioned, ran thus.
+
+Some centuries ago, the Baron had two sons, who, when boys, had climbed,
+one day, during a fearful thunder storm to the topmost turret of the
+castle, which was at the time enveloped in clouds.
+
+When, however, the storm was over, their bodies were found, locked in
+each other's arms, laying in the river at the foot of the rock on which
+the castle stands. The old Baron died of grief, and the property went to
+a distant relative, who, it was vaguely hinted, had followed the youths
+unseen, and while they stood gazing at the storm, had treacherously
+drawn the coping-stone from beneath their feet; others maintained the
+only grounds for this foul suspicion to be, that the said stone was
+certainly found on the inner side the parapet, while the bodies of the
+youths lay below.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER II.
+
+
+When Lady Arden arose in the morning all was calm and sunshine.
+
+The storm of the night might have seemed a dream but for the still
+visible traces of its ravages. The river was greatly swollen, and
+several of the largest and finest of a range of magnificent old trees
+which had grown on the brow of a sloping bank, forming a beautiful
+feature in the landscape, now lay on the ground, literally uprooted by
+the violence of the tempest. Their fate, however, was soon forgotten in
+that of two young oaks, which had been planted beside each other on the
+lawn, on the joint birth-day of her two sons. The lightning had
+shattered both: Lady Arden viewed them for the moment with a shuddering
+sensation of superstitious dread, the influence of which it required all
+her good sense to resist.
+
+Geoffery Arden, the only nephew of the late Sir Alfred, was standing on
+the grass, with his arms folded, and looking rather askance than
+directly at the remains of the blasted trees, while his eye-brows were
+drawn up contemptuously, and a somewhat scornful smile curled his lip,
+as he marked blind Lewin the Harper, his countenance full of woe,
+feeling, with visibly trembling hands, each shattered branch of the
+uprooted oaks, while the large tears were falling from his sightless
+eyes.
+
+The brothers Willoughby and Alfred, and their three sisters, all
+seemingly attracted by the same object, issued one by one, from the
+open glass door of the breakfast room, and gathered round the spot; each
+looked playfully dismal for a moment, and the next uttered some laughing
+remark. They were soon joined by their mother; and the group would have
+formed a striking family picture. Lady Arden was still a very fine
+woman: from her mild temper the sweetness of her countenance was yet
+unimpaired, while the expression of maternal tenderness,--and this from
+the late tenor of her thoughts was unconsciously mingled with something
+of solicitude,--with which she viewed her children, her sons now
+especially, and Alfred in particular, her favourite son, gave additional
+interest to her appearance.
+
+Alfred's sparkling eye and blooming cheek did not, however, seem to
+justify much anxiety on his account; his brother too, though he had
+always been more delicate, seemed at present in excellent health and
+spirits, while the three sisters were young, handsome, and happy
+looking. Geoffery Arden still stood apart, as though there were but
+little fellowship of feeling between him and the rest of the group.
+
+He was a lad of eighteen or nineteen before the marriage of his uncle,
+the late Sir Alfred; and from a child had been in the habit of hearing
+his father and mother, and such of their particular friends as sought to
+flatter their secret wishes, speculate on the possibility of his uncle's
+never marrying, and his being consequently heir to the Arden estates,
+which were strictly entailed in the male line. Nay, his very nursemaid's
+usual threat was, that if he cried when his face was being washed, he
+should never be Sir Geoffery. At school, all the boys at play hours had
+somehow or other acquired the habit of calling him Sir Geoffery; and at
+college his companions, particularly those who wished to flatter him
+into idle extravagance, constantly joked and complimented him about his
+great _expectations_. Thus had those expectations, unjustly founded as
+they were, grown with his growth and strengthened with his strength;
+till, when his uncle did marry, he could scarcely help thinking himself
+an injured, robbed, and very ill-treated person. Hope however revived a
+little, on the first three children chancing to be daughters, and his
+mother began again to say, he might have the Arden estates
+yet:--stranger things had happened. "And you might marry one of the
+girls, you know, Geoffery," she would continue,--"it would be some
+compensation to poor Sir Alfred for having no son."
+
+"Indeed I should do no such thing," he would reply. "I should just
+please myself. It's not to oblige me, I suppose, that my uncle has no
+son."
+
+The birth of the twin brothers, immediately after this, put an end to
+all further speculations on the subject; except, indeed, that Mrs. Arden
+could not help observing that, "after all, the lives of two weakly
+infants, as twins of course must be, with the measles, hooping-cough,
+and all other infantile diseases before them, were not worth much."
+
+Geoffery became sulky under his disappointment, and said very little;
+but silently he hated the twins for having been born. Of what use were
+they, he thought; for what purpose had they been brought into the world,
+except indeed to ruin his prospects.
+
+Had they never been born, they would not have wanted the property, and
+he might have enjoyed it. Now he must go and drudge at a profession,
+the very idea of which, after his imagination had been so long dazzled
+by false hopes, he absolutely loathed.
+
+He had been educated for the Bar, but had neglected his studies. He had
+been dissipated without gaiety of heart, and a gambler from avarice. His
+hopes had made him proud, while his fears had made him gloomy. In short,
+he had contrived to extract the evil from every thing, while he had
+avoided all that was good. As to his legal studies, he had never read
+any portion with interest or attention but the law of male entail.
+
+He was a bachelor, and likely to remain such: for he could not afford to
+marry, unless he obtained a much larger fortune than he was entitled to
+expect.
+
+There was nothing he could exactly dare to do to injure his cousins;
+but he hated them both, and kept an evil eye upon them. As for his
+female cousins, he did not take the trouble of actively hating them, he
+merely despised them as beings shut out from all possibility of
+inheriting the property. Beautiful and high born as they were, he would
+not have accepted the hand of any one of them had it been offered to
+him.
+
+Sir Willoughby was goodnaturedly weak, and very vain;--his was a vanity
+however which, when it happened to be gratified, made him extremely
+happy, by keeping him in the highest good humour with himself. From him
+Geoffery won large sums at billiards, by flattering him on his play,
+'till he induced him to give him, habitually, such odds as amounted, in
+point of fact, to giving him the game, or, in other words, the sum
+staked upon it.
+
+Lady Arden often endeavoured to dissuade her son from acquiring so bad a
+habit as that of gambling, but in vain; for Willoughby, like all weak
+men, was obstinate to excess: he had besides a marvellous respect for
+the salique law, and that jealousy of being guided, which unhappily
+always forms a leading feature in the characters of those who stand most
+in need of guidance. Yet he was fondly attached to his mother; his
+greatest delight was to devise something for her pleasure or her
+accommodation; he was always ready to make her munificent presents; in
+short, he would do any thing to oblige her, with the exception of
+following her suggestions.
+
+Not that he always ungraciously refused requests that contained in them
+nothing prohibitory; he had no particular objection sometimes to do a
+thing he was asked to do; but a thing he was asked not to do, he was
+always sure to do! And if it happened to be a thing which Geoffery
+Arden wished should be done, he could always decide the point, by
+artfully complimenting his cousin on the _firmness_ of his character.
+
+Of Alfred, Geoffery could make nothing. He was frank, kind, and
+open-hearted; yet clear-seeing and decided. With him his mother's
+slightest wish but guessed at was a law: his sisters, too, could always
+coax him out of any plan of pleasure of his own, and get him to go with
+them. Not so those for whom he had no particular affection; he had never
+yet been known, in any one instance, to sacrifice his opinion of what
+was right, respectable, or amiable, to the persuasions of idle
+companions; so that he was already respected as well as regarded by
+thinking and discerning men much older than himself; some of them too,
+men who had bought their experience dearly enough and who were surprised
+into involuntary admiration of so young a person, who seemed to have his
+intuitively.
+
+His brother loved him in the most enthusiastic manner; more than he did
+his mother, or any one else in the world; yet, strange to say, such was
+Willoughby's dread of being governed, that even the brother whom he
+loved so much, had not the slightest influence over him; nay, Alfred was
+afraid to use persuasion of any kind, lest it should have a contrary
+effect; and yet, if he ever let it appear that he was in the slightest
+degree hurt or offended by this unmeaning and dogged obstinacy on the
+part of his brother, Willoughby's despair would sometimes, though but
+for a moment or two, manifest itself in a way perfectly terrifying; he
+would rush towards a window, or a river side, and threaten to fling
+himself out or in; so that Alfred, though he knew himself to be his
+brother's sole confidant, and the first object of his affections, was
+obliged, with great pain of course, to see him led away by designing
+people, especially his cousin Geoffery, into many practices far from
+prudent, yet not interfere; and even be thankful, when by refraining
+from so doing, he could avoid the recurrence of the distressing scenes
+alluded to. Willoughby had received a blow on the head when a child,
+which had not then exhibited any serious consequences; whether this
+circumstance had any connection with the occasional strangeness of his
+temper or not, it was impossible to say, but Alfred sometimes secretly
+feared it had. It was a thought, however, which he did not communicate
+even to his mother. Such was the family, which on the morning we have
+described, quitted Arden Park for London.
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER III.
+
+
+While the Arden family are on their way to town, we shall take a peep at
+the High-street in Cheltenham. Strings of carriages were driving
+backward and forward, from turnpike to turnpike, while the open
+barouches, filled with bonnets of every colour in the rainbow, flaunting
+and waving to and fro, looked like so many moving beds of full blown
+tulips. Foot-passengers too of all classes thronged the flag-ways.
+
+Among these was distinguishable a tall, large, and still handsome woman,
+apparently upwards of fifty. There was something aristocratic about
+both her countenance and carriage, although she was closely followed by
+a trollopy looking maid-servant, who carried a bandbox under each arm, a
+dressing-box in one hand, and a work-box in the other.
+
+Mistress and maid entered the private door or _genteel_ separate
+ingress, appropriated to lodgers, of a music-shop; and having the door
+at the further end of the passage opened, for the purpose of throwing
+light on the subject, stumbled up a still dark and very narrow
+staircase, at the top of which they turned abruptly into a small sunny
+drawing-room, furnished with chintz hangings, lined and draperied with
+faded pink calico. The carpet was a stamped cloth, of a showy pattern.
+It was a recent purchase, and therefore not yet faded; so that it
+secured to these lodgings, as being _superiorly_ furnished, a great
+preference over their competitors. In the centre of the room stood a
+table covered with a very dingy green baize, and round the walls were
+ranged some half dozen small mock rosewood chairs, accommodated with
+little square inclined planes, covered with pink calico, and called
+cushions. Either for want of strings at the back, or in consequence of
+such strings being out of repair, these said inclined planes, whenever
+you attempted to help yourself or any one else to a chair, flew off,
+either into the middle of the floor, or if it was the fire you had
+wished to approach, perchance under the grate. Over the mantelpiece was
+placed what the landlady considered _a very handsome_ chimney-glass, a
+_foot and half_ high, and about three wide; its gilt frame carefully
+covered with transparent yellow gauze. On the mantelpiece stood two
+bronze chimney lights, with cutglass drops, only it must be confessed
+there were but three of the drops remaining on one, and the other wanted
+two. The woman of the house, however, had promised faithfully to find
+the rest of the drops, and so restore to these embellishers of her
+establishment the whole of their pendant honours.
+
+"I wouldn't give much for their promises," answered Sarah, the maid,
+when, in reply to a comment of hers on the subject, she was told so by
+Mrs. Dorothea Arden, her mistress.
+
+"And here's no sofa, ma'am," she continued; "how are you to be sitting,
+the length of an evening, stuck upright on one of these here _ricketty_
+bits of chairs, I'd be glad to know."
+
+"Why, it will not be very comfortable, to be sure," answered Mrs.
+Dorothea, "so long as it lasts; but she has promised faithfully, that as
+soon as the sick lady goes away, which will be in about a week, she will
+let me have the sofa out of the next drawing-room."
+
+"A bird in the hand's worth two in the bush!" replied Sarah. "I dare say
+if the truth was known, they're not worth a sofa; or, if they are,
+they'll keep it in the next room, when it is vacant, to be a decoy-duck
+to another lodger. They're not going to let you have it, I promise you,
+now that they have got you fast for a month certain."
+
+"Well, if they don't, I can't help it," said Mrs. Dorothea; "one can't
+have every thing you know; and the new carpet certainly gives the room a
+very respectable appearance. And then there is a chiffonier; that's a
+great comfort to put one's groceries in; or a few biskets; or a bottle
+of wine, if one should be obliged to open one. The doors, to be sure,
+are lined with blue and they should have been pink."
+
+"And here's no key," said Sarah, examining the chiffonier; "and I
+declare if the lock _ante_ broke."
+
+"That is provoking," said Mrs. Dorothea, "she must get me a lock."
+
+Sarah was now dispatched with her bandboxes, and ordered to hurry the
+dinner and unpack the things.
+
+In about half an hour, Aunt Dorothea becoming hungry and impatient, rang
+her bell. Sarah reappeared, with a countenance of the utmost discontent,
+declaring she was never in such a place in her life; that there was no
+getting any thing done, and that as to unpacking, there was no use in
+attempting it, in a place where they should never be able to stop. When
+the dinner was asked for, she replied, that she believed it had been
+done some time, but that she supposed there was no one to bring it up,
+for all they had engaged to do the waiting. "But there's sixteen of
+themselves, shop boys and all; and they _gets_ their own tea the while
+your dinner's a cooking it seems."
+
+When the dinner did come up, it was cold, and consisted of mutton-chops,
+which had evidently been upset into the ashes. Poor Aunt Dorothea
+consequently made but a slender repast.
+
+The next day, while engaged in the labours of the toilet, she thus
+addressed Sarah; for people who live quite alone, are too apt to get
+into a way of gossiping with their servants.
+
+"It's a very long time since the Salters have called; is it not,
+Sarah?"
+
+"A very long time indeed ma'am," replied the abigail, "they was a saying
+to their own maid the other day (they don't know I suppose as she is a
+friend of mine), for they was a saying, as I said, that they didn't
+think as they should call any more; for that nobody never knew where to
+find you, as you was always a changing your lodgings; and that as to
+your having a sister that was a lady, they didn't believe a word of it;
+for though you was always a talking of Lady Arden coming, she never
+come."
+
+"What impertinence! Well, Lady Arden will be here this season to a
+certainty. She is to come direct from London; and I'll take care they
+shall not be introduced to her. Was there ever such ingratitude! People
+that had not a creature to speak to, till I introduced them to every one
+they know. I even made so particular a request of my friends that they
+would call on them, that I quite laid myself under obligations to
+people. They could find out my lodgings fast enough, when they were
+coming to my little sociable parties five nights out of the seven;
+declaring they did not know what was to become of them, were it not for
+my kindness; and that the more they saw how differently others behaved
+to them, the more were they obliged to me; and then making such a vulgar
+noise about the number of invitations they were in my debt and their
+grief at not having it in their power as yet to make any return."
+
+"Then I can tell you ma'am," said Sarah, "they are to have a grand party
+this very night at the rooms, and never had the manners to ask you."
+
+"I know their cards have been out for some time. And who are they to
+have, did you hear?"
+
+"Oh, titles without end, they say; and generals and baronets, and all
+sorts of fine people. Mrs. Johnson _sais_, as the young ladies should
+say, they were determined as their party should _exist_ entirely of
+_excuses_."
+
+"Exclusives you mean, I suppose; but did you hear any of the names?"
+
+"Why yes ma'am; they are to have Sir Matthias and Lady Whaleworthy."
+
+"Sir Matthias indeed!" repeated Mrs. Dorothea, "an alderman
+cheesemonger, knighted only the other day; and as for his poor
+goodnatured, vulgar wife, she has been fattened on whey, I suppose, till
+no reasonable door can admit her."
+
+"Well to be sure!" exclaimed the abigail, "and then they are to have Sir
+Henry and Lady Shawbridge."
+
+"Sir Henry, poor man," said Mrs. Dorothea, "was only knighted by
+mistake. I don't know what he was himself, but they say he had just
+married his cook-maid; and her ladyship certainly has all the
+fiery-faced fierceness of that order about her."
+
+"A cook-maid, ma'am! why I am a step above that myself. And let me see,
+who else--oh, there's to be Lady Flamborough."
+
+"She is a woman of rank certainly, or rather the widow of a man of rank;
+for she is of very low birth herself; and what is much worse, she is a
+woman of bad character, which of course prevents her being visited, so
+that she is glad to go any where. And who else pray?"
+
+"Sir William Orm, that Mrs. Johnson _sais_ is such a fine gentleman."
+
+"Sir William Orm," repeated Mrs. Dorothea, "he is a known black-leg; a
+man shut out from all good society; he may do very well for the Salters,
+however, if he can endure their vulgarity."
+
+"There is another title," said Sarah, "let me see--Sir--Sir--Sir Francis
+Beerton, or Brierton, I think."
+
+"Poor little man," said Mrs. Dorothea, "there is no particular harm in
+him; but his wife is so sanctified, that she will neither go any where,
+nor see any one at home; so that he is glad of any thing for variety.
+Strange notions some people have of duty! in my opinion, if a woman will
+not make a man's home comfortable and agreeable to him, she becomes
+accountable for all the sins he may commit abroad, although she should
+be praying for his conversion the whole time. Well, who comes next on
+your list?"
+
+"I don't think as I remember any more, excepting General Powel."
+
+"He, poor old man, is mere lumber; neither useful nor ornamental, nobody
+will be troubled with him who can get anybody else to fill up their
+rooms; so that I should suppose he is not incumbered with many
+invitations."
+
+"Well who would a thought of their being such a _despisable_ set; and so
+many titles among them too; why to have heard Mrs. Johnson talk o' them,
+you'd supposed they had been so many kings and queens."
+
+"It was a set I should not have joined certainly; but quite good enough
+for the Salters, whom I should never have visited, had the friend who
+wrote to me about them been sufficiently explicit as to who and what
+they were. The daughters, I suppose, would be excessively indignant if
+they thought it was known that their father had made his fortune
+somewhere in Devonshire, by a contract for supplying the navy with
+beef."
+
+"Supplying beef, ma'am! Why isn't that all as one as being a butcher?"
+
+"Not unlike it, certainly," replied Mrs. Dorothea.
+
+"Well, who would have thought, and they so proud: but it's always them
+there upstartish sort that's the impudentst and most unbearable."
+
+"It is in general the way those sort of people betray themselves. If
+they behaved in a modest unpretending manner, very possible no questions
+might be asked. After their ingratitude and impertinence to me, I for
+one shall make no secret of the circumstance. And the very young men
+that eat Mr. Salter's roast beef now, washed down too with his champaign
+and his claret, will not be the less ready to jeer at the time he sold
+the same commodity raw. When my sister, Lady Arden, comes, and her three
+beautiful daughters, they will of course have all the young men in
+Cheltenham about them; so that I shall be acquainted with them all; and
+I shall take care they shall not be in the dark about the Misses Salter,
+who shall find that I am not to be insulted with impunity."
+
+"And I shall have some fun with our butcher about it," said Sarah; "I
+shall tell him to be particular what sort of meat he sends to such a
+good judge as Mr. Salter. Perhaps you could spare me for a couple of
+hours this evening, ma'am?" she added, when her mistress was attired.
+
+"What for, Sarah? you are always asking leave to go out. I must say you
+are very idly inclined. How are my summer things ever to be ready at
+this rate. This mulberry silk has been looking quite out of season, ever
+since the sunny weather came in."
+
+"I am sure, ma'am, there is not a young person in Cheltenham sits as
+close to their needle as what I do; but this evening Mrs. Johnson has,
+of course, the privilege of the music-gallery, and she has offered me a
+place. I thought you might like, perhaps, to hear how the party went
+off?"
+
+"Oh, certainly I should!" replied Mrs. Dorothea. "Well, Sarah, you may
+go, and mind you have all your eyes about you, and bring me a full
+account of every thing. And notice if there is any body there that I
+know--and how the people are dressed--and how often the refreshment
+trays come in--and whether they attempt a supper--and who begins the
+dancing. The Miss Salters will get partners for once in their lives, I
+suppose! And I dare say they will contrive to have a tolerably full
+room; for I hear they have been getting all their acquaintance to give
+away cards, right and left; Lady Matthias alone boasts that she has
+disposed of three dozen."
+
+Sarah promised strict compliance with all the directions she had
+received, and disappeared in great haste, to pin new bows in her bonnet,
+and slip stiffeners into the large sleeves of her best silk dress;
+determining to complete her costume for the occasion, by lending herself
+her mistress's pea-green china crape shawl and black lace veil.
+
+Mrs. Dorothea Arden, as soon as she was alone, sighed unconsciously; for
+visions of her early days presented themselves suddenly and unbidden,
+forming a violent contrast with the whole class of petty and degrading
+thoughts and interests, to which circumstances had gradually habituated,
+at least, if not reconciled her.
+
+Ere she had quitted the pedestal of her youthful pride, beneath the
+shelter of her father's roof, with what appalling horror would she have
+thought of the chance-collected mob, about whose movements she was now
+capable of feeling an idle curiosity.
+
+Vague recollections, too, passed with the quickness of a momentary
+glance, through her mind, of eligible establishments rejected with
+scorn, of comfort and respectability cast away, for dreams of ambition
+it had never been her fate to realize.
+
+She paused, and some seconds were given to a remembrance apart from
+every other, which, though now but faintly seen amid the haze of
+distance, still seemed a little illumined speck, on which a sun-beam,
+piercing some aperture in a cloudy sky had chanced to fall.
+
+But it was too late, quite too late for such thoughts, so she went out
+to pay some morning visits, to send in a veal cutlet for her dinner, and
+find out, more particularly, who were to be at the Salter's party.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+Mr. Salter and his two daughters, the former equipped in a new wig, the
+latter in two new dresses, expressly for the occasion, were parading up
+and down the yet vacant public ballroom.
+
+The lights were burning, the waiters in attendance, and the orchestra
+playing; while, peeping over the shoulder of the double bass, appeared a
+particularly smart bonnet, decorated with numerous bows of quite new
+ribbon, and further graced by a very handsome black lace veil.
+
+"What can all the people be thinking of?" said Mr. Salter at last; "I
+have a mind to order the lights to be put out, and go away home to my
+bed. It would be just a proper punishment for them all. And pray," he
+added, looking at his daughters' dresses, "what are these gig-meries to
+cost?" At this crisis resounded the welcome sounds, "Sir Matthias and
+Lady Whaleworthy:" with quickened steps and delighted countenances, our
+trio hastened towards the bottom of the room, to receive their guests,
+now, as by magic, flowing in altogether.
+
+Introductions were endless; every leading bird was followed by a flock,
+which neither host nor hostess had ever seen before; while, from time to
+time, the promised titles, those stars which were to give brilliancy to
+the night, made their appearance, sprinkling the common herd with
+consequence. Lady Flamborough! Sir William Orm! Sir Henry and Lady
+Shawbridge! Next appeared poor old General Powel and half blind Sir
+Francis Brierton, poking his little sharp nose into everybody's face,
+and smirking his recognition, when by so doing he had discovered who
+they were; and though last not least, Sir James Lindsey; least in
+consequence we mean, for he was a very little, very ugly man, the
+express image of the knave of spades. He was, however, a vastly
+important personage, a bachelor baronet, with fifteen thousand a-year,
+and a man of good family too, so that there was no objection whatever to
+him, except that he was a fool, and that when he danced he so capered
+and kicked up behind, and rounded his elbows, and, in short, made
+himself so completely the butt and laughing-stock of the whole room, it
+was with difficulty that even his fifteen thousand per annum could
+procure him a partner.
+
+We rather suspect, however, that there were ladies who, though they
+shrank from sharing with Sir James the unprofitable ridicule of the
+hour, would have had no objection to share with him for life his fifteen
+thousand a-year, for, in that case, they could afford to be laughed at.
+
+Sir James had a brother, a very fine young man, remarkably handsome and
+equally clever; perhaps a little too hot-headed, but warm-hearted
+withal; an enthusiast in beauty, painting, music, scenery, every thing
+in short at which a glowing imagination takes fire; the very material
+for a frantic lover, yet condemned by his circumstances, either to lead
+a single life, or possibly at least contract a marriage with the purse
+of some old rich widow, fitter to be his mother than his wife. For Henry
+Lindsey was one of the many living sacrifices hourly immolated on the
+altars of _pride_, and how many a holocaust has been offered up upon
+those altars!
+
+How often have we heard persons, who could argue rationally enough on
+other subjects, gravely assert, in reply to every argument which good
+feeling or justice could urge, "A family must have a head."
+
+In this particular instance the head, or _pride_ of the family, had
+proved its disgrace, yet standing laws and previously made settlements
+could not be altered. Fifteen thousand per annum, therefore, must be
+melted down, to make a golden image of poor little silly Sir James,
+while Henry, with the pittance which as a younger child was his portion,
+was obliged to purchase the privilege of being shot at; for the younger
+brother of an old baronet _could not disgrace his family_ by doing any
+thing likely to provide _comfortably for himself_.
+
+Thus do the _prejudices_ of society seem to have been invented for the
+express purpose of hunting down and crushing those whom its laws have
+robbed and oppressed.
+
+Children of the same parents must be defrauded of the birthright, by
+natural justice theirs, to heap all on one brother! And for what
+purpose? That he may keep alive, by being its living representative,
+that _pride_, that _curse_, which forbids to those so defrauded, the use
+of honest means for earning honest bread!
+
+If, instead of this, all property which had been a father's, were, at
+his death, equally divided among his offspring, without revolution or
+confiscation, extravagant disparity of station would gradually
+disappear, and with it _pride_, that destroys the happiness, with its
+whole array of _prejudices_, waging eternal warfare against rational
+contentment.
+
+How many are there who might still, even as the world now is, dwell
+within a very garden of Eden, of peaceful and natural delights, and yet
+who virtually turn themselves out of the same; and, at the mere mandate
+of some _prejudice_ of society--some _by-law_ of _pride_, become
+wanderers through the thistle-grown wildernesses of discontent, or weary
+pilgrims amid the thorny paths of petty mortification.
+
+But to return to our ball: by this time so fair a proportion of the
+company had arrived, that it was thought advisable to commence dancing.
+For this purpose Mr. Salter, with a feeling of exultation which made him
+forget, for the time, what the whole entertainment was likely to cost,
+led Lady Flamborough to the head of the room. Her ladyship had evidently
+been pretty in her youth; but though the remains of a fine woman may
+sometimes be viewed with a blending of admiration with our veneration,
+mere prettiness seldom grows old gracefully. In Lady Flamborough's case
+it certainly did not. Her once nicely rounded little figure had now
+outgrown all bounds, not excepting those of the drapery which ought to
+have concealed its exuberance. Her once infantine features were now
+nearly lost in the midst of a countenance disproportionally increased in
+its general dimensions; while in manner she still played off numberless
+once becoming, but now disgusting, airs of artless innocence;
+languishing, lisping, and rolling her eyes; and childishly twisting her
+fingers through the ringlets of her hair, while looking up in her
+partner's face, and saying silly things.
+
+Had it been possible to have checked coquetry in Lady Flamborough, the
+sight of the senseless bloated countenance on which she was thus casting
+away those interesting appeals of her visual orbs, one would have
+thought might have done so.
+
+Mr. Salter's head was in shape something like a sugar loaf: the region
+denominated fore-head, and appropriated by phrenologists to the
+intellectual faculties, being so confined, that it nearly came to a
+point, while the descent widened as it approached the organs of
+gustativeness, and all that called itself face, concluded without any
+distinct line of demarcation, in a jole, much resembling that of a
+cod-fish.
+
+The eyes were colourless, and owed all the brilliancy they possessed to
+an inflammation of the lids, which never forsook them. The efforts of
+their owner, on the present occasion, to give them a languishing roll,
+that should correspond with that of her ladyship's, was truly ludicrous.
+As to his mouth, it bisected his countenance from ear to ear, which
+rendered his endeavours to spread it wider by that bland movement
+designated a smile, nearly abortive.
+
+A few additional lines of circular or spherical trigonometry were
+conspicuously marked upon cheeks that yielded in carnation hue to nought
+save the nose; while this rallying point of the vital powers, like
+certain well-known altars of the ancients, never allowed the flame to
+go out.
+
+Mr. Salter was exceedingly proud of his legs, (not that he had seen them
+himself for the last ten years), and though short for his body, which
+by-the-by had precisely the appearance of a Brobdingnag melon on
+castors, the legs themselves, when you were distant enough to have a
+view of them beneath the inflated balloon that otherwise concealed them,
+were certainly formed according to the rules of beauty; that is to say,
+they had very large calves, and very small ankles.
+
+We suppose it must have been the combined effect of the personal charms
+and the elevated rank of his partner, which raised Mr. Salter's spirits
+to so inconvenient a degree, as to produce in his mind a most frisky
+longing to behold, once more, this long remembered attraction of his
+own--his said handsome legs. Accordingly, while setting to the lady, he
+made several kicks out in front, with accompanying jerks forward of the
+head, in the vain hope of catching a glimpse; but, alas, in one
+unfortunate effort more strenuous than the rest, he lost his balance;
+out flew his feet, and down he came on his back, so much to the
+amusement of the whole room that no one for a time had the presence of
+mind to pick him up: while there he lay, sprawling and puffing, his own
+endeavours to rise being quite as fruitless as those of a beetle usually
+are, when placed in the same reversed position by a mischievous
+school-boy. Neither was the evening by any means one of unmixed delight
+to the Misses Salter. It was but too evident that even on the present
+occasion, when, if ever compliment was due to them, that the gentlemen
+evinced any thing but impatience to secure the felicity of being their
+partners. On the contrary, it was generally when a quadrille was nearly
+made up, and the last added couple were in great distress for a
+_vis-a-vis_, that some one who had previously made up his mind not to
+dance, was pressed into the service, and given a hint that one of the
+Miss Salters was sitting down.
+
+Even Sir James, though he did dance a set with each sister, did not do
+so till he had been shaken off by nearly every other woman in the room.
+
+The Scotch proverb says, "It's a lucky lass that's like her father."
+
+But we must confess, we never could discover that it was any advantage
+to Miss Salter to be so strikingly like her father as she certainly
+was. Miss Grace Salter was altogether of a different style; she was
+under-sized, pitiably thin, and extremely dark, with an expression of
+countenance as if she had just swallowed something unseasonably bitter,
+and was making a face at its disagreeable flavour. The set with Sir
+James could not much sooth the vanity of either sister, for no sooner
+did he commence operations, than a ring was immediately formed for the
+avowed purpose of laughing at him; while he, mistaking the general
+attention he drew for admiration, seemed gratefully determined to spare
+no pains to give the greatest possible satisfaction to his numerous
+spectators.
+
+The Misses Salter had also another source of uneasiness this evening. At
+all times their greatest earthly apprehension, next to that of not
+getting husbands themselves, was, lest their father should marry, and
+cut them out of a small sum, which not having been swallowed up in the
+purchase of the estate for John, he had promised to divide between them
+unless indeed he married again. His doing so seemed this evening more
+probable than ever it had done before. The roll of his eye, while
+looking at Lady Flamborough, had become quite ominous, while her
+ladyship's air of condescension was truly alarming.
+
+"Now it would be too bad, would it not?" said Miss Salter to Miss Grace
+Salter, as they were undressing, "if after all, this ball that we have
+been so long teazing at my father to give, and that he thinks so much
+about the expense of, should turn out to be our own ruin in the end."
+
+"Why, I am afraid, to be sure," replied her sister, "if he marries he
+won't leave us the money, or else it would be a grand connection!
+wouldn't it? We'd be sure to be visited by every body then."
+
+"That we should, no doubt," said Miss Salter, "but what of that, we
+shouldn't have a shilling in the world, comparatively speaking, when my
+father dies--and as for John--"
+
+"He wouldn't give us a shilling if we were starving!" observed Miss
+Grace.
+
+By John, they meant their brother. And, by-the-by, one of the reasons,
+in addition to their want of beauty, why these ladies were paid so
+little attention to by the gentlemen, was, that it was well known, Mr.
+Salter had a cub of a son, on whom he meant, in imitation of his
+betters, to heap the earnings and savings of his life, for the purpose,
+as he himself expressed it, of making a family: and, for that matter he
+didn't see why a man mightn't be prouder of being the first of his name
+to do so, than if he was come of a family ready made to his hand a
+thousand years ago! for sure, they must all have had a beginning one
+time or other.
+
+But as to being the first of his name to have a rise in the world, he
+was not so clear of that neither: he had often heard talk of a Lord
+Salter or Salisbury, or something beginning with an S; and he might
+become a lord, one time or other, for any thing he knew to the contrary.
+
+But be that as it may, "he wasn't going to have his money, that he had
+been a lifetime scraping together, squandered by idle fellows that were
+nothing at all akin to him, but would just come and marry his daughters
+to get hold of the cash."
+
+"But supposing, Sir, we shouldn't get married at all," said Miss Salter
+one day.
+
+"Nothing more likely," replied her father. "As for Grace, she is
+certainly as plain a girl as I'd desire to see any day. And I don't know
+how it is, you're not very handsome neither, tho' you're thought so like
+me."
+
+These observations of Mr. Salter's about being the first of his family
+were, by the particular desire of his daughters, strictly confined to
+his own fireside. There was no occasion, they argued, to make any such
+confession in a place like Cheltenham, where nobody knew anything about
+people, but what they choose to say of themselves. Accordingly, they
+made family their constant theme; and inquired with the most
+consequential airs about the connections of every one they heard named;
+always winding up their harangue by observing, that of course it was
+very natural for a man like their father, of such an ancient and highly
+respectable family, to be very particular about who they visited,
+particularly in those sorts of places where people of every description
+congregated.
+
+"It's no harm, you know," said Miss Salter to her sister, "to have the
+name of being particular, it makes people of consequence; at the same
+time I'd have us get acquainted with every creature we can, and go
+everywhere; there's no knowing where one might find one's luck."
+
+"Talking of luck," answered Grace, "I read in one of the new novels the
+other day, that 'luck knocks once at every one's door;' I wish it would
+knock once at mine, I know, and it shouldn't have to knock again."
+
+"And, by-the-by, was it quite prudent of us, on your plan, to cut Mrs.
+Dorothea Arden as we have done?"
+
+"Oh, yes; what's the use of an old maid, she can have no sons, you know;
+besides, we didn't cut her till Lady Whaleworthy, and Lady Flamborough,
+and Lady Shawbridge, and all of them, had called; and then I thought we
+could spare such old lumber as Mrs. Dorothea."
+
+"Why, to be sure, as you say, she can have no sons; indeed I never even
+heard her speak of a brother or a nephew; and as to her expecting this
+Lady Arden that she is always talking about, I am sure its nothing but a
+boast."
+
+"Nothing more you may be certain! And then I was afraid my father would
+have taken a fancy to her at last, for he was always saying, she was a
+fine woman for her years."
+
+"She was very useful however at first," said Grace.
+
+"Oh yes she was, certainly," replied Miss Salter, "but now you know we
+don't want her."
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER V.
+
+
+Lady Arden, leaning on her son Alfred, her eldest daughter on the other
+side, her two younger following, had just entered the ballroom at
+Almacks.
+
+The sisters, we have already said, were beautiful. They were all above
+the middle height, and finely formed; remarkably fair, with brilliant
+complexions, and very beautiful light brown hair.
+
+Jane, the eldest, had her mother's amiable, mild, regular features, and
+soft, modest, hazel eyes.
+
+Louisa, the second, much resembled her sister in the form of her
+features, except that her mouth was a very little larger, the lips
+fuller, and of a more vivid red, and the smile more conscious. Her eyes
+were of a grey colour, clear and sparkling; but in their expression
+there was too much of triumph, while her very blush had something in it
+of the same character; you felt, you knew not why, that it did not arise
+altogether from timidity.
+
+Her beauty, however, was perfectly exquisite; there was a rich
+luxuriance, a beaming lustre about her whole appearance, which seemed to
+gain by contrast with others, whom, while viewed separately, you had
+thought as handsome. It was like the undefinable distinction between
+the brilliant and its best imitations, most clearly seen when subjected
+to the ordeal of comparison.
+
+Madeline, the youngest, had a rounder face than her sisters, the
+features not quite so fine, yet lovely in their own perfectly innocent
+joyousness; while beautifying dimples accompanied her smiles, and fairy
+cupids danced in her laughing eyes.
+
+The sisters always dressed alike: on the present occasion, they all wore
+white lace over white satin; the lighter or outer drapery looped up on
+one side with a bunch of white roses, mixed with lilies of the valley:
+and a few of the same flowers in the hair on the contrary side. A set of
+diamonds each, unusually costly for girls, but which, by a whim of their
+maternal grandfather, they happened to possess, were their only
+ornaments.
+
+Lady Arden had never, since her widowhood, returned to colours; her
+invariable costume was black velvet; her diamonds, however, yielded in
+magnificence to those of royalty only. So that, what with the faces
+being quite new, and the appearance of the group altogether, not
+forgetting the handsome Alfred, was such as to excite considerable
+attention, even amid an assembly like the present, where youth, beauty,
+fashion, and splendour, habitually congregate.
+
+Willoughby was too important a personage to form one of the family
+picture. He was in the room, however, having just arrived in attendance
+on a party with whom he had dined.
+
+A young lady of remarkable beauty was leaning on his arm. He addressed
+her from time to time with great animation; while she appeared to listen
+with the most languid indifference. Young Lord Nelthorpe, one of their
+nearest neighbours at Arden, now approached our party. Jane had noticed
+him for some time, and, on first doing so, had coloured deeply. They had
+not met before since their arrival in town. He came up to our party, was
+very polite, and even friendly, but not quite as cordial as might have
+been expected. He conversed with Lady Arden for a little time. Music
+commenced, he made a slight bow, and moving quickly towards a lady at a
+little distance, led her to the quadrille. Jane had been so perfectly
+certain that he intended to dance with her, that when the music began,
+she had instinctively drawn her arm half way from within her mother's.
+Her disappointment was bitter, and arose from a feeling much deeper than
+the mere loss of a partner for the dance could have excited.
+
+From her earliest childhood she had been in the habit of hearing her own
+family speak of Lord Nelthorpe as a very suitable match. As children
+together, they had been quite little lovers. Public schools and colleges
+had broken off this familiarity of intercourse. He had, however, since
+arriving at the age of manhood, often paid her a good deal of attention
+in the country, where he had nothing else to do; and in some of the
+summer evening walks of the young people, a declaration had more than
+once seemed to tremble on his lips; still nothing decided had passed;
+and poor Jane's heart had been given away, some couple of years before
+she had begun to doubt the sincerity of his attachment, or the certainty
+of their future union. And why was Jane mistaken? Because, society being
+artificially constituted, the language of nature cannot explain the
+motives which govern its members; nor our own feelings, till we too
+become sophisticated, teach us to calculate upon those of others.
+
+The attention of Alfred was just at this moment attracted by the
+appearance of the younger of two ladies, who were standing at a little
+distance. They were evidently, from their striking resemblance, mother
+and daughter. The stature of both was rather above the middle height;
+that of the elder, from its queen-like carriage, and its being a little
+disposed to embonpoint, had a strikingly imposing and majestic effect;
+while that of the younger, though perfectly formed and beautifully
+rounded, was so delicate in its proportions, and so timid in its air, as
+to require comparison to convince the eye that the actual elevation was
+the same. The features of both were so regular, that it would be
+impossible for the scrutiny of the nicest artist, to discover a defect;
+but those of the elder were of a lustrous, conspicuous white, as though
+chiseled in Parian marble; those of the younger of a stainless
+transparency, as if modelled in the purest wax; the lips only of both
+were of a lively red; those of the elder, perhaps, a little too thin,
+but boasting the glossy scarlet of the coral; while those of the
+younger, full and bewitching in their expression, were of the tender
+tint of the rose's ambrosial centre. The hair, eye-brows, and eye-lashes
+of both were absolute jet; but while the firm braiding of the elder
+lady's tresses betrayed the usual defect of black hair--strength of
+texture--the raven ringlets of the younger rivalled the flaxen locks of
+childhood in their silken softness. The line of her eye-brow, too, was
+the most delicately penciled, and her eye-lashes the longest, or they
+seemed so, her eyes being cast down; while those of the elder lady were
+raised and fully visible. They were dark, large, and brilliant; but the
+supercilious vanity with which they moved slowly round, courting the
+universal admiration they drew towards them, without once shrinking from
+its glare, made it impossible for their lustre, splendid as it was, to
+reach any heart.
+
+Alfred observed an elderly gentleman with whom he was acquainted join
+the two ladies, and converse for a time with the air of an old intimate
+of the elder. As soon as he quitted them Alfred joined him; and with as
+much circumlocution, preparation, and management, as though he had in
+view nothing less than the place of prime minister, demanded if he
+could venture to introduce him to his fair friends, as a candidate for
+the hand of the younger lady for the next quadrille. Nothing could be
+easier: Lord Darlingford was intimate with the parties; accordingly, he
+presented our hero to Lady Palliser and her daughter, Lady Caroline
+Montague.
+
+The eyes of the latter were, at the moment of introduction, of necessity
+lifted to Alfred's face. In colour, size, and liquid lustre they
+resembled her mother's; but oh, how unlike were they in their mild,
+beseeching expression; and in the tremulous movement of the lids; which,
+as if weighed down by their sable veil of silken lashes, hastened again
+to overshadow them. The transparent cheek too, at the same instant that
+the eyes were raised, had been visited by a deep blush; gifting, though
+but for a fleeting instant, this beautiful, this almost too unearthly
+being with the warm glow of life.
+
+The effect on Alfred of the momentary vision was decisive of his fate.
+
+During the dance, to which this introduction led, the snatches of most
+exquisite pleasure experienced by our hero were when, by directly
+addressing his partner, he could again induce her to look up. On each
+such occasion, the beseeching expression already described, excited,
+despite the cooler suggestions of reason, a feeling as though the gentle
+appeal were addressed to him in particular. What was there so entreated
+that he would not have undertaken? The most difficult feats of ancient
+chivalry, nay, the impossibilities of necromancy itself, would have
+seemed tasks of easy performance in such a cause! His beautiful partner
+said very little; yet, from her general demeanour, and the fluttering
+frequency with which her changing colour came and went, it might be
+inferred that her reserve was neither that of haughtiness, nor of cold
+calculation, but rather an excess of almost painful timidity. This
+reserve, however, did not affect her performance of the quadrille, which
+was perfect; it was the harmony of motion realized. The absolute
+accordance was such that it seemed to be the influence of the musical
+sounds on the undulating air, which wafted the light form, "like the
+thistle-down floating on the breeze," through each evolution of the
+dance. Or when called upon to quit her original position in the
+quadrille for a few seconds and again return to it, such was the quiet
+grace with which she executed the task, that it seemed as though the
+delicate vision, fading away like Scott's White Lady of the Mist, had
+but ceased for a moment to be visible, and, in a moment more, again
+became palpable to sight.
+
+From time to time she looked at Lady Palliser; not, however, as though
+it were there she sought a refuge; for, on the contrary, there was an
+indescribable something in the manner of the glance, which conveyed the
+idea that her ladyship was the principal object of her daughter's fears.
+Yet again, the moment the quadrille was concluded, Lady Caroline
+expressed a wish to rejoin her mother. Lady Palliser received our hero
+with a coldness that very soon made him feel obliged to take himself
+off. At once captivated and mortified, he felt disinclined to dance any
+more, and rather disposed to indulge in reveries, while pursuing with
+his eyes the form of his new acquaintance through the moving crowd.
+Instead, however, of reclining indolently on a sofa, or lounging about
+with other men, he devoted himself, in the most amiable manner possible,
+to his mother and sisters for the remainder of the evening; and though
+they found him somewhat deaf, performed, when they did make him hear,
+any little service they required of him with great alacrity.
+Notwithstanding which, ere the evening was over, each of his sisters had
+severally informed him that he was already in love. Such secrets are
+generally discovered by others before they are known to the parties
+themselves.
+
+A friend of Lady Arden's, forgetful that her ladyship objected on
+principle to all younger sons, _except her own_, had introduced Henry
+Lindsey to Louisa. Her exquisite beauty dazzled and delighted him, while
+her gratified vanity, at the enthusiasm of his admiration, made her
+manner so encouraging, that he believed himself well received, and gave
+himself up to hopes and feelings destined to cost him many a bitter
+pang.
+
+Lord Darlingford, though a widower and a man, by his own account upwards
+of fifty, was much disposed, on the strength of his rank, to be a
+serious admirer of Jane Arden. This evening he found himself better
+received than usual; he did not deem it necessary to make a fool of
+himself by dancing, but was sitting apart with the lady, conversing very
+earnestly, and was just beginning to weigh the propriety of availing
+himself of so favourable an opportunity for making her an offer of
+marriage, when Lord Nelthorpe came up and asked her to dance. The moment
+before she had determined, if he did do so at this late period of the
+evening, to reject his offer. As soon, however, as he approached, and
+preferred his request, her spirited resolve vanished: with one of her
+sweetest smiles she rose and took his arm, and in the flurry of her
+spirits, forgetting to make even a parting bow to poor Lord Darlingford,
+left him sitting alone, looking what he was, quite forsaken, and cursing
+himself for an old fool.
+
+Lord Nelthorpe now took pains to be particularly agreeable, and either
+from vanity or lingering attachment, was evidently anxious to discover
+if he still retained the power he knew he had long possessed over the
+feelings of his fair partner. He made allusions to her late companion,
+and half jest, half earnest, ventured several whispered comments, almost
+amounting to tender reproaches, watching her countenance while he did
+so. As he handed her into the carriage, he secretly wished, with
+something like a sigh, that he had no brothers and sisters to pay off.
+She went home in high spirits.
+
+"I wish, Jane," said Lady Arden, as they drove from the door, "you would
+make up your mind to marry Lord Darlingford."
+
+Jane made no reply.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+The next morning Willoughby confided to his brother the determination he
+had come to on the last evening, of proposing for Lady Anne Armadale,
+the daughter of Lord Selby.
+
+He described with great exultation how much attached the lady had been
+to a gentleman of whom her friends disapproved, and whom she was
+notwithstanding determined to marry up to the time he had become his
+rival; but that he had not been long in driving the former lover from
+the field, and securing the preference of the lady.
+
+Alfred, in his anxiety for his brother's happiness, forgot for the
+moment his usual dread of offering advice.
+
+"For heaven sake," he said, "Willoughby, pause! Be _quite_ certain that
+you have secured her real preference!"
+
+"I _am_ quite certain," said Willoughby, taking up his hat impatiently.
+
+"Nay, do not be hasty either with the lady or with me."
+
+"You think it is impossible for any woman to prefer me, I suppose. I
+have, I confess, no pretensions to be an Adonis," he added with a sneer,
+for he knew that Alfred was considered remarkably handsome; "at the same
+time all people's taste are fortunately not alike!"
+
+"Nay, my dear Willoughby, do not be childish! Is it not wiser to use a
+little caution? Have you no fear of finding yourself, when too late, the
+husband of a woman capable of sacrificing her feelings to her interest?"
+
+Willoughby abruptly quitted the room. He went directly to Lord Selby's,
+and in less than an hour had proposed for, and been accepted by Lady
+Anne Armadale.
+
+Unhappily for Willoughby, the slender share of sense he possessed was
+not only at all times hoodwinked by vanity, but in general superseded in
+its operations by temper. For if any friend happened to offer him the
+slightest advice, so jealous was he of having it supposed his judgment
+required assistance, that, without waiting to consider if any offence
+was intended, he would feel perhaps but a momentary resentment, yet,
+while under its dominion, as the readiest and most appropriate revenge,
+would resolve hastily on an opposite line of conduct to that suggested
+by his adviser; and having once so resolved, obstinacy would put its
+seal on a determination which in fact had never been examined by his
+understanding, while had there been no interference, he would at least
+have considered the subject, and might, possibly, have come to a just
+conclusion.
+
+A man of a decidedly superior mind, on the contrary, having no private
+misgivings respecting his own capacity, is always well pleased to take
+under consideration any new views of a subject, which the suggestions of
+a friend, or indeed of any one, may present. It is of course his own
+judgment which finally decides, but like a just judge, after first
+hearing every witness, that is to say every argument which can be
+brought to bear upon the subject. Acuteness in prejudging is the boast
+of the fool. Discrimination to give its due weight to every part of the
+evidence, the privilege of the man of sense. The fool is always telling
+you he can see with half an eye. We would request such persons to employ
+in future the whole of both orbs, and possibly with a vision so
+extraordinary, they might be enabled to pierce even to the bottom of
+that far-famed well, in which it is said that truth has hitherto lain
+hid from the researches of mankind.
+
+Certainly no claim to merit or distinction can be more absurd than that
+which is founded on the wilfully limited means employed for producing
+the desired end.
+
+Excellence, to challenge admiration, should be excellence in the
+abstract; while he who would be even a respectable candidate for the
+prize, should use every power that Providence has given to man, avail
+himself of every ray of light that the experience of past ages has
+elicited, and bringing all to a focus, pour the concentrated beam on the
+path to be explored.
+
+Thus only can each generation hope to gain some step on the road towards
+perfection unattained by its predecessor.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+Gloucester Villa, the residence of Mr. Salter, at Cheltenham, was in a
+state of high preparation for a dinner to be given to Lady Flamborough.
+
+Mrs. Johnson had no leisure to assist the _young_ ladies to dress, they
+were therefore left to perform that office for each other.
+
+"By-the-by, I have been so much hurried, I forgot to tell you," said
+Grace, "but Lady Arden is now really coming: Mrs. Dorothea's maid has
+been telling Johnson all about it."
+
+"Oh, I dare say it's just talk as usual," said Miss Salter.
+
+"No, no, it's quite certain now," persisted her sister, "for Violet Bank
+is taken for her ladyship for six months certain, and the adjoining
+villa, Jessamine Bower, for another titled lady; and I daresay they'll
+be acquainted, so you see what we've lost!"
+
+"Well, that is really provoking!" exclaimed Miss Salter. "I wonder would
+there be any use in sending her an invitation for this evening?"
+
+"Sending who an invitation?" said Grace. "Mrs. Dorothea do you mean? Oh,
+quite ridiculous at this late hour; and after leaving her out of the
+ball too!"
+
+"I know all that," replied Miss Salter; "but let me see, I'll write her
+a long apology about having sent a card for our ball to her old lodging
+in mistake! and for the short notice I'll say, that I know she likes
+friendly invitations better than formal ones, and that our party this
+evening is to be so particularly select, just what I know she likes; and
+then I'll give a list of the titles, and that I think will decide her,
+even if she does see through the excuses."
+
+Accordingly Miss Salter, in great triumph at her own diplomatic
+abilities, wrote and dispatched her note.
+
+"After all," she added, as she resumed her toilette, "these are
+sorrowful rejoicings for us, for I suppose with this fine lady coming to
+dinner, and being so gracious, and all that, she means to marry my
+father; and if she does, though to be sure it'ill bring fine
+acquaintance, I suppose, but will it bring us husbands?--on the
+contrary, if it gets abroad that we're not to have a shilling--"
+
+"We'll have but a poor chance, I'm afraid," interrupted Grace.
+
+"But I'll tell you what I have done to endeavour to obviate that," said
+her sister; "I have been telling Johnson, and I have told her too that
+she may tell it where she pleases, for it's no harm that the truth
+should be known, that our mother's fortune was a hundred thousand
+pounds, and was so settled upon us that my father can't keep it from us;
+and she has begun already with Sir William Orm's man, and he has told
+his master, and Sir William is full of it; so we shall see how he
+behaves to-day."
+
+"But what a shocking lie!" said Grace.
+
+"Lie! Nonsense!" replied her sister, "Who tells the truth, I'd be glad
+to know?"
+
+Here the answer to the note interrupted the conversation. It was of
+course a formal apology. Mrs. Dorothea had not been at a loss to see
+through the motives of her _friends_ the Salters.
+
+The _young_ ladies now descended to the drawing-room, where Mr. Salter
+was already standing at a window, in high dress; with the bright white,
+angular points of a fresh put on collar, contrasting finely with the
+shining ruby of his cheeks. A carriage with a coronet drove up to the
+door; bless me, how fine! thought the Misses Salter; it was almost
+enough to reconcile their father's marrying again.
+
+Lady Flamborough was announced. Her ladyship entered; her round, fat,
+rosy face, smiling in a round wreath of red roses. Her dress, a colour
+de rose satin, her ornaments, necklace and earrings of pink topaz.
+
+The broad daylight, or rather sunshine, of the first day in May, in
+weather unusually fine, and even hot for the season, in a three
+windowed, south-west drawing room, at six o'clock, did ample justice to
+the glow of her ladyship's appearance, which nothing less than the
+entrance, immediately after, of Lady Whaleworthy, in a crimson velvet,
+could have at all subdued.
+
+Lady Shawbridge arrived next. Her dress was a gold coloured velvet, and
+gold tissue turban, the wide circumference of which displayed the fiery
+countenance hinted at by Mrs. Dorothea to great advantage. Indeed the
+whole assembly was of a fiery order; although being, as we have said,
+hot weather, there was no occasion for fire. But the very furniture of
+the room, unluckily for the day and aspect, was crimson, while in
+addition to the red and reddish countenances already enumerated, Miss
+Salter's face, on all warm occasions like the present, was much too apt
+to emulate the glow of her father's. While even poor Miss Grace, though
+in general, from hardness and thinness, a chilly object, was subject
+with peculiar provocation, to a dullish red knob, like a winter cherry,
+just at the end of her nose.
+
+The rest of the party having arrived, and among them Sir William Orm,
+Sir James Lindsey, Sir Francis Brierton, and the general, dinner was
+announced. Mr. Salter gave his arm to Lady Flamborough, and leading the
+way, was followed by the rest of the company, to the dining-room; which,
+having the same aspect as the drawing-room, and being, besides over the
+kitchen, was by no means calculated to cool the already heated guests.
+The two turtles, we mean Mr. Salter and Lady Flamborough, every way so
+well _entitled_ to the _title_, being in their forms turtles, and in
+their present dispositions towards each other turtle doves, took their
+loving seats side by side, opposite to the turtle-soup, at the head of
+the table. (Men who have no wives of course head their own tables.)
+
+The dinner having been entirely provided at so much a-head, by a
+pastrycook, who was to remove its remains, was of course only too good,
+we mean too fine, too much ornamented, too technical; in fact the
+display of each course resembled more a confectioner's counter than a
+gentleman's table. Every thing, in short, was so befrosted, and so
+beglazed, that if one had been at all absent, one might have put one's
+hand in one's pocket, and asked what was to pay.
+
+It is an acknowledged fact, that to act the gentleman is impossible. It
+is equally impossible for people, though possessed of the purse of
+Fortunatus, to ape successfully, on special occasions, a style of living
+not habitual to them.
+
+We hope we have not cooled the turtle-soup by our digression. Poor Mr.
+Salter, instead of quietly conveying ladles of soup to soup-plates, till
+the demand ceased, was most unnecessarily prolonging his own labours,
+and delaying the progress of the feast, by deliberately inquiring of
+every several member of the assembly by name, if they chose turtle-soup,
+and poising the while, his insignia of office over the tureen, till
+their ear caught the question and his the reply.
+
+By the time similar rites had been performed over every steaming remove,
+it may be believed that the countenance of our host had lost nothing of
+its brilliancy. During the dessert he had more leisure to turn its
+lustre, adorned with smiles, on his fair companion; whose uplifted eyes
+languishingly met his, till there wanted but the pipe to make the pair
+an excellent study for a painter of the Dutch school. The attitude too,
+leaning back at their ease in their chairs, so favourably displayed
+their forms, that the couple in this particular very much resembled a
+_pair of globes_; though we must confess that, except in courtesy to the
+lady, we should not have been disposed to designate either the
+celestial.
+
+Sir William Orm, who had handed in Miss Salter, was descanting with
+much feeling on the interested motives which governed the matrimonial
+views of but too many men in the world, and declaring that such must
+ever be secondary considerations with him. Miss Salter confessed that
+amiable sentiments like his were very rare now a days, and consequently
+the more to be admired. On the opposite side, Sir James Lindsey was
+giggling with silly self-satisfaction, as he sat receiving the assiduous
+attentions and pointed compliments of Miss Grace. While Lady Shawbridge
+was remarking aside to Sir Matthias Whaleworthy, that Lady Flamborough's
+youthful airs were quite disgusting; and Sir Matthias in return, made
+some comments on Mr. Salter's dancing, which sounded very ungrateful,
+proceeding from lips which had just finished a _second_ plate of the
+man's turtle-soup.
+
+Lady Whaleworthy, good soul, was telling Sir Henry Shawbridge one of the
+long stories about herself, her father and mother, brothers and sisters,
+husband, children, and servants, which she inflicted on all who had the
+misfortune to sit near, and the patience to listen to her.
+
+Ere the ladies left the dining-room, the now completely enamoured Mr.
+Salter had determined, that in the course of the evening he would take a
+sly opportunity of making Lady Flamborough an offer of his heart and
+hand. Alas! how vain are human resolves, when we know not what an hour
+or at most an hour and a half may bring forth; for it could not have
+exceeded that time, when the gentlemen followed the ladies to the
+drawing-room, and yet Mr. Salter's visual organs by some process,
+possibly connected with a certain series of toasts, which despite of
+fashion, he might have felt it his duty to propose, had in that short
+period undergone such an extraordinary change, that when he approached
+what ought to have been the _sole_ object of his affections, he beheld
+as it were two Lady Flamboroughs, sitting, or rather attempting to sit,
+on the same chair! He gazed in utter amazement, and strove to
+concentrate the powers of sight: for a second the mysterious vision
+amalgamated, and was but one! again, however, it glided asunder, and
+became two! nor did this happen but once, so as to leave any room for
+doubt or mistake, on the contrary, while our astonished host still stood
+staring, the extraordinary process was frequently repeated. Nay, once,
+as lured by the smiles of the fair shadow nearest him, he ventured to
+address some complimentary remark to its ear in particular, it slid away
+as if for refuge behind its representative, and immediately after popped
+in view on the other side!
+
+Whether it is that supernatural appearances have a tendency to awe the
+passions into stillness, or whether this glaring infringement on the
+classical laws of unity, by dividing, destroyed the interest; or whether
+possibly, some vague dread of being betrayed unconsciously into the sin
+of bigamy, might have presented itself to the imagination of Mr. Salter,
+we have not philosophical lore nor critical acumen sufficient to decide;
+we can only speak to the effect, which was, that Mr. Salter, instead of
+finding with this double provocation a double share of love inundating
+his heart and overflowing his lips, was struck perfectly mute, and
+continued so for the remainder of the evening.
+
+So much for lovers continuing their libations at Bacchus' shrine until
+they see double.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+"Well, there is nothing like getting into _select_ society after all!"
+said Miss Salter to her sister, when they had retired for the night.
+"Who would have thought, six months ago, of both of us having baronets
+for lovers? I dare say you are right, Grace, and that this marriage of
+my father's (for I suppose now it will take place), is the best thing
+that could have happened for us. And I know, I'm determined when I'm
+married to Sir William Orm (and he has gone great lengths, I assure
+you), that I will visit none but titled people. And tell me, how did
+you and Sir James get on?"
+
+"Oh, delightfully!" answered her sister, "he asked me if I thought him
+very handsome; and of course I said I did; and then he laughed so. And
+then he asked me if I thought the silk of his waistcoat a pretty
+pattern; and I said I did; and he told me a lady chose it for him. And
+he asked me if I was inclined to be jealous; and I said if I thought he
+had any regard for me, I'd be jealous of every lady that looked at him;
+and he said, 'would you indeed?' and laughed again. And he asked me if I
+admired his dancing as much as most people did, for that he was thought
+a first rate dancer; and I said that nobody could help admiring his
+dancing. And he asked me if I could think what in the world it was that
+made so many young ladies refuse to dance with him; and I said it was,
+to be sure, because he danced so well that they were afraid it would
+make their own bad dancing the more noticed. 'And do you really think
+so?' said he, laughing again. And so, at last, only think! he asked me
+if I'd like very much to be my lady! and I said I should of all things.
+And so then he laughed, and said he could make any body a lady he
+chose."
+
+"And I hope you said you wished he'd make you one," interrupted her
+sister.
+
+"Why I thought of it," replied Miss Grace, "but I was afraid people
+would hear me; if we had been quite by ourselves, I would have said it."
+
+"What nonsense!" exclaimed Miss Salter. "If you can get to be my lady,
+and have fifteen thousand a-year at your command, I think you can
+afford to defy people's comments about how you came by it! You said, the
+other day, that if luck knocked once at your door, it shouldn't have to
+knock twice. I'm sure it knocked then, with a vengeance, and such a
+knock as comes to the doors of but few, I can tell you; and you the fool
+not to answer it. It's such as you'll never hear again, with your little
+ugly black-a-moor face. And when you had the good fortune to get hold of
+a fool that didn't know the difference, if you dosed his draught with
+flattery enough, you should have said or done anything to please him,
+blockhead that you are."
+
+"You needn't be so abusive, Eliza," said poor Grace, almost whimpering,
+"I'm sure I thought I was barefaced enough, this time, to please you."
+
+"Such stuff, with your mock modesty," interrupted Miss Salter.
+
+"And as for a black face, it's as good as a red one, any day," continued
+Grace, "and rather _genteeler_ for that matter," she added, "since
+you're grown so mighty fond of gentility."
+
+Miss Salter's rage now knew no bounds, and consequently became so coarse
+and disgusting in its manifestation, that we shall forbear any further
+representation of the scene.
+
+Vulgar people are bad enough in good humour. Propitious fate deliver us
+from them when they are out of temper!
+
+Before proceeding further with our history, we may as well take the
+present opportunity of sketching slightly the origin of this same titled
+personage, by a connection with whom the Misses Salter expected to gain
+so much consequence. Lady Flamborough was the only child of an
+hotel-keeper, who, in his hospitable calling, had amassed enormous
+wealth. He had not always, however, been the great man, even in his own
+line, which he ultimately became. His daughter, therefore, to the age of
+five or six, was brought up, literally running about in a very minor
+establishment, little better, in short, than a road-side posting-house;
+and, being a pretty, rosy, fat child, had, up to that age, been the pet
+and plaything, not only of her father, (she had no mother living), but
+of every waiter and hostler in and about the house. And often had she
+sat on her father's knee, while he drank his ale in the bar, and, when
+the jest and the tale went round, which were, as yet, to the ear of the
+child, a foreign tongue, laughed merrily for very glee at seeing others
+laugh. But alas! amid the sounds and sights of scenes like these, native
+delicacy, even at this early age, was lost. For callousness is not so
+much a wrong bias given, as a class of feelings, out of which some of
+the most valuable traits of character are hereafter to be formed,
+destroyed; and if the material be gone, how can the superstructure be
+raised?
+
+The child was, after this, sent to expensive boarding-schools, and as
+her father's fortunes rose, given every possible accomplishment. In
+these, and her being very pretty, Mr. * * * *, afterwards Lord
+Flamborough, but then a younger brother, and of course poor, found some
+apology for overlooking the lady's want of birth, and appropriating her
+immense wealth, which was his true object.
+
+Soon after his marriage, his brother died, and he succeeded to the title
+and estates; and now, bitterly repenting his ill-assorted union,
+behaved with neglect, and even contempt, towards his wife. Upon which
+the lady, partly out of revenge, and partly out of levity, gave a
+favourable reception to the addresses of a lover in no very exalted
+sphere of life.
+
+Proceedings were immediately instituted to obtain legal redress; but
+before the divorce had passed the house, his lordship, who had
+previously been in a bad state of health, chanced to die.
+
+Lady Flamborough, therefore, though of course banished from all tolerable
+society, still continued to be Lady Flamborough, and to enjoy a handsome
+jointure. On her total expulsion from the set among whom her marriage
+had, for a time, given her a place, she descended till she found her
+level among that, rationally speaking, only disreputable class, made up
+of those who have lost caste by their own wilful departures from
+principle, and those who are contemptible enough to be willing to
+associate with vice, for the love of the _tarnished tinsel_ which once
+was rank; forgetful that titles and honours were first invented as
+badges of the virtuous or heroic deeds of those on whom they were
+bestowed; that only as such they have any meaning; and that, when borne
+by the vicious, they become, in a peculiar degree, objects for the
+finger of scorn to point at, and seem to claim, as their especial
+privilege, the contempt and derision of mankind.
+
+  "'Tis phrase absurd to call a villain great."
+
+Titles are attainted for high treason, why should they not be so for
+every treason against good morals? Are not good morals as essential to
+the well-being of the community as good Government?
+
+Nay, what is Government? Power to enforce moral order. Why then should
+not a sin against the end be visited as severely as a sin against the
+means?
+
+Are men, whose vices invade the peace of the domestic hearth, and sunder
+the sacred ties of life,--or men who court luxury in foreign climes,
+while evading the payment of their just debts at home; consigning the
+while industrious tradesmen and their helpless families to ruin;--are
+men, in short, who are no longer men of honour, to be still misnamed
+_noble men_? Is it not the natural tendency of such misnomers to bring
+nobility into contempt? And is not this an injustice to the truly
+_noble_?
+
+Are the vicious to be allowed to sully honours till the honourable
+cannot wear them?
+
+Nobility would indeed be beautiful were it a guarantee of virtue! titles
+would indeed be honours, if the men who bore them must be pure! And if
+the certainty that those titles for ages had existed in that family,
+were thus an assurance that morality for centuries had not been sinned
+against in that house, then indeed, would rank be nobility. Let us not
+be misunderstood: let us not be supposed to mean that men of rank are
+more likely to offend against the laws of morality than other men; on
+the contrary, education and circumstances ought to render them less so:
+we simply assert, that when they do so offend, such offence ought to
+degrade them from their rank as _noble men_.
+
+How glorious would be that land that first enacted such a law! how
+worthy its monarch of that greatest of his titles, "Defender of the
+Faith!" For what is this faith? Religion! and the author of Religion has
+defined it thus:
+
+"True religion and undefiled, before God and the Father is this: to
+visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and keep himself
+unspotted from the world."
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+Mrs. Dorothea had been so busy all day, changing her lodgings again,
+that she had hardly had time to ask Sarah a word about the Salters'
+dinner-party.
+
+On this occasion, however, we must remark, that she had moved to a
+furnished house, not to a mere lodging; for she was determined to make
+an exertion, while the Ardens were in Cheltenham, live how she might the
+rest of the year, having a great horror of living like a poor relation.
+
+Most people have a particular objection to seeming to be what they
+really are.
+
+Indeed Lady Arden had written most kindly to Mrs. Dorothea, inviting her
+to spend the time they should be at Cheltenham with them. Had the
+expense of a house or lodging been no object to Aunt Dorothea, she would
+gladly have availed herself of this invitation for the pleasure of the
+thing; but the arrangement would have been so very convenient, that her
+_pride_ took the alarm, and would not suffer her to accept the offer. In
+her father's life time, as a daughter of the then head of the family,
+she had acquired notions of her own consequence, which became a painful
+incumbrance from the moment her circumstances underwent that violent
+revolution to which those of the daughters of the proudest and most
+ancient families are peculiarly liable.
+
+_Pride_ in any situation is a moral disease, which it would be highly
+desirable to see for ever banished from the world! but _pride_, when
+complicated with poverty, is apt to render the unhappy sufferer not only
+always very uncomfortable, but often very ridiculous. Added to which, it
+must ever be impossible for the heart that harbours _pride_ to know
+contentment.
+
+At present, however, Mrs. Dorothea was quite delighted. The house she
+had taken for six months certain for Lady Arden, though designated by
+the rural title of Violet Bank, was a splendid mansion. The one she had
+taken for herself for the same period, was both pretty and agreeably
+situated; it was accommodated with a cook, or maid of all work, who was
+taken with it as a part of the furniture. Mrs. Dorothea had also hired a
+footman for the great occasion, and put him into livery; so that with
+Sarah, her own maid, she had now, for a single lady, quite a respectable
+little establishment, and could look forward to returning the evening
+entertainments, at least of her relations, on something of an
+independent footing. Dinners of course she could not give, nor need she
+accept them; she did not care what she eat. She certainly liked the best
+society, and that she should now have, without laying herself under
+obligations to any one. For, much as she liked Lady Arden, (one whom no
+one could help liking, she was so truly amiable,) she could not forget
+that her ladyship was a stranger in blood, from whom, consequently, an
+_Arden_ could not receive even a courtesy without requital.
+
+Mrs. Dorothea was so glad too, as she told Sarah, while she stood in the
+centre of her new drawing-room, looking round her, to get out of that
+horrid place where she had been for the last two months, sitting every
+evening on those tiresome little chairs, for, as Sarah had prophesied,
+her landlady had never given her the sofa, nor put the drops to the
+chimney-light, nor even got a key for the chiffonier. Then, the woman of
+the house could not or would not afford a decent servant, so that the
+cooking was shocking, and the attendance wretched; and then the oven of
+the bakehouse next door she found out at last was just on the other side
+of the one brick thin wall, against which her bed stood, so that she had
+been nearly baked to death, and had been losing her health without
+knowing why. To be sure the carpet looked respectable, but then the
+lodging had no other recommendation, as in addition to its many
+discomforts, it had proved one way or other very expensive; for
+mistaking the heat and restlessness she felt at nights for the
+consequences of the lassitude and want of appetite of which they were in
+fact the cause; she had got frightened about herself, and had called in
+doctor after doctor, and taken ever so much medicine in vain, till at
+last happening to go in next door to correct an error in her baker's
+bill, in which she had been charged with all the bread supplied to her
+landlady, she became acquainted with the geography of the premises, and
+so discovered the whole mystery. Then being without a key to the
+chiffonier too, made a great difference in the groceries, though having
+no proof of the fact, it would not do to say so. This might have brought
+down the lawyers upon her; then indeed would the cup of her afflictions
+have been full. Poor Aunt Dorothea felt almost restored to the days of
+her youth by the comparative comforts which now surrounded her. She
+moved into her regular dining-room when her dinner was ready, and was
+there decently and respectfully attended by her own footman in livery.
+There was a sideboard, and her few articles of plate were arranged upon
+it, and things looked orderly and comfortable; it was enough to give one
+an appetite, and made her boiled chicken and quarter of a hundred of
+asparagus seem a dinner for an emperor. Instead of dining in the
+comfortless scramble she used to do, in her haste to send the tray out
+of the drawing-room lest some one should come in, she now ate as slowly
+as possible to prolong the gratifying sense of dignity which accompanied
+the ceremony.
+
+The very next day the Misses Salter had the impudence to call, and the
+new footman not being in the family secrets, admitted them.
+
+On their entrance Aunt Dorothea looked her astonishment with great
+dignity.
+
+"What a sweet situation," exclaimed Miss Salter.
+
+"What a charming house," said Miss Grace. Mrs. Dorothea bowed.
+
+"How fortunate we were in finding you at home," said Miss Salter.
+
+"Oh, yes, very fortunate indeed!" added Miss Grace. Mrs. Dorothea bowed
+again.
+
+"How sorry we were you could not come to us last night," said Miss
+Salter, "we had such a _select_ party, just what you would have liked."
+
+"Yes, just what you would have liked," echoed Miss Grace.
+
+"I hope we shall be more fortunate the next time," said Miss Salter. "We
+shall have a great many of those agreeable _select_ parties just now.
+Our _particular friend_, Lady Flamborough, you see, and our _particular
+friend_, Lady Whaleworthy, and our _particular friend_, Lady Shawbridge,
+and all that pleasant set being here just now, naturally induces one to
+see a great deal of company. Then there are such delightful young men
+here at present, and that you know always makes parties pleasant,
+there's _our friend_, Sir William Orm, _such_ an elegant fashionable
+young man."
+
+"And Sir James Lindsey," observed Miss Grace, "an old baronet, with
+fifteen thousand a-year."
+
+"Yes," said Miss Salter, "such an agreeable good tempered little man, so
+affable and unassuming. And there is General Powel too, in short we
+quite abound in _nice young_ men. And I hope," added Miss Salter, with
+an air of great friendship, "that we shall soon and often have the
+pleasure of seeing you, Mrs. Arden."
+
+"You are very obliging," replied Mrs. Dorothea, bowing gravely, "but my
+arrangements will for some considerable time be controlled entirely by
+those of my sister, Lady Arden, and her family, with whom I shall
+consider myself engaged, either at home or abroad, every day during
+their stay."
+
+"So you expect Lady Arden," said Miss Salter, with well affected
+surprise. "Dear me, I'm sure we should be most happy to pay attention to
+any friend of yours."
+
+"You are very obliging," observed Mrs. Dorothea, with if possible
+increasing stiffness, "but Lady Arden does not mean to extend her
+acquaintance."
+
+The discomforted Misses Salter finding lingering and last words useless,
+at length took their departure.
+
+The Ardens dined on the road, but arrived in time to take tea with Aunt
+Dorothea. The weather was beautiful; the rural appearance of the little
+villa, situated among the plantations and pleasure grounds of the public
+walks, its own miniature lawn and veranda, adorned with flowers and
+flowering shrubs, and garlanded with roses as if for a festival, the
+fine trees of the Old-Well-Walk in view, and bands of music, as if hid
+in every grove, sending forth on each breeze some strain of melody, all
+seemed delightful and refreshing to people just escaped from the heat
+and fatigue of London. While the large and joyous looking family party,
+some seated within the open glass door, some standing in the veranda,
+some straying on the fresh mown turf of the little lawn, formed a
+picture of social felicity quite delightful to the usually solitary Aunt
+Dorothea; to whom the idea of the party being not only her near
+relatives, but also her guests, was altogether so pleasing that she had
+not been as happy for many years. To her kind heart must be ascribed the
+chief of the pleasure she experienced; if, however, there was a slight
+admixture of gratified vanity we cannot be surprised, when we consider
+that a pretty comfortable house of her own, in which to receive her
+friends, was to her so great a novelty.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER X.
+
+
+So fond is youth of novelty, that Alfred and his sisters, though fresh
+from all the gaieties a London season has to offer, were quite
+impatient, the very morning after their arrival, to visit the public
+walks, of which they had had peeps the evening before from Aunt
+Dorothea's veranda. They had been told that about seven was the hour.
+Accordingly, as it was a fine sunny morning, the girls were all up soon
+after six. They had been told too, that notwithstanding the hour, it was
+usual to be extremely fine; but for this their habits of good taste
+were too inveterate; they equipped themselves therefore in quite close
+bonnets, and having roused and enlisted the goodnatured Alfred, set off
+for Mrs. Dorothea's, Lady Arden having by an arrangement of the evening
+before, committed the young people to the charge of their aunt, knowing
+that she should be too much fatigued herself after her journey to rise
+so early.
+
+Aunt Dorothea was quite ready. She was too happy in feeling herself
+necessary to her nieces, too happy in having the charge of them, too
+justly proud of them, proud of their beauty, and all their many
+attractions and recommendations, to feel anything like laziness, this
+first morning that she was to show, not only the walks to them, but them
+to the walks.
+
+Thither then they proceeded immediately, guided through each shady
+maze, as in the play called _Magic Music_, in which the sounds become
+louder to denote nearness to the object of pursuit. So did the swelling
+notes of the band grow on the ear as they approached the immediate spot,
+which it is fashion's whim to throng as closely as any crowded
+assembly-room, while all around is comparative solitude.
+
+Here all-kind Aunt Dorothea's proud anticipations were fully answered by
+the sensation her nieces produced; every eye was turned towards them,
+and in ten minutes after their first appearance all the company who sat
+on the benches on either side the walk had asked each other who they
+were; the mammas who had daughters, and the _young_ ladies who were _not
+young_, decided that they were not the style of beauty they admired,
+while the very young girls and all the men, had pronounced them the
+loveliest creatures they had ever beheld. As for the mothers who had
+sons, they prudently suspended their judgments till they should hear
+what fortunes the Miss Ardens were likely to have.
+
+Our party were joined instantly by Henry Lindsey. He had ascertained
+their movements from themselves, and quitted town when they did to be in
+Cheltenham before them. He was at Louisa's side in a moment, and was
+received with a blush and a smile which, though produced in part at
+least by gratified vanity, seemed to his generous nature all he could
+desire of encouragement. He was of course introduced to Aunt Dorothea,
+who, until she found out that he was a younger brother, was quite
+delighted with him.
+
+The Arden party now took advantage of vacant seats which presented
+themselves, and for a time became in their turn spectators of the moving
+crowd.
+
+Soon after which, announced by noise, and with many coloured streamers
+flying, the fleet of the Salters, and their _select_ friends hove in
+sight.
+
+There was in the first place Mr. Salter, with a white hat on, which duly
+set off by contrast, that true secret for producing effect, a
+countenance, the hue of which we flatter ourselves we need not again
+describe. Lady Flamborough embellished his arm; her head thrown back,
+and adorned by a pink crape hat and feathers, her eyes raised, and
+practising their most becoming roll, her complexion heightened by the
+heat of the weather and the long walk up through the Sherbourn. Not
+that her dress was oppressive, on the contrary, it was light enough in
+all conscience, consisting of the softest India muslin, trimmed with
+superfine Mechlin lace, and ornamented at the neck, and at the wrists
+round the top, and round the bottom, down the sleeves, and down the
+front, with ties, bows, and ends innumerable, of pink ribbon, while a
+broad long sash of the same encircled the waist, tied behind in
+dancing-school fashion. The dress was made nearly as low round the bust
+as a dinner costume, while what shelter there was to compensate for this
+was derived from the long pendant white gauze-ribbon strings, and deep
+blond-lace edge of the hat, with merely a slight pink gauze-scarf,
+scarcely wider or longer than the said strings.
+
+The next in the line (as it approached crossing the walk abreast), was
+Lady Whaleworthy, defying hot weather and sunshine in a crimson velvet
+pelisse. It was a thing which, as she told her own maid when putting it
+on, had cost too much money to be ever either out of season or out of
+fashion: it was only your dabs of things which every body could have
+that were sure to go out again before you could turn yourself round in
+them, so that there was no saving in the end. "I always _tells_ Sir
+Matthias that a right good article, cost what it will at the first, is
+sure to be the cheapest in the long run."
+
+Poor Lady Whaleworthy! a crimson-velvet pelisse had been the dream of
+her youth when she did not think she should ever possess such a
+treasure! and still such the hold of early impressions in a
+crimson-velvet pelisse was concentrated her ladyship's notions of the
+_ne plus ultra_ of magnificence. Next came little Sir James,
+fantastically fine, with a lilac figured silk waistcoat, as many gold
+chains as a lady, and a glaring brooch, the gift of Miss Grace Salter,
+and taken for the purpose of being so bestowed from her own dress, and
+with her own brown hands transferred to the breast of his
+open-work-fronted and diamond buttoned inner garment; while the little
+man, during the whole performance of the flattering operation, had
+laughed almost hysterically.
+
+Three titles were very well to muster for a morning walk; so next came
+the Misses Salter themselves. They never dressed alike, having each
+their own notion of the colours that became them. In shape, however,
+both their hats had been made by the same pattern, borrowed for the
+purpose from Lady Flamborough's. Miss Salter's was of yellow crape, Sir
+William Orm having been his own jockey at a late race, and rode in a
+yellow jacket; while Miss Grace's, in compliment to Sir James's
+waistcoat was lilac; both, of course, flaunted with feathers, blond, and
+streaming strings, and had artificial flowers stuck in the inside. Nor
+had such a show of beauty and fashion been a mere lucky hit; the Misses
+Salter, on quitting Mrs. Dorothea's, had fully weighed the subject, and
+resolved to show the Ardens, who might else be prejudiced against them,
+that they were not people to be looked down upon; they had gone to
+infinite pains in making their arrangements.
+
+Alas! little did they think that this very morning was marked in the
+book of fate to cost them both their lovers: they, too, who had none to
+spare. But unhappily ladies so situated are so fond of showing off a
+supposed conquest--so fond of being suspected of being about to be
+married, that in their haste to be congratulated, they too often cast
+away all cause for gratulation; and by the noise they raise themselves,
+put a man on his guard before he is above half caught, whom they might
+perhaps have secured, had they been satisfied to delay their triumph,
+and keep him nodding at the home fireside till they had quietly netted
+him round. We speak of course only of ladies in _distress_, like the
+Misses Salter. The lovely sisters of Arden, on the contrary, so far from
+being under the necessity of laying snares for lovers, found them at
+their feet wherever they went; the only difficulty was to select from
+among them such as might both please themselves, and come up to their
+mamma's and brother's ideas of matches suitable to their family
+consequence. We left our party seated on one of the benches, which, as
+we have already stated, were ranged on either side this favourite
+portion of the walk. The eye of Sir James, as he passed with the
+Salters, was instantly caught by the extreme loveliness of the beautiful
+sisters. For the poor little man, though he had neither sense nor
+judgment to direct him in the formation of any thing approaching to an
+opinion, was not without some of the natural elements of taste, and was
+especially a great admirer of beauty: it dazzled and delighted him, as
+new and splendid toys would a child; and it was much that he had been
+taught to say, like the good child, "I'll only look!" for he would often
+stand with his hands behind his back, as if the attitude were intended
+to keep them out of the way of temptation, and to stare at strangers
+whose appearance happened to strike him, till people would be first
+offended, and finally guess the truth, that poor Sir James was silly.
+
+On the present occasion, seeing his brother with the party which had
+drawn his attention, he joined him instantly; and even while speaking to
+him, as well as for some time after, eagerly passed his eyes again and
+again along the row of ladies, till they were finally fixed by the
+peculiar lustre of Louisa's beauty.
+
+Henry now introduced his brother, and the party rose to renew their
+walk. Sir James attached himself to them entirely, and contrived, too,
+to make a good position next to Louisa, whose appetite for admiration
+was so insatiable, that even his was acceptable. While the whole party
+were so goodnatured, so agreeable, and so much amused; yet so much too
+well bred to show it in the rude and flagrant manner indulged in by too
+many towards those labouring under natural infirmities, that poor Sir
+James was perfectly delighted, and felt as if he was among the most
+charming, kind, agreeable people in the whole world.
+
+The Misses Salter had in the mean time made several attempts to bow to
+Mrs. Dorothea; but that lady always took care to be so much occupied
+with other people, as to make it impossible for them to catch her eye.
+She however noticed their proceedings; and observing that some time
+after the desertion of Sir James, Sir William Orm arrived and joined
+them, she laid her plans accordingly. Sir William would not do to
+introduce to her nieces, but he should nevertheless desert Miss Salter.
+
+The walk now began to thin; on which the Arden party, having invited Sir
+James and Henry Lindsey home with them to breakfast, an invitation very
+usual on the Cheltenham promenade, took the path which led to their own
+villa.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+When breakfast was over, and the gentlemen had taken their departure,
+Louisa was amazingly laughed at by her sisters about her new lover.
+
+He was mimicked and ridiculed in every possible way; walk, air, manner,
+voice, modes of expression, ways of looking, &c. &c.; till the girls had
+perfectly fatigued themselves with laughing.
+
+We have heard it said, that it was a service of danger for any man to
+become the admirer of one of a large family; for that, let him be ever
+so successful in talking the lady of his choice into love, she was sure
+the moment he absented himself to be laughed out of it again by her
+sisters. It is no wonder, then, that poor Sir James did not escape. Lady
+Arden, however, and Mrs. Dorothea came from time to time to the rescue
+of the little baronet's memory.
+
+"Heedless creatures!" said Aunt Dorothea, "how little thought you give
+to the future!"
+
+"I only hope he may be serious, and really propose for Louisa," said
+Lady Arden; "and if he should, I trust she will have the sense to pause
+before she rejects so advantageous an offer."
+
+"But then, mamma, is he not a fool?" asked Louisa.
+
+"Why no, my dear, not exactly that. Indeed, I know a great many
+ill-tempered, reserved sort of men, without a grain more sense, who pass
+for Solomons! He is a vain little man, certainly; and perhaps too
+goodnatured. But then, only consider what a vastly _eligible_
+establishment it would be: you would have rank yourself, and be at once
+restored to the wealth and station lost to you all by the death of your
+father; and what, my dear, is still more important, you would be rescued
+_in time_ from the comparative poverty, and consequent obscurity into
+which you must ultimately sink, if you survive me unmarried."
+
+What dilemmas so humiliating as those to which _Pride_ reduces its
+votaries!
+
+Lady Arden, by nature amiable, affectionate, and high-minded; but by
+education tainted with false pride, thus stooped to the very depth of
+meanness, unconscious of degradation; and sacrificed her purest feelings
+to the supposed necessity of securing to her daughters that artificial
+station in life which a system of unjust monopoly had for a time given
+them, and of which the same system had again deprived them.
+
+Artificial positions in society, like unnatural attitudes of the body,
+cannot be long persisted in without pain and weariness. Where is the
+dignity of human nature? Forgotten! for were it remembered, the beggar,
+when educated, might share it with us; and at this false pride takes
+alarm! And, therefore, do we leave man out of the account, and worship
+idols of silver and idols of gold, and titles made of the breath of our
+own lips.
+
+  "From _Pride_ our very reasoning springs."
+
+Louisa had nothing to say against such unanswerable arguments as those
+Lady Arden had used; but she thought of Henry Lindsey, and could not
+help wishing that he had been the elder brother, or, at least, that the
+fortune had been divided: even seven thousand five hundred with him
+would have been better, she could not help thinking, than the whole
+fifteen thousand with Sir James.
+
+"It is always desirable," continued Lady Arden, "that a girl should
+marry in the same station as her father; but it is not always
+practicable, particularly if she is a daughter of the elder branch; for
+no family can have more than one elder son, while many may have half a
+dozen daughters, no one of whom ought, in common prudence, to marry a
+younger brother!!"
+
+"Nay," said Alfred, "is not this sufficient to show how absurdly
+society is constituted? What is to become, then, of five out of every
+six daughters, and all the younger sons in the world? What is to become
+of my hapless self, for instance?"
+
+"We must hope, my dear, that you may be fortunate, and meet with an
+heiress."
+
+"But consider, ma'am, how few heiresses there are. Parliament ought to
+make a new batch every session. It would, however, be of no use to me if
+they did," he added, despondingly, "for heiresses, of course, consider
+themselves entitled to marry, not only elder sons, but noblemen. I have
+often thought what is to become of me, if I should ever have the
+misfortune to fall in love."
+
+"You did, I think, fall half in love one evening in town," said Jane.
+
+"And, by-the-by," observed Lady Arden, "Lady Caroline Montague is an
+heiress."
+
+Alfred coloured, and rising, sauntered towards a window as he replied,
+"And, therefore, very unlikely to be allowed to cast away a thought on
+an unfor----" Here he broke off, and after gazing for a time from the
+window, exclaimed, "That was certainly she--I had but a momentary view,
+but I am quite sure it was she I saw pluck a rose in that next garden,
+and run into the house again. Can they be living in the adjoining villa
+to us?"
+
+The grass gardens or little lawns of these twin villas were separated
+only by wire palings, along which sweet briar and flowering shrubs were
+trained.
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+The family party, with the addition of Lord Darlingford, Sir James
+Lindsey, and his brother, were assembled round the luncheon-table at
+Lady Arden's.
+
+Henry Lindsey had been amazingly piqued that morning by Louisa's
+reception of Sir James. The little baronet was now seated next to her,
+and making, if possible, a greater fool of himself than usual; while, in
+consequence of the lesson she had received, she was yielding him her
+attention with marked complacency. Henry sat opposite, and trembled
+with a mingling of agitation and indignation. He thought he could
+already foresee that he was to be deliberately immolated to avarice;
+yet, so thoroughly was he the slave of Louisa's beauty and his own
+passion, that no worthlessness on her part could have set him free. He
+felt, that were she already the wife of his brother, her image might
+drive him mad, but that he could not banish it from his imagination.
+
+The hardship of Henry Lindsey's case as a younger brother was
+conspicuous, and displayed in a striking manner the evils consequent
+upon sacrificing justice to _pride_.
+
+From a boy he had felt much on this subject; but being of a generous,
+warm-hearted, liberal nature, he did not long brood over his own
+individual wrongs; his mind, however, following the impulse thus
+received, though in the first instance from a selfish feeling, gave
+itself to the contemplation and discussion of natural rights generally,
+till it became enamoured of abstract justice, and learned to apply its
+searching test to every subject, especially the all absorbing topic of
+the day--Political Economy; while, with his characteristic enthusiasm,
+despising the sophisms of expediency, he embraced, without perhaps
+sufficient caution, theories which soon caused him to be considered by
+his friends a reformer, by his enemies almost a revolutionist, and by
+himself the warm advocate of the rights, not of younger brothers only,
+but of those whom he emphatically termed the step-children of the
+laws--_The People_.
+
+Such were at all times his opinions, while the irritable state of his
+mind, at the moment of which we are speaking, added asperity to his
+manner of expressing himself, and caused him, in answer to some jesting
+remark of Alfred's on the old topic of younger brothers, to give vent to
+his feelings in a long, and almost angry political discussion. He
+objected, he said, to the law of primogeniture on the ground of its
+being a wretched system of monopoly, which placed in the hands of a
+simple individual what, if divided, would suffice to restore thousands
+of his degraded and oppressed fellow-creatures to the rank of humanity.
+The times were gone by when communities, formed for the general weal,
+would wilfully sacrifice prosperity to _pride_, and not only parcel out
+the whole land to, comparatively speaking, a few families, but the
+succession to those lands being limited to the elder branches, allow all
+place, preferment, and emolument, to be confined to the younger sons of
+the same families, because the land had given them influence; and the
+mass of the people to be thus reduced to do the work of the ass and the
+mule, and because they cannot also eat their food, the grass and the
+thistle, be often in danger of starvation.
+
+The old feudal system itself was better than this: the ancient baron was
+at least bound to feed not only his relations but his vassals, and he
+did so in his own hall, at his own table. While, now-a-days, a man, as
+soon as his father's funeral is over, turns his brothers and sisters out
+of doors, to exist as they may, on a pitiful portion, the principal of
+which is in general infinitely less than one year's income of the
+property, on the scale of which they have been accustomed to live in
+their father's time; while the new master permits his servants to
+collect their wages by showing the empty baronial hall to strangers at
+so much per head, by which creditable means he is himself enabled to
+reserve all his rents to stake at hazard in London, or at _rouge et
+noir_ in Paris. When parliament is sitting, he must of course attend, to
+vote against any infringement on his monopoly, which the enlightened
+spirit of the times may chance to propose. Thanks, however, to the
+Reform Bill, the holders of the monopolies are no longer our sole
+law-givers; we have now some _chance_ of justice _one time or another_.
+
+"Besides," he added, "to return to the ancient baron, he was not only
+bound to feed his retainers, but in time of war to provide the
+government with a certain number of them, fitly clothed and armed;
+which was virtually bearing the burdens of the state. The baron was, in
+point of fact, but the trustee to a certain property, which property was
+to feed a certain number of the population, and to contribute its due
+proportion to the defence of the community. Instead of this, when the
+feudal system becomes dangerous to government the barons are forbidden
+to arm, and exonerated from feeding their retainers; yet, the
+trust-property left in their hands for _pocket-money_, while their late
+followers are not only turned out on the wide world to starve, but the
+taxes necessary to maintain the army which the barons are forbid to
+provide, are levied on the _bare palms_ of the _hands_ of the thus
+turned out and starving vassals; and not satisfied with this injustice,
+those who thus keep possession of the trust-lands, have arrived at
+literally billeting their younger sons on those said vassals, thus
+turned out and starving."
+
+"Explain! explain!" cried Lord Darlingford, "How can you make that out?"
+
+"Are not," replied Henry, "the salaries and pensions of all the posts
+and sinecures they hold paid by means of taxes, a great proportion of
+which are levied on industry? Is this as it should be? If the _pride_ of
+the great demand that their properties shall be inherited by their elder
+sons, and the offspring of that _pride_--if _false necessity_, require
+that places and sinecures be provided for their younger sons, should not
+the _rich co-operate_ in raising a fund for the payment of the salaries
+of such, and not grind their thousands by pittances from the _real
+necessities_ of the _poor_?"
+
+"What then is your panacea for so many crying ills?" asked Lord
+Darlingford, "Do you call on us to render up our trusts and proclaim an
+Agrarian law?"
+
+"No; those whose motives are honest dare not go such lengths. This would
+be to resolve society into its mere elements, to open the flood-gates of
+anarchy, and awake the savage spirit of wanton plunder. Many large
+landed properties too have been purchased with the wages of industry; so
+that besides the horrible convulsions attendant upon the dissolution of
+the social system, there would be no such thing as drawing the line; to
+avoid, therefore, worse evils, I would allow the 'frightful
+disparities,' as an able writer of the day terms them, to exist till
+industry, unchecked, unladen, could work out for itself a gradual
+emancipation from the bondage of want. But I would not add to evils I
+dare not too suddenly remedy! I would not require the children of Israel
+to make bricks without straw! I would not lay the burdens of the state
+on shoulders already weighed down by nature's demand for daily bread. I
+would exempt from the whole weight of taxation the labourer, whether of
+brain or limb; he has no stake in the stability of the state; he can
+carry his head or his hand wherever he goes. He who keeps back the
+hire of the labourer is denounced in holy writ: I would not be worse
+than such, and rob the labourer of his hire. I would, therefore, repeal
+every tax _direct_ and _indirect_, which now exists, and substitute for
+_all_ a graduated property-tax, on _independent_ property _only_,
+trifling in amount, say one per cent., where the property was small;
+and doubling, trebling, nay, quadrupling, if necessary, as it rises.
+What, if a man with thirty thousand per annum, pay twenty thousand, can
+he not live on ten? or if the man with two hundred thousand per annum,
+pay one hundred and fifty thousand, can he not live on fifty? This, some
+people are not ashamed to answer me would be robbing the rich; while
+they talk as loudly as vaguely of the sacredness of property and vested
+rights. But I would answer such, that starvation in the midst of plenty,
+on the plea of the sacredness of justice, is a practical blasphemy!
+What, therefore, relief from taxation did not effect for the absolutely
+destitute, I would complete by an amended system of poor-laws;--such
+assessments, however, to be levied on independent property only."
+
+"Poor-laws are bad things," interrupted Sir James, who having finished
+his luncheon, was now lolling on a sofa, "they make the common people so
+lazy."
+
+"As long as industry is not taxed in support of idleness," answered
+Henry, "the lazy rich man is entitled to no commiseration for being
+compelled to assist his brother, the lazy poor man! Poor-laws," he
+added, turning to Lord Darlingford, "as far at least as food goes, I
+consider the most sacred of vested rights. God said, 'Behold, I have
+given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of all the
+earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding
+seed, to you it shall be for meat.'"
+
+"But you allow," said his lordship, "that many of the great landed
+properties you would tax thus heavily are purchased with the produce of
+the owner's own exertions; state your reasons for giving immunity to
+present industry and not to past?"
+
+"Because," replied Henry, "when once a man has realized property he has
+acquired a stake in the country, a stake in the stability of the
+government; his property requires protection, whether from the foreign
+enemy or the home depredator; and, therefore, he should pay for such
+protection. If a man desires a wall round his garden, who pays for
+building the wall? The man who owns the garden! If a man wishes to
+insure his premises against fire, who pays the insurance? The man whose
+premises are guaranteed. Would either of these persons dream of calling
+a parish meeting to demand of their neighbours as a right, that they
+should subscribe towards the expense so incurred; nay, that every
+pauper subsisting on some shilling or two per week, should be compelled
+to pay two-pence for his penny loaf until the sum was made up; yet, such
+is the spirit of every tax, direct or indirect, levied on any thing but
+independent property. The machinery of government is the garden-wall of
+the landed interest, the insurance office of the fund-holder. Any tax,
+therefore, levied on those who have neither land nor money is a crying
+injustice, except, indeed," he added with bitter irony, "we admit of a
+small pole-tax to keep down burking. It is, no doubt, the houseless,
+nameless, friendless wretch, who has no one to ask what is become of
+him; the poor creature, who has nothing to be protected but the limbs
+and sinews he was born with, who runs the greatest risk of contributing
+these to the promotion of science."
+
+"But," observed Lord Darlingford, "it is not the very destitute who pay
+taxes."
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Henry, "indirect ones they do. If the beggar
+in the street succeeds in exciting the compassion of the passenger, and
+receives one penny, ere he can appease his hunger with a mouthful of
+bread, do not the corn laws, by doubling the price of the loaf, exact
+from him one half of the penny so obtained? And is not his mite, thus
+cast into the treasury, like that of the poor widow in the Gospel, taken
+from his _want_; and, therefore, more than all they (_the rich_) did
+cast in of their abundance?"
+
+"Oh, it is all but too true!" said Lady Arden, feelingly. "I do think
+your scheme of taxation would be but justice. Willoughby would certainly
+have a great deal to pay; but he can surely afford it better than poor
+creatures who have nothing but what they earn, or what they beg. I see
+the subject now in quite a new light. I have always been in the habit of
+thinking people _poor_ who had but _one_ or _two_ thousands a-year; and
+I never took the trouble of considering that there was any difference
+between hundreds a-year and nothing."
+
+"How would you apportion this property-tax of yours?" asked Lord
+Darlingford; "and how ensure its being sufficient for the exigencies of
+the state?"
+
+"On a graduated scale, as I have already said," replied Henry, "from
+justice to individuals: let those who have the largest property to
+ensure, pay, as at all other insurance offices, the most; but, as to
+details and calculations, I leave those to Mr. Hume, or some of the
+multiplication table people; I only advocate the principle. Indeed, one
+of the great recommendations of this plan is, that the principle once
+established, the work is done: when those who tie up the burdens have to
+carry them, they may be trusted to find scales of sufficient nicety in
+which to weigh them: we need, in that case, no longer call for
+estimates, or petition against sinecures; nay, we may give the very
+voting of the subsidies to the _Lords_ themselves!--many of whom, I make
+no doubt, would forthwith become immortalised by the economical or
+'_twopenny halfpenny_' ingenuity, developed in the devising of future
+budgets. '_Twopence halfpenny_,' I would have the noble lords to know,
+though no object to them, is a sum which many of their destitute
+fellow-creatures would, at this moment, receive with joy of heart! Then,
+remember, in further recommendation of this scheme, the millions a-year
+of unprofitable expense that would be saved to the nation, by having but
+one instead of innumerable taxes to levy."
+
+"I don't think," said Sir James, looking as if he had made a discovery,
+"that the people with large fortunes will like this law of yours,
+Henry."
+
+"Many people, too," replied Henry, contemptuously, "don't like paying
+their Christmas bills."
+
+Alfred, who had been looking over a morning paper near a window, and
+from time to time lending a share of his attention to the disputants,
+now joined them.
+
+"We cannot, I think," he said, "blame any particular government, or set
+of men, for the ills of which you complain. The fault is in human
+nature; and the remedy, if there be one, is only to be found in laying
+step by step the wisest general restrictions we can on individual
+selfishness. The advance of civilization has already placed a salutary
+check on plunder by force; it remains for the march of intellect to
+discover one for plunder by stratagem. But we must be cautious; in
+desiring the higher steps of the ladder of wisdom and virtue, we must
+not undervalue those we have attained, and in our headlong haste,
+stumble; and, like our neighbours of the continent, fall back on the
+frightful abyss of anarchy that lays below! 'Tis well to rise in
+excellence; I hate the cant of dreading all chance: but, to keep to the
+simile of the ladder, let us take care that the lifting foot be firmly
+placed on the step above, ere the standing one be removed from the step
+below."
+
+"Is there not some danger," said Lord Darlingford, "of a property-tax
+sending capital out of the kingdom?"
+
+"It must be very easy," replied Henry, "for the inventors of all sorts
+of protecting duties to devise a means of meeting that difficulty, by
+some ingeniously arranged tax on the exportation of property, whether
+income or capital, with a tremendously deterring fine on any attempt at
+imposition; and minor exactments, to hunt evasion through all its
+windings. There might, also," he added, "be an alien tax, to prevent the
+foreign artizan from sharing the immunity from taxation, purchased by
+our own rich for our own poor."
+
+"Is there not some danger," said Lady Arden, "that the deteriorated
+incomes of the great, by obliging them to lessen their establishments
+and expenditure, would throw many people out of employment, and so
+increase the numbers of the poor?"
+
+"I should think not," answered Henry; "recollect there would be the same
+property in the kingdom, only in more general and more equal
+circulation. The servants dismissed, and the luxuries foregone by the
+few, would in all probability be more than compensated by the increased
+establishments and more numerous comforts of the many, though each only
+in a small degree. The standard of splendour might be lowered, but that
+of comfort would be raised. The change, too, is likely to be in favour
+of home productions: the overflow of inordinate wealth, the _too much_
+of the few, is frequently squandered on luxuries obtained from abroad;
+while the fertilizing sufficiency, the _enough_ of the many, would
+probably be expended on comforts produced at home.
+
+"I do not, however," he added, "mean to assume the character of a
+prophet, or even to argue the point of future consequences; I take
+higher ground, and end every such discussion with the same appeal to
+duty:
+
+"Let each generation do what is clearly justice in their own day, and
+leave the future to the All-wise Disposer of events.
+
+"If there were, indeed, a theory through the mazes of which moral
+rectitude knew no path, we might be excusable in taking calculation for
+our guide; but when our road lies before us, indicated by duty's
+steadily pointing finger, we are not entitled to balance ere we proceed,
+even though it should be where four frequented highways meet."
+
+Mrs. Dorothea, the sisters, and Sir James, had got tired of politics,
+and wandered into the garden. Henry, perceiving that Sir James was still
+in attendance on Louisa, became impatient, broke off the conversation
+abruptly, and following them, joined her, saying, "Lord Darlingford is
+too prudent a politician for me. I hate prudence and calculation, and
+worldly mindedness," he added, with impetuosity, and a provoked and
+mortified tone of voice, which Louisa was at no loss to comprehend. "The
+present artificial state of society," he proceeded, "has banished into
+the poet's dream every thing worth living for!--there alone all things
+deserving the ambition of an intellectual being now hold their unreal
+existence! Beauty has become a snare--feeling a folly, or a curse!--love
+a farce, and lovely woman, nature's most cunning workmanship, a _toy_,
+a _trinket_, which the rich man may draw out his purse and
+purchase!!!--heart and all!" he subjoined, in an under and somewhat
+softened voice, for Louisa had looked round, and their eyes had met for
+a moment. "Is it so?" he continued; "or are the beautiful looking
+deceptions now made to suit the _market_ for which they are intended,
+_without hearts_?"
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+Whether Alfred's study was pamphlet, newspaper, or magazine, he could
+never contrive to discern the print by any light but that of the window,
+or rather glass door, at which we left him standing on the morning on
+which he first discerned the fleeting semblance of a fair vision in the
+adjoining garden. The glass door was generally half open, a muslin blind
+drawn half down across it, and the eyes of the student, like those of
+the naughty child in the pictures of bold Harry, just visible over the
+top of his book.
+
+On such occasions one of his sisters would often glide behind him, and
+startling him with a loud burlesque sigh, exclaim, "She is not there
+to-day." "Nonsense!" Alfred would say, rising. "This is a very well
+written thing," he added one morning, throwing his book on a table.
+
+"What is it about, Alfred?" asked Madeline archly. He took up the book
+again to examine it before he could answer the question; "I declare he
+can't tell," she cried, "without looking at the top of the page;" a
+general burst of laughter followed, from which Alfred escaped into the
+garden. He had long since made it his business to ascertain that Lady
+Palliser and her daughter inhabited the next villa; but few, very few
+indeed, and "far between," had been the glimpses of his beauteous
+enslaver which his late studious habits and love of good light had
+procured for him.
+
+Lady Caroline appeared to be conscious that the garden was exposed to
+the view of their neighbours, and was therefore timid about entering it;
+or, when she did so, as on the first occasion noticed, it was only to
+pluck a flower, for she seemed fearful of remaining in it for a moment.
+This morning, however, both mother and daughter had appeared on the lawn
+and with bonnets on, which, combined with the early hour, had caused
+Alfred to suspect them of an intention of visiting the walks; and his
+consequent anticipations of a possible meeting, had, we must confess,
+made him rather absent.
+
+He now called in at the window to his sisters to know if they were not
+yet ready, assuring them that the band had played several tunes, and
+that they would be late.
+
+"Don't you know that the Duke of Gloucester has arrived?" he continued,
+"did you not hear the joy bells yesterday evening? He is so punctual to
+seven, that the fashionables are always early when he is here."
+
+This remonstrance had the desired effect; final arrangements were
+quickly completed and the party set forth.
+
+On entering the Montpelier walk, Alfred beheld, quite near and coming
+towards them, Lady Palliser and her daughter, in company with the duke,
+and attended by two or three of his grace's aides-de-camp.
+
+Alfred saw that Lady Caroline perceived and recognised him, for she
+coloured instantly, but looked as if she did not know whether she ought
+to acknowledge him or not; while he was so much startled and confounded,
+that he had not presence of mind to look for a recognition. Lady
+Palliser happened to be conversing with his grace, and did not see him.
+He passed, therefore, unacknowledged by either lady.
+
+The next turn, the next and the next again, he was determined to manage
+matters better, and accordingly kept a regular look out for the duke's
+party, but they were nowhere to be seen; it was evident they had been
+going off the walk at the time he met them.
+
+How dull the whole gay scene became the moment this conviction reached
+him! How irksome the frivolity of every body's manner; while all the
+world, seeming to have made the discovery simultaneously with himself,
+kept telling each other as they passed that the duke was gone, just as
+if it was done on purpose to torment him.
+
+In vain did Miss Salter, every time he encountered the party, address
+Lady Flamborough by her title, in an unnecessarily loud tone, to
+endeavour to draw his attention by showing him what exalted company she
+was in. Every effort was thrown away upon him, as well as all the extra
+finery sported this day on purpose for the duke. Little did his grace
+think how many husbands and fathers he had caused to grumble. As for
+poor Lady Whaleworthy, in her loyal zeal to make herself fit company for
+royalty, she actually crowned herself with the gold tissue turban which
+she wore at Mr. Salter's dinner; so that with this and her everlasting
+crimson velvet pelisse, to which she had added a gold waist-band for the
+occasion, she was altogether as fine as the hammer cloth of a lord
+mayor's coach.
+
+Lady Flamborough trusted more to her natural attractions; these she
+displayed for the great occasion with a liberality which certainly did
+succeed in calling forth a remark from his grace, though by no means a
+complimentary one.
+
+The new bonnets sported this morning would require the calculating boy
+to count them; and as for shoes, many a simple-hearted girl fresh from
+the country, submitted to hours of actual torture, in order that the
+Duke of Gloucester might go back to London convinced that she had very
+small feet.
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+The next morning Alfred was on his guard, and watched the first
+approaches of the duke's party with a palpitating heart.
+
+But, alas! Lady Palliser, as before, was occupied and saw him not;
+while, what was much worse, it was evident that Lady Caroline did see
+him at a distance, and from that moment kept her eyes fixed on the
+ground. They passed each other, and he could discern the glow of
+consciousness steal over her cheek as they did so. Again and again they
+passed--still without recognition; till at length he scarcely ventured
+to look that way. Lord Darlingford now appeared. He attached himself to
+Lady Arden's party--Jane in particular. After a turn or two, he
+apologised for quitting them, saying he must go and speak to Lady
+Palliser. Alfred, forming a sudden and desperate resolve, at which he
+often afterwards looked back with astonishment, took his lordship's arm,
+and accompanied him. The duke had just quitted the walk, and Lady
+Palliser, quite _desoeuvree_, happened at the moment to be in what she
+called a humour for being spoken to. She received, therefore, not only
+Lord Darlingford but Alfred with the utmost graciousness. Caroline,
+after a timid glance at her mother's countenance, looked round and
+recognised our hero with a smile that seemed to open to him in an
+instant the gates of Paradise. Nay, the Montpelier walk itself became,
+as by a sudden revelation, the very garden of Eden to his delighted
+eyes. He was walking next to Caroline--he did not know how he had got
+there! He was speaking to her--he did not know what he was saying! Her
+countenance was turned towards him to reply, while the close bonnet
+which, while it was so turned, hid its loveliness from every eye. It was
+a slight summer one of simple snowy sarcenet, and though it warded off
+the glare of the out-door sun-beam, it admitted through its half
+transparent texture a heavenly kind of light, which at once accurately
+defined, and seemed a fitting shrine for the perfectly angelic features
+around which it dwelt: the pure lively red of the lovely moving lip,
+where all else was so white; the smile of enchantment, exposing to view
+the pearly teeth; the delicately pencilled brow; the large dark eyes,
+which yet were so soft, so modestly raised, so meek in their expression,
+that their very lustre seemed that of compassion's tear ere it o'erflows
+the lid! Yet did their mild beams make such an unmerciful jumble of all
+Alfred's ideas, that he was quite sure he must be talking nonsense. But
+there was no help for it; if he spoke not, he saw but the fluted outside
+of the white sarcenet bonnet; it was necessary to make ceaseless appeals
+to Caroline's attention, or the graceful head would not be turned
+towards him; the lovely eyes would not be raised to his, the beauteous
+lips, fresh as rose leaves moist with morning dew, would not be parted
+in reply; to purchase delights such as these he was compelled to risk
+his reputation as a sage, and go on without an effort to think. At
+length, however he came to an unlucky pause, and instead of jumping
+over it, unfortunately began to weigh what subject he should next
+propound. But, alas! the precious moments flew past in rapid succession,
+and, one after another, became absorbed in the gulph of eternity, while
+our poor hero was still at a stand.
+
+And now strange uneasy sensations began to blend with the dream-like
+felicity he had hitherto enjoyed, though he was not yet awake to the
+cause, which was simply this: the band was playing that well known note
+of dismissal--the national anthem--and anticipations of approaching
+separation began to steal over his senses. To his surprise and infinite
+delight, however, Lady Palliser suddenly asked Lord Darlingford and
+himself, with the prettiest and most petitioning manner possible, to go
+home with her party to breakfast. We need scarcely say that Alfred
+consented; so did Lord Darlingford, though not quite so willingly, for
+he had intended to return to Lady Arden's party.
+
+After this morning, Alfred not only joined his new friends whenever they
+appeared, but became in a short time almost a daily visitor at Jessamine
+bower; and apparently with the entire approbation of Lady Palliser.
+Indeed, it was in general some message or some commission of her
+ladyship's, or some allusion to the morrow made at parting, almost
+amounting to an appointment, which furnished him with an excuse for
+calling. He, poor fellow, was flattered, delighted, filled with hope and
+joy! But, alas! he was not sufficiently acquainted with the character of
+Lady Palliser to understand his own position. Her ladyship was a being
+without affections and without occupation; who in her intercourse with
+others, and from total heartlessness, cared not whose best feelings were
+the springs of the puppet-show, so the movements of the puppets amused
+her--and he happened to be the whim of the hour;--to order him about, to
+see him perfectly at her disposal, chanced to be what, just then,
+afforded a species of excitement to her restless idleness and morbid
+selfishness.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+Meanwhile much of Caroline's excessive reserve, or rather fearfulness of
+manner wore off. In her mother's immediate presence indeed she was ever
+the same; but if Lady Palliser quitted the room for a moment, or was
+occupied conversing with some other visitor, Caroline's countenance
+would brighten, and her manner become comparatively easy and happy.
+Fully, however, to comprehend our heroine, it will be necessary to cast
+a retrospective glance over the manner of her education.
+
+The most painful silence of the heart and all its best affections had
+from infancy been habitual to Caroline. She was an only child, and had
+no recollection of her father; while her mother's strange, unfeeling
+character, had made her from the very first shrink within herself. When
+arrived at an age at which young people, not self-opinionated, naturally
+wish to ask those older than themselves what they ought to do on various
+little occasions, which seem to them important from their novelty, poor
+Caroline would sometimes, in what she deemed a case of urgency, make a
+great effort and apply to her mother, on which Lady Palliser would treat
+her simplicity as the best of good jokes, laugh to excess, then rally
+her for blushing, and next perhaps for shedding tears; and, finally,
+either leave her question without reply, or give one turning the
+subject into absolute ridicule; till at last Caroline learned to feel a
+terror surpassing description of having any one thought, feeling, or
+opinion even guessed at by her mother. Yet her mother was her only
+companion. There was also a strange inconsistency in the character and
+conduct of Lady Palliser; for while she never condescended to advise,
+she was tyrannical in her commands, exacting implicit, unquestioned,
+instantaneous obedience to every whim.
+
+Either there was something in the thorough kindliness of Alfred's
+disposition which appeared in his manner, and secretly won the
+confidence of our heroine; or fate had ordained that they were to love
+each other. Whatever the cause, the consequence was, that Caroline,
+after the intimacy we have described had subsisted for some weeks, no
+longer felt alone in the world--she was no longer without thoughts that
+gave her pleasure; while those thoughts, though for their ostensible
+object they had a walk, a song, a book, or a flower, were always
+associated with the idea of Alfred--of something that he had said--or
+some little kind service he had performed--or, perhaps, some chance
+encounter of his eye--or the consciousness of his fixed gaze, felt
+without daring to look up, and which, though it had produced strange
+confusion of ideas at the time, was remembered with delight. Neither was
+she any longer without hope, though but a hope that they might meet on
+the walks, or that he might come in about something she had heard her
+mother mention to him.
+
+It may be asked why should Caroline not always have had the hopes with
+which most young people enter life; merely because the buoyancy of youth
+had been pressed down, and the elasticity of its spirits destroyed, by
+the unnatural restraint under which every thought and feeling had been
+held during the period that her earliest affections had, as is generally
+the case, endeavoured to fix themselves on her parent.
+
+As for Alfred, he had misgivings certainly, respecting his being a
+younger brother, and his consequent want of fortune. At the same time,
+when he felt that he was justified in harbouring the restless,
+delightful hope, that he was already not quite indifferent to Caroline,
+and that he received such decided encouragement as he did from her
+mother, what could he think, but that he was the most fortunate fellow
+in existence, and that he had met with the most generous, liberal
+minded, delightful people in the whole world!
+
+Sometimes, indeed, he would take a fastidious fit, and murmur a little
+in his heart against fate, for compelling him to be the one to receive,
+and denying him the pride and pleasure of bestowing; but so absorbing
+was his passion for Caroline, that he soon closed his eyes against this
+objection, almost as absolutely as he would have done against the
+contrary had it existed. He was incapable, in short, at the time, of
+weighing any subject deliberately: a look, a smile, or the unbidden
+brightening of Caroline's countenance when they met, would have been
+sufficient to have upset the firmest resolves, had he even been visited
+by a lucid interval in which to have formed them; but on the contrary,
+from the first morning he had been so unexpectedly invited home by Lady
+Palliser, his head had become giddy with rapture; the pulsations of his
+heart had never settled down to their steady original pace, nor had any
+one thought or feeling ever once been summoned before the bar of reason.
+That it must be a fairy tale--a dream--too much happiness to be true,
+would sometimes cross his imagination for a moment, and strike his heart
+with a sort of panic; but such thoughts not being agreeable enough to
+meet with a welcome within, were therefore quickly dismissed.
+
+Whenever he was neither at Lady Palliser's nor at his old post at the
+window, he was wandering in some unfrequented walk, or reclining
+listlessly on a remote sofa in a deep reverie, calling to mind looks,
+smiles, or half uttered replies, from which, while they said nothing,
+every thing might be inferred.
+
+He studied and learned to comprehend as a language hitherto unknown, the
+timid, shrinking, as yet undeveloped character of Caroline. To him her
+very silence now conveyed more than the eloquence of others; and however
+long he watched the downcast lid, if it was raised at last but for a
+second, he was amply rewarded.
+
+And when he repaired to Jessamine Bower, to pay his now daily morning
+visit, and on entering addressed Lady Palliser first, as he made a point
+of doing, he literally trembled with concealed emotion as he noted the
+slight tinge, faint as the reflection from a rose leaf, steal over
+Caroline's delicate cheek, while she continued to bend over her
+employment, whatever it might be, and acting her part unnecessarily
+well, endeavoured to betray no consciousness of his presence, till her
+attention was absolutely claimed by some such formal address as--
+
+"How is Lady Caroline this morning?" Formal as were the words, the tone
+of the voice was sufficient. The faint tinge would increase to a deep
+blush, ere the equally formed reply was articulated. On many occasions,
+Alfred would continue to converse with Lady Palliser, or perform any of
+her frivolous and whimsical commands, and nothing more apparently would
+pass between the young people; yet would he, the while, trace in slight
+variations of countenance, imperceptible to any other eye, all that
+Caroline thought or felt with regard to what was said. Sometimes Lady
+Palliser herself would suddenly fling down her netting or knotting, or
+whatever nonsense she was about, with an expression of disgust, declare
+she was sick of it, and ordering Alfred to look for her pet book of
+Italian Trios, and Caroline to put away her drawing and join them, seat
+herself at the instrument.
+
+This to Caroline and Alfred was a wonderful improvement of position.
+Standing together behind Lady Palliser's chair, their voices united in
+the thrilling harmonies of the music, and sometimes in the utterance of
+words expressive of thoughts, which else one at least of the voices had
+never dared to pronounce. On one of these favourable occasions a
+circumstance occurred, trivial in the extreme, yet which forwarded
+Alfred's cause amazingly, and indeed conveyed to both a tacit conviction
+of each other's attachment.
+
+A hand of each while they sang rested on the back of Lady Palliser's
+chair, and after a simultaneous attempt to turn over the leaf of the
+music-book, accidentally came in contact as they returned to their
+former position. It had been long ere a modest younger brother, like our
+poor hero, had found courage to possess himself by any direct means of
+the fair, soft, taper fingered, rosy palmed, little hand, of the great
+heiress, the beautiful Lady Caroline Montague; but an occasion like this
+was not to be resisted: Alfred's trembling fingers closed upon the fond
+treasure; while a hasty but faint effort of Caroline's to withdraw it,
+was met by a beseeching look that seemed to have the desired effect;
+for, though covered with blushes, she did not immediately succeed in
+disengaging the hand, while the little scene was at the moment supplied
+by the duet with appropriate words.
+
+[Illustration: Langue il mio co-re per te d'a-mo-re.]
+
+Sang Alfred, while Caroline in faltering notes replied
+
+[Illustration: Non so re-sis-te-re.]
+
+When our hero had taken his departure Caroline hastened to her own
+apartment. She felt unfit for any society, particularly her mother's.
+
+Her pure unpractised delicacy of mind caused her to look back on the
+incident which had just passed as an event of the utmost importance; as,
+in short, not only a proposal, but also an acceptance. Nay, had she
+wished it, she would no longer have thought herself at liberty to
+retract; for she knew that she would not have allowed a man who was
+indifferent to her to have retained her hand in his for a single second.
+That she had permitted Alfred then to do so, she felt amounted to a
+confession of preference! Deep was the blush which accompanied this
+thought.
+
+At other times Lady Palliser would be extravagantly late in the morning;
+and, if consequently not in the drawing-room when our hero called, she
+would send word that Mr. Arden was not to go away till she came down;
+and then so whimsical were all her movements, not perhaps make her
+appearance for an hour, or possibly two. Those were the occasions on
+which Alfred best succeeded in drawing Caroline into easy and familiar
+conversation, and thus inducing in her a feeling of confidence towards
+himself, which a young creature who had been blessed with any friend in
+her own family, would not have thought of mingling with her love for a
+lover: but the affection poor Caroline was beginning to feel towards
+Alfred was not only her _First Love_, but it was also the first
+friendship her heart had ever been encouraged to know. Thus it was, that
+to a being hitherto so totally alone in the world, he became in so short
+a time every thing. While the idea, however vaguely entertained, of
+being at some period of the future of existence protected by his
+affection from every harshness--sheltered by his tenderness from every
+sorrow, had almost unconsciously became the hope, the home, the resting
+place of all her anticipations.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+"But how are you to ask us to the wedding, Alfred, considering we don't
+even visit?" said Louisa one morning to her brother, who stood as usual
+at the window, but now without even the pretext of a book.
+
+"Nonsense, Louisa!" he replied. "Wedding, indeed! I wish it were come to
+that! and it would be easy to arrange the visiting. By-the-by, ma'am,"
+he added, turning to his mother, "independent of Louisa's jesting, I
+wish we did visit."
+
+"So do I, my dear," replied Lady Arden, "but Lady Palliser, of the two,
+was here rather before I was; besides she is a person of the highest
+rank, so that I think the first advances ought to come from her. They
+say too, her ladyship is going to give a great fancy ball, and it would
+look as if I wanted to have the girls asked. However, I should suppose
+we must visit soon, one way or other; for Louisa's jesting as you call
+it, appears to me to go on in as serious a manner as you could desire."
+
+"Oh--I--a--don't know, ma'am," said Alfred, colouring, and pulling off
+and on an unfortunate glove, which seemed destined to be martyred in the
+cause.
+
+"Why certainly," persisted Lady Arden, "neither Lady Caroline, nor her
+mother for her, would be justified in receiving either your public
+attentions or your daily visits in the manner they do, if they meant to
+make the only objection which could be made to you--your being a younger
+son."
+
+"Well--I hope you may be right, ma'am;" said Alfred, laughing, and
+escaping into the garden to hide his confusion.
+
+"He will be a fortunate young man if he gets Lady Caroline Montague,"
+said Aunt Dorothea.
+
+"Not more fortunate than he deserves, Mrs. Dorothea," replied Lady
+Arden, "for he is the best creature in the world, as well as the
+handsomest and the most agreeable."
+
+"No one can be more sensible of my nephew's merits than I am," said Mrs.
+Dorothea; "but I still maintain that few, even of the few who deserve as
+well, are as fortunate. Lady Caroline Montague, I understand, inherits
+the whole of the family estates, and her son, should she have one, will
+I suppose have the title."
+
+"Why, no doubt she could command any match," replied Lady Arden; "'tis
+however a most fortunate circumstance that Lady Palliser has the good
+sense to see the advantage of her daughter marrying so thoroughly
+amiable a young man, who will make her so truly happy."
+
+"Talking of happiness," said Mrs. Dorothea, "I hope poor Jane may be
+happy with Lord Darlingford."
+
+"I trust she will," replied Lady Arden, with a half suppressed sigh;
+"and in point both of rank and fortune you know it is a most desirable
+match."
+
+"No doubt of it," rejoined Mrs. Dorothea, "and people are very foolish
+who neglect such serious considerations, and allow their time to glide
+by them. Were I, at this moment, as I might have been but for my own
+folly, Countess Dowager of Ravenscroft;" and here Mrs. Dorothea drew up
+her head with great stiffness, "such people as the Salters would never
+have had it in their power to insult me; nor should I have been in
+danger of losing my life by being baked to death in that horrid lodging.
+To be sure the carpet looked respectable, and that was all it had to
+recommend it."
+
+"By-the-by," said her ladyship, "I have often wondered, Mrs. Arden, how
+you, who have in general a very proper sense of your own dignity, came
+to make the acquaintance of such people as those Salts, was it you
+called them?"
+
+"Your ladyship's remark is very just," replied Mrs. Dorothea, "but the
+old friend from whom they brought me a letter, is a highly respectable
+and gentlemanly man, and I was not aware till lately that he had only
+made their acquaintance himself casually at a boarding-house, where it
+seems they persecuted him with attentions, and then worried him for a
+letter to some one at Cheltenham, where they said they were going
+perfect strangers. He was afraid to enter into those particulars in the
+note he sent by them, lest they should contrive to open and read it: and
+the letter he since wrote me to say how little he himself knew of them,
+and to apologise for the liberty he had taken, by explaining that they
+made such a point of his giving them a line to some friend, that he did
+not know how to refuse, was unfortunately delayed, waiting for a frank
+(he knows I don't like postages), till with my usual silly goodnature I
+had taken a great deal of trouble about those worthless people. Their
+vulgarity too disgusted me all the time; yet they so overwhelmed me with
+their thanks, their gratitude, as they called it, that I literally did
+not know how to shake them off."
+
+"Really my dear madam," said Lady Arden, "you are quite too
+goodnatured."
+
+"That has always been my weak point," replied Mrs. Dorothea: "when I see
+that it is in my power to serve people, I am fool enough to fancy that
+alone gives them a claim upon me."
+
+And such was really the case, for poor Mrs. Dorothea, though she had
+been all her life threatening to grow wise, in other words selfish, had
+never yet attained to any degree of proficiency in this art of
+self-defence, if we may so term it. Too great goodnature was indeed her
+only apology for being still at fifty-five, what people of the world
+emphatically call young! For she had not been all her days blinded by
+the dazzling sunshine of unclouded prosperity; on the contrary, her
+horizon had been frequently overshadowed by those unfavourable changes,
+from which, as variableness of weather teaches the sailor seamanship,
+knowledge of the world is in general collected.
+
+"But we were speaking of Jane," proceeded Mrs. Dorothea, "I have not the
+least doubt of my niece's good sense. Indeed Jane is a sweet girl, as
+amiable as sensible. I was only afraid that Lord Darlingford had rather
+a jealous temper."
+
+"I hope not!" her ladyship replied, again sighing, "and you know, my
+dear Mrs. Arden, the impossibility of having every thing one's own way
+in this world. The connection, establishment, and all that, are in the
+highest degree desirable. And then between ourselves, Lord Nelthorpe has
+not behaved very well to poor Jane."
+
+"In that respect, it is so far fortunate," said Mrs. Dorothea, "that she
+is now making a still higher connection. And then Sir James, with his
+fifteen thousand per annum, will certainly be a splendid match for
+Louisa; but she must mind what she is about, and not laugh at him as she
+now does after they are married."
+
+"Of course she will have too much good sense for that," replied Lady
+Arden; but her eyes filled with silent tears as she thought of the
+infinite sacrifice Louisa would make, if she did indeed marry Sir James.
+
+The three sisters had followed Alfred into the garden, and were
+collecting flowers to supply the vases in the drawing-room, and laughing
+in their usual light-hearted way, if but a blossom fell to the ground
+instead of into the basket held out to catch it. Caroline the while was
+standing in her mother's drawing-room, behind a Venetian blind, through
+which unseen she was observing their movements, and envying their
+happiness, which to her appeared to be satisfactorily accounted for by
+Alfred's being their brother. How fervently did she wish at the moment
+that she too were his sister, were it but that she might be privileged
+to go out and join the cheerful group, on which she thus wistfully
+gazed.
+
+With her solitary musing, however, a thrill pleasure mingled, when from
+time to time she saw Alfred steal a glance of interest at the very
+window where she stood; and which, from the blind being down, he
+suspected was occupied by Caroline.
+
+The Arden girls, at the moment, were all occupied plucking blossoms from
+various parts of a long trailing branch of woodbine, which as it hung
+from above their heads, it cost them an effort to reach.
+
+"Look, look! Caroline," cried Lady Palliser, who was standing at another
+window, "how like they are to the drawings of the graces. I must go and
+see Lady Arden directly, and send them all cards; for I am determined to
+have those three nice girls to do the graces at my fancy ball."
+
+Out of this mere whim of Lady Palliser's arose a visiting acquaintance
+with the Ardens.
+
+Alfred and Caroline were, therefore, more than ever together, a
+consequence which Lady Palliser made no effort whatever to prevent. The
+fact was that her ladyship was in the habit of considering Caroline, who
+was but seventeen, a mere child; while her own excessive vanity, and
+Alfred's unremitting efforts to make himself agreeable to her for
+Caroline's sake, had completely deceived her into a belief that he was
+under the dominion of one of those absurd boy passions, which very young
+men sometimes conceive for women much older than themselves;
+particularly if they happened to be, as her ladyship well knew she was,
+still extremely beautiful. And though Lady Palliser was too proud and
+too cold to have the most remote idea of making a fool of herself, she
+looked forward to seeing our hero in despair at her feet as to the
+_denouement_ of an excellent jest; while in the meantime she amused
+herself by drawing him on to commit every absurdity she could devise.
+And such, no doubt, if meant as attentions to herself, would have been
+many humble assiduities, which, for Caroline's sake, he willingly paid
+her ladyship.
+
+During the progress of this amiable proceeding, the honest-hearted
+Alfred received every symptom of kindliness of manner, as an indication
+of maternal feeling, and as a proof that Lady Palliser already
+considered him her future son-in-law.
+
+One evening they happened to be alone, when he was about to take his
+departure; her ladyship, on bidding him good night, held towards him
+her beautiful white hand in a very coquettish, but, as he thought, in
+the most frank, obliging manner possible. The idea struck him, that
+considering his comparative want of fortune, it might be more honourable
+in him to make some disclosure of the state of his feelings to Lady
+Palliser, previously to addressing Caroline herself; accordingly, in a
+paroxysm of grateful and dutiful affection, he seized her ladyship's
+proffered hand, respectfully pressed it to his lips, and began to murmur
+something about his own unworthiness. Lady Palliser, snatching her hand
+away, laughed and said, "Go, you foolish child."
+
+Alfred, thus discouraged for the moment, took his departure in silence,
+with some idea that Lady Palliser, however kindly and liberally disposed
+towards his humble pretensions, very possibly thought both Caroline and
+himself too young at present. What else could she mean by calling him a
+foolish child? Little did he dream of the construction put on his manner
+by his intended mother-in-law.
+
+As little had he suspected on former occasions, that her ladyship had
+believed him to be making a complete fool of himself, and had been in
+proportion well amused, when, in conversation with her, while every word
+was intended for the ear of our heroine, who sat silently by at her
+drawing, he had ventured on topics, which when alone with Caroline he
+dared not introduce; and eloquently painted his idea of an ardent,
+genuine, and worthy attachment, and the devotion of a whole life
+consequent upon it till he had became breathless with agitation: yet,
+seeing that Lady Palliser only smiled at the uncontrollable warmth which
+quite carried him away, he believed that he was tacitly approved of,
+and so thoroughly understood, that explanation, whenever the proper time
+for it should arrive, would be merely matter of form.
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+The triumphs of Aunt Dorothea over all her enemies, particularly the
+Salters, were so numerous, that to avoid prolixity we have not recounted
+them. As for Miss Salter, she had brought on a most inconvenient pain in
+the back of her neck by the reiterated bows with which she had again and
+again, morning after morning, vainly endeavoured to draw the attention
+of Mrs. Dorothea Arden.
+
+One day, however, when that lady was driving up and down the
+High-street, seated at her ease in her sister, Lady Arden's peculiarly
+splendid open barouche, she beheld, trudging along the flag-way and
+coming towards her, Mr. and the Misses Salter, with countenances which
+betrayed that they were not insensible to the heat of the weather; and
+shoes so assimilated by dust to the dust on which they trod, as to be
+nearly invisible. Mrs. Dorothea was not aware that the Salters had ever
+before seen her in this elegant carriage: so anxious was she therefore
+that they should do so now, that on the impulse of the moment, in
+defiance of having long since given them the cut direct, she made an
+almost involuntary, yet very conspicuous bow. Electrified and delighted,
+the whole party stopped short and performed no less than three bows each
+in return; while Miss Salter, who had by much the greatest portion of
+moral courage of the whole trio, added even a kiss of the hand.
+
+Miss Dorothea had not been long returned home when she received a card
+of invitation from the Misses Salter to a quadrille party, accompanied
+by a long servile note, to say that they were much concerned at not
+having had earlier it in their power to offer some attention to her
+friends, Lady Arden and family, and also to her friend Lady Palliser,
+and begging to know if their waiting upon, and sending cards of
+invitation to these respective ladies would be agreeable.
+
+To this was added a hint, that indeed the party was in a great measure
+made for her friends and would be very _select_.
+
+To the invitation for herself, Mrs. Dorothea sent a formal rejection,
+without assigning any reason. Of the absurd and forward proffer of
+_attention_ to her _friends_ she took no notice.
+
+Nor were those dignified proceedings the sole mode of vengeance
+practised by Mrs. Dorothea against her pitiful foes; for much as she was
+herself engaged at present with more agreeable occupations, she had
+placed the affair from the commencement in such able hands, namely,
+those of her prime minister, Sarah, that no circumstance, however
+minute, had been lost sight of.
+
+The origin of the Salters, by its coarsest appellation, had been
+diligently disseminated in every servant's hall, and thence arisen to
+the respective dining and drawing-rooms, till it had reached the ears of
+many, who else had never known that there were such people in existence
+as the Salters.
+
+What was if possible worse, Sir William Orm's servant in particular had
+been put on his guard about the deception practised on him by Mrs.
+Johnson, respecting the young ladies' fortunes; on which Sir William had
+without the slightest ceremony cut the connexion altogether. He never
+called or even left a card; he never joined them any where, and as to
+the bows he gave them in return for those they made to him from a mile
+off, they were really, except to persons in desperate circumstances, not
+worth having.
+
+Sir James, it may be remembered, had deserted on the very first morning
+he had encountered Louisa Arden; so that disconsolate indeed were now
+the pair who had so lately congratulated themselves on having two
+baronets for their lovers.
+
+Their _select_ acquaintance too, the Shawbridges and Whaleworthys, began
+to play fine; for in a watering place a title is a title, whether got by
+accident or by cheese, and though both beef and cheese, like all other
+necessaries, are sad vulgar things, experience had taught even the
+innocent hearted Lady Whaleworthy, that with a certain class, and she
+poor woman dreamed of no better, a title could cover a multitude of
+_cheeses_.
+
+Not so, alas, with the Misses Salter's _family secret_, which seemed for
+the present to have abolished all variety of diet, for (crying
+injustice!) while scarcely any body would visit Mr. Salter, Mr. Salter's
+beef was, to quote Sarah's polite pun, "in every body's mouth!"
+
+People could not even propound the flattering probability of his having
+amassed a large fortune without some one more witty than elegant adding
+the characteristic remark, that while salting his beef it was supposed
+he had taken care to save his bacon.
+
+To complete the unfortunate position of the family, Mr. Salter had
+unluckily found it necessary of late, in consequence of an aggravation
+of his old complaint of the eyelids, to wear, protruding from beneath
+the brim of his white hat, a _green_ silk shade, which gave occasion to
+the idlers on the Mountpelier-walk, green being the well known colour of
+disappointment, to assert that he had done so in consequence of the
+cruel desertion of Lady Flamborough, who had, simultaneously with the
+appearance of the said badge of despair, jilted him for a half-pay
+lieutenant; a gentleman who having received a hint to retire from the
+service of his Majesty, for reasons best known to himself and his
+brother officers, had come to Cheltenham to devote himself to the
+service of the ladies.
+
+Nor had poor Mr. Salter, while dragged every day to the walks by his
+daughters, who now had no one else to walk with, a chance of forgetting
+his fair deceiver; for there she was to be seen morning and evening as
+gaily _undressed_ as ever, flaunting away and smiling and languishing as
+usual; her white ostrich feathers too, at the highly improper
+instigation of the breezes, mingling from time to time with the bright
+red whiskers of the ci-devant lieutenant; while she, ungrateful woman,
+had the barbarity to pass poor Mr. Salter again and again, without so
+much as a recognition. "And that after," as he himself remarked,
+"having had the face to eat his good dinners;" the remembrance of the
+cost of which now added bitterness to the thoughts of slighted love.
+
+This was the morning too of the very day, or rather evening, fixed for
+Lady Palliser's fancy ball, with the expectation of which the whole town
+was ringing. Even the walks were thinned by its prospective influence,
+or rather picked of fashionables; for those who were to be there, were
+keeping themselves up, that they might be quite fresh for an occasion to
+which the very capriciousness of her ladyship's character had lent, in
+anticipation at least, a more than common interest.
+
+The Misses Salter, after weighing for two or three turns the poor chance
+which sad experience had taught them there was of their picking up a
+beau of any kind, against the certain disgrace of showing by their
+wretchedness of fatigue that they were not to be among the _elite_ of
+the evening, decided on going home to their breakfast, which social meal
+commenced in a sulk and ended in a storm.
+
+Miss Grace began again about the improvidence of cutting Mrs. Dorothea
+in the premature manner they had done. "And it was all your fault,
+Eliza," she continued, "that insolent temper of yours is always longing
+so for an opportunity to break out; and yet there is nobody that can
+sneak and cringe in the mean fawning manner that you can when you think
+there is any thing to be got by a person. If my advice had been taken,
+we would have been acquainted with all these genteel people, and going
+to this ball to-night, no doubt. To do Mrs. Dorothea justice, she was
+quite indefatigable in her kindness, and in getting people to call on us
+and invite us as long as we showed her any kind of gratitude; so we have
+ourselves to thank, or rather you for it all."
+
+"Your advice indeed, you fool!" was all Miss Salter could find to say;
+having, as she could not help knowing, the worst of the argument.
+
+"It all comes of _pride_, and upstartishness, and nonsense," said Mr.
+Salter. "Grace, the girl, however, is so far right; Mrs. Dorothea Arden
+is a very worthy gentlewoman, and showed us a great deal more civility
+than in our station of life we had any right to look for; and it
+certainly was our place to be very grateful for it, and if we have not
+been so it is no fault of mine; I knew nothing of the carryings on of
+you Misses with your boarding-school breeding forsooth."
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+In consequence of the expected ball in the evening, neither the Palliser
+nor Arden party had been at the walks in the morning. But soon after
+breakfast Alfred called at Lady Palliser's with his usual offering of
+sweets.
+
+Caroline had just entered the drawing-room, and was proceeding towards a
+conservatory at its further extremity, when the appearance of Alfred
+arrested her steps.
+
+He assisted her in arranging the flowers he had brought, and in
+selecting from them the favoured few she was to wear herself. This task
+drew from him some playful remark, more love-like than rational, on the
+good fortune of the happy blossoms thus chosen.
+
+Lady Palliser had been particularly harsh that morning about some
+trifle, and Caroline was consequently in very bad spirits.
+
+"Why should it be good fortune to be chosen by me," she said, "when I am
+myself the most unfortunate of beings? The poor flowers that I choose,"
+she added with a faint effort to laugh, fearful she had said too much,
+"will be the first to fade away," quoting Moore's little song.
+
+  "Or the young gazelle, with its soft black eye,
+  If it _loved you well would be sure to die_,"
+
+proceeded Alfred, humming the air and continuing the quotation; then in
+a half playful, half tender whisper, he subjoined, "The death-warrant
+of many of whom your ladyship little thinks would be already signed and
+sealed were this the case." But perceiving while he spoke that though
+Caroline tried to smile her lip trembled, he checked himself, and with
+an altered tone exclaimed, "I beg a thousand pardons! You are--you
+seem--what can have--"
+
+"Oh, nothing," she replied, "only other young people are light-hearted
+and cheerful together; there are your sisters for instance, how happy
+they always seem to be; and how kind to you all--how indulgent, how
+affectionate, Lady Arden appears. While I have neither sister, nor
+brother, and yet my mother"--here checking herself, she added
+hesitatingly, "I dare say--it must be my own fault--I suppose I don't
+deserve to be loved--but I am quite sure that--that--my mother does not
+love me--and oh, if you knew how miserable the thought makes me!"
+
+"You cannot be serious," he said.
+
+"I am indeed!" she replied, looking up with innocent earnestness, while
+her eyes swam in tears.
+
+Alfred caught her hand, pressed it to his lips, talked incoherently
+about the impossibility of knowing without loving her, then of his own
+unworthiness, his presumption, his poverty, his insignificance, &c. &c.;
+his being in short a younger son; and at length wound up all by making,
+notwithstanding, a passionate declaration of his love. If affection the
+most devoted, the most unalterable, had any value in her eyes, affection
+that would study her every wish, affection such as he was convinced no
+lover had ever felt before; if such affection could in any degree
+compensate for the absence of every other pretension, such, unable
+longer to suppress his feeling, he now ventured to lay at her feet.
+
+Caroline trembled and remained silent. He entreated her to speak, to
+relieve him from the fear that he had offended her past forgiveness by
+the very mention of his perhaps too daring suit.
+
+"Does--my mother--know?" she whispered at last, "because--if not--I
+fear--"
+
+"Lady Palliser I think," he replied, "must know, must understand; nay, I
+have ventured to allude slightly to the subject, and have even been
+presumptuous enough to translate her ladyship's kindly and indulgent
+admission of my constant visits as, however liberal on her part, a tacit
+consent to my addresses."
+
+"Oh, I hope you are right!" exclaimed Caroline, with an inadvertent
+earnestness which called forth from Alfred gratitude the most profuse,
+expressed, not indeed loudly, but in whispers so tender, so eloquent,
+that for some moments, Caroline, forgetting every thing but their
+import, felt a happiness she had never known before. New and delightful
+prospects of futurity seemed opening before her youthful imagination,
+hitherto so cruelly depressed. Her countenance, though covered with
+blushes, and studiously turned away to hide them, so far indicated what
+was passing within, as to encourage Alfred in adding,
+
+"To-morrow, then, when Lady Palliser may possibly be at home, may I
+venture to speak to her ladyship on this subject?"
+
+After a short silence, Caroline replied with hesitation,
+
+"Yes--I--suppose--you had better."
+
+But she sighed heavily as she said so, for she dreaded the strange and
+whimsical temper of Lady Palliser; yet she now found that a feeling of
+consolation accompanied what had hitherto been her greatest sorrow, the
+sense of her mother's want of affection; for perhaps, she thought, she
+may not care enough about me to mind what I do! Here all her efforts at
+self-possession gave way, and she yielded to a passion of tears.
+
+Alfred had been holding her hand, and anxiously watching her
+countenance; he became alarmed, and began to suspect, that perhaps she
+was herself undecided. "What can this mean?" he cried. "You do not
+repent of the permission you have given me? Caroline! say you do not!
+Say I am wrong in this!"
+
+She raised her eyes and moved her lips to reply, when a loud
+electrifying knock was heard at the hall door. The look however had so
+far reassured Alfred, that he again pressed her hand to his lips, and
+repeated with an inquiring tone, "To-morrow, then?" Footsteps were heard
+in the hall; the drawing-room door opened, and Alfred hastily
+disappeared, while a servant entering, laid cards on the table and
+retired.
+
+Caroline was hastening towards the conservatory to take refuge there
+till her agitation should subside, when the Venetian blind which hung
+over its entrance was moved aside, and her mother appeared before her,
+scorn and rage depicted in her countenance.
+
+Our heroine, her footsteps thus unexpectedly arrested, stopped short in
+the centre of the apartment, and stood trembling from head to foot.
+
+From behind the Venetian blind, Lady Palliser had witnessed the whole of
+the interview between the lovers.
+
+She was not herself previously aware that the heartless coquetry in
+which she had been indulging had taken so strong a hold even of her bad
+feelings; but disappointed vanity was perhaps a mortification she had
+never known before. She therefore scarcely herself understood the
+species of rage with which she was now animated; the almost hatred with
+which she now looked on the perfect loveliness of her blushing,
+trembling child. Of course, on prudential considerations she would have
+disapproved of the match at any rate; and of this she now made an
+excuse to herself.
+
+She stepped forward, and when close before Caroline, stamped her foot,
+uttered an ironical, hysterical laugh, and almost gasping for breath,
+stood some moments ere she could well articulate.
+
+"You piece of premature impudence!" were the first words she at length
+pronounced. After pausing again for a moment, she recommenced with a
+sneer, "So you have made your arrangement. I must congratulate you on
+Mr. Arden's obliging acceptance of your liberal offer, of heart, hand,
+and fortune!"
+
+Caroline looked the most innocent astonishment.
+
+"You really do not understand me," proceeded her ladyship, in the same
+tone of mockery. "Are you then not aware that I have been a witness to
+the scene which has just passed? and have, of course, heard your modest
+ladyship stating to Mr. Arden how much at a loss you were for some one
+to love you, forsooth! Barefaced enough, certainly! Upon which the young
+man could not in common politeness do less than offer his services.
+Besides, it was much too good a thing to be rejected; few younger
+brothers, and therefore beggars, would refuse the hand of an heiress of
+your rank and fortune. Go! you disgrace to your family and sex; go to
+your room, and remain there till you have my permission to leave it. As
+for Mr. Arden, I shall give orders that he is never again admitted
+beneath this roof. Should you hereafter meet him in society do not dare
+to recognise him. Go!"
+
+Caroline was moving towards the door, without attempting a reply, well
+aware that remonstrance or entreaty would be perfectly vain.
+
+"Stay!--I have changed my mind," recommenced her ladyship. "Mr. Arden
+comes to-morrow, it seems--let him come--I shall not see him. Receive
+him yourself, reject him yourself, now and for ever! Tell him that on
+reflection you have repented of your folly; and that the subject must
+not be even mentioned to me. Let the interview take place in this
+room--let your rejection be distinct, and let him suppose it comes from
+yourself. I shall be again in the conservatory--I shall hear and see all
+that passes; and on your peril, by word or look, say more or less than I
+have commanded."
+
+Caroline flung herself on her knees, and with clasped hands and
+streaming eyes looked up in her mother's face. "Oh, do not, do not,"
+she exclaimed, "ask me to see him, and in all else I will submit!"
+
+Lady Palliser laughed out with malicious irony, saying, "So you offer
+conditional obedience. Do," she proceeded, frowning fiercely, and
+extending her clenched hand in the attitude of a fury, "precisely as I
+have commanded!"
+
+"This evening," continued her ladyship, with affected composure, looking
+contemptuously down on Caroline, who was sobbing ready to break her
+heart, "this evening, deport yourself as though nothing had happened:
+dance as much as usual; and do not dare to have red eyes, or to show the
+slightest depression of manner. Should Mr. Arden make any allusion to
+what has occurred this morning, merely tell him to say nothing more on
+the subject till to-morrow."
+
+Here Lady Palliser quitted the apartment, while Caroline remained on her
+knees, overwhelmed by utter despair, and shedding, with all the innocent
+vehemence of childhood, the large pure tears, which like summer showers
+fall so abundantly from the eyes of the young in their first sorrow.
+
+The alternative of daring to disobey her harsh and heartless mother
+never once presented itself to her mind as possible.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+It was night--arrivals had commenced--the lights, the music, the
+decorations, the sight and scent of the flowers, all added to the aching
+of Caroline's temples and the confusion of her ideas, as she stood in a
+sort of waking dream, conscious only of wretchedness, near the door of
+the first of the reception rooms, courtesying with a mechanical smile to
+each new group that appeared. She would have given the world to have
+been any where else, but this was the post her mother had commanded her
+to fill.
+
+When the ladies of the Arden party entered, she felt a childish impulse
+to fling herself into the bosom of Lady Arden, and drawing all the
+daughters round her, entreat them to hide her from her cruel mother.
+
+Alfred next appeared, accompanied by Sir Willoughby and Mr. Geoffery
+Arden. The two latter named gentlemen had been expected for some days,
+but had arrived only about two hours before.
+
+Alfred presented both, and some unmeaning conversation passed about the
+heat of London, how long they had been on the road, &c. Our hero, the
+moment he came in, missed the flowers Caroline had promised to wear, and
+felt disappointed. If she had forgotten them in the hurry of dressing it
+was no very flattering token of her regard. If, on the other hand, Lady
+Palliser had noticed and forbid her wearing them, it was a bad symptom
+of his ultimate success. He longed for an opportunity of venturing some
+playful reproach which might lead to an explanation. When his companions
+moved on a step or two he drew very near, and asked in an emphatic
+whisper, if the chosen blossoms had faded already. A rush of colour,
+which the peculiar fairness of Caroline's complexion already described
+made the more remarkable, covered her cheeks in a moment; but she
+attempted no reply. After a short and somewhat anxious pause Alfred
+asked her to dance; she looked up suddenly but vacantly, as if scarcely
+comprehending what he had said, but still spoke not. He was just about
+to repeat his words, when Willoughby, who had been conversing with Lady
+Palliser, turned round and made the same request. Caroline, glancing
+towards her mother, and seeing her eye upon her, started, assented
+quickly, took Willoughby's arm, and walked to the quadrille.
+
+Lady Palliser noted the chagrin of our hero with secret triumph, and
+suddenly forming one of her usually whimsical and tyrannical resolves,
+determined, as an appropriate punishment for the lovers, to marry her
+daughter to Sir Willoughby, whose match in town she had heard it
+confidently reported was off. Though he was but a baronet, his immense
+property made it at least an eligible marriage; and such, little as she
+cared about Caroline, she had always considered it a necessary part of
+etiquette some time or other to provide.
+
+That Alfred, however, might ascribe Caroline's change to her own
+caprice, and be the more mortified, Lady Palliser took his arm, walked
+about with him for a considerable time, and treated him with more than
+her usual cordiality.
+
+It had the desired effect, it threw him into complete despair; he could
+not now even console himself with the thought that Caroline was acting
+under the influence of her mother.
+
+When the dancing had ceased, and Caroline was seated with her evidently
+delighted partner on a distant sofa, Lady Palliser led our hero up to
+her, and said, "Come, Caroline, I have no notion of giving up old
+friends for new ones altogether: you must dance one set with poor
+Alfred; do see how forlorn he looks."
+
+Caroline was utterly confounded: had her mother forgiven them--was she
+going to relent.
+
+Such happy thoughts, however, were soon scattered, for Lady Palliser,
+on pretext of arranging a stray ringlet, drawing very near, whispered,
+with a menacing frown, "Take care how you behave, and what you say." The
+frown and whisper destroying as they did the momentary hope, caused
+Caroline, on taking Alfred's arm, to look so much disappointed that it
+was impossible not to infer that she would rather have remained on the
+sofa. Yet Alfred could not bring himself to believe this! he was
+miserable, however, and did not know what to think; while he was so much
+occupied forming painful conjectures, that he himself behaved strangely
+and coldly.
+
+Caroline thought with intense agony of the task she had to perform in
+the morning, while with a feeling allied to terror she stole from time
+to time a momentary glance at the features of him she must so soon
+mortally offend; to whom she must so soon give apparently just cause to
+view her henceforward with hatred and contempt. She even fancied that
+his countenance wore already a severity of expression she had never seen
+in it before. She bewildered herself too with the thought, that if she
+could get an opportunity and venture just to whisper, "Mr. Arden, don't
+mind any thing I am obliged to say to you in the morning," it might
+prevent his thinking so very very ill of her as he must otherwise do.
+This sentence she repeated to herself above an hundred times during the
+quadrille, yet whenever she was going to address it to Alfred, and more
+than once she moved her lips to begin, she either caught her mother's
+eye turned upon her, or she fancied it might be, and dared not look to
+see lest it should give her a conscious and guilty appearance; or the
+impression that Alfred was already displeased became so strong as to
+deprive her of the courage to speak to him; besides all which, her heart
+at each abortive attempt she made to articulate, leaped up into her
+throat, and by its excessive fluttering quite choked her utterance, till
+the convenient moment was gone by. On the music ceasing, Lady Palliser
+came up and took her away, as if in great haste to make some
+arrangement, yet, in so obliging a manner, and with so many pretty
+excuses, that Alfred thought her ladyship at least was unchanged.
+
+And so must Caroline, he told himself again and again; "it can be but
+fancy on my part, or rather, all that seems strange and altered in her
+manner must proceed from her extreme delicacy, her excessive timidity,
+her consciousness that we now perfectly understand each other's thoughts
+makes her fearful to meet my eye, at least with others present; makes
+her afraid that all the world will know the moment they see us together
+what is passing in our hearts. I can well imagine one so gentle, so
+young, so fearful, feeling the newness of her situation, almost as
+though she were already a bride; having listened but this very morning,
+for the first time in her life, I should suppose favourably, to the
+accent of a lover."
+
+Alfred had wandered into the conservatory, where, amid the intoxicating
+odours of ten thousand exotics--pursuing this train of thought--he
+luxuriated for a time in dream-like meditations on the delicacy, the
+devotion, the exclusive tenderness, which must necessarily characterise
+the attachment of a being so pure, so innocent, so unpractised in the
+world's ways as Caroline--his Caroline! Yes, he was now entitled to
+combine with her idea this endearing epithet.
+
+He was standing the while with his arms folded and his eyes
+unconsciously uplifted to a brilliant lamp, as if lost in contemplation
+of its brightness.
+
+A change in the music broke his reverie; when his discerning vision
+passing along a vista of orange trees, found its way into the
+drawing-room, and fell on a group preparing to waltz. Among these, and
+occupying the very spot hallowed to memory by the interview of the
+morning, he beheld Caroline standing with the arm of Willoughby round
+her slender waist, and her hand resting on his shoulder--a moment after
+the couple had launched amid the tide of changing forms; but Alfred's
+eye still traced them as they floated round and round the prescribed
+circle, till, what with the moving scene, and his own thoughts of agony,
+his brain went round also. He had never been able to prevail with
+Caroline to waltz, her plea of refusal had always been that she did not
+waltz. Was she then changed in every sentiment--in every opinion--in
+every feeling! Had she become hardened to the world--lost to personal
+delicacy--lost to affection--lost to him! What had she--what had she not
+become! and all within a few short hours.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+In vain had our heroine, when Sir Willoughby had asked her to waltz,
+pleaded the same excuse alluded to in our last chapter. Lady Palliser,
+who was near, and heard Sir Willoughby's request, interfered, and
+commanded compliance; while poor Caroline, who seems to have been born
+but to be the victim of her mother's caprices, was led away to join the
+gay circle, trembling and broken-hearted.
+
+The report that Willoughby's marriage had been broken off was quite
+true: he had written the account to Alfred a day or two before. The lady
+had the very day previous to that fixed for the wedding eloped with her
+former lover; while Sir Willoughby had found himself, his preparations
+being all made, in rather an absurd situation.
+
+The newspapers, too, had taken unwarrantable liberties with his name,
+and made some witty comments on the superior personal attractions of his
+rival.
+
+His vanity it was which had in the first instance been gratified--his
+vanity now suffered proportionately. And so irritable was his temper and
+so depressed his spirits, on his arrival in Cheltenham, that Alfred, who
+had but just returned from his interview with Caroline, felt that it
+would be mistimed to mention her, or allude at all at present to his own
+happier prospects. He limited the confidential conversation, therefore,
+to kind condolence with his brother, being too delicate to remind
+Willoughby that he might have escaped this mortification had he taken
+his advice.
+
+Thus was the foundation unintentionally laid of a concealment which
+finally led to many disastrous consequences.
+
+The moment Willoughby was introduced to Caroline he was captivated by
+her beauty. After they had danced together, when our heroine was so
+unexpectedly desired by her mother to dance with Alfred, Geoffery Arden,
+who may be termed Willoughby's evil genius, took possession of the seat
+beside him on the sofa, which had been just vacated by Caroline; and
+well knowing his cousin's weak point, said, "Well, that is one of the
+most pointed things I ever saw."
+
+"To what do you allude?" asked Willoughby.
+
+"Did you not see how mortified her ladyship looked at having her
+flirtation with you disturbed."
+
+"Flirtation, indeed!" repeated Willoughby, laughing; "the acquaintance
+is rather short for that, I should think."
+
+"Nay, we hear of love at first sight; and it was certainly something
+very like it. You were not many minutes in the room when you asked Lady
+Caroline to dance; and I don't know whether you noticed it, but a moment
+or two before Alfred, who has been so long acquainted, had made the same
+request; the lady pretended not to hear: she heard, however, when you
+spoke, and consented with marked alacrity."
+
+Willoughby's vanity, which had been so lately wounded, gladly welcomed
+suggestions so flattering. To woo and win the young, the beautiful, the
+rich Lady Caroline Montague, might well silence the jeers of those who
+were disposed to make impertinent comments on his late disappointment.
+
+As for Geoffery Arden's motive for offering the incense of flattery to
+Willoughby, it was the same which in most cases governs most
+men--self-interest. It was by the grossest flattery that he had long
+since made himself necessary to his cousin; and by the same means he
+still sought to retain an influence over him, which, in a pecuniary
+point of view, was particularly convenient to himself. On the present
+occasion also, he had seen with half a glance sufficient to make him
+suspect, at least, that Lady Caroline Montague was an object of interest
+to Alfred. If he was right in his conjecture, the circumstance might
+afford a favourable opportunity for sowing the seeds of dissension
+between the brothers, an object of which he never lost sight, well
+knowing that his own influence and that of Alfred could never go hand in
+hand--the one being for evil, the other for good.
+
+Added to this, it was always more or less an object with him to throw
+obstacles in the way of any love affair of either of the brothers; for
+though he was not so romantic as to expect by such means to succeed in
+preserving them both old bachelors, should they reach old age--for such
+a chance could not be very important to him, who was so much their
+senior--it was just as well to keep the book of fate open as long as
+possible. There was no use in increasing the chances against himself.
+The fewer names, in short, above his own on the list of even improbable
+advantages the better.
+
+While the cousins continued to occupy their sofa, and observe the
+dancers, Geoffery was eloquent in the praises of Caroline's beauty;
+quoting, as he well might, many high authorities for her being the
+acknowledged belle of the late season in town. He knew that weak men,
+with all their obstinate devotion to their own opinions, unconsciously
+see with the eyes, hear with the ears, and even speak in the language of
+others; and that their love most especially is a mere reflection!
+
+Indeed, to gain an entire ascendency over weak people only requires a
+little management; but unfortunately it is of that uncandid sort which
+their best friends are the least likely to adopt.
+
+If you say to an ill-governed child, "My dear, you have eaten enough of
+that cake, give it me, and take this pretty toy to play with." The child
+says, "No, I won't; it's not a pretty toy," and eats faster than before.
+But lay down the toy carelessly within his sight, and if he has eaten
+sufficiently, he will drop his cake on the floor, and fly to seize the
+toy.
+
+Men and women of weak minds are but children of a larger growth.
+
+When the company had all retired, Lady Palliser thus addressed her
+daughter: "Your avoiding to dance with Mr. Arden was quite unnecessary.
+I have no desire that your manners towards him in society should be at
+all altered: such conduct would draw down remarks which I do not choose
+should be made. As for to-morrow," continued her ladyship, "remember
+that I shall witness the scene; therefore let your obedience be perfect!
+Also, if you have any regard to decency left, take care that no folly on
+your part gives Mr. Arden an opportunity of boasting that Lady Caroline
+Montague, in despite of the impropriety of the alliance, was
+indelicately ready to fling herself into his arms, if Lady Palliser had
+not interfered."
+
+Her ladyship here quitted the room; and Caroline, her ideas confused by
+this new view of the subject, stood transfixed to the spot, till aroused
+from her reverie by the entrance of servants to extinguish the lights.
+
+She retired, but it may be believed not to rest. She flung herself on
+her bed without undressing, and wept away the early morning, the
+brightness of which entering freely through the shutterless windows of
+a Cheltenham bed-room, shone with incongruous lustre alike on her
+glittering ornaments and her falling tears. We speak of morning, because
+the night, of course, had been over before the ball concluded.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+Alfred had no opportunity for private conversation with his brother
+before he went to his appointment at Lady Palliser's; nor indeed did he
+now desire it till he should have come to some explanation with
+Caroline.
+
+In strange perplexity of spirits, trying in vain to persuade himself
+that he had every thing to hope and nothing to fear, he repaired to
+Jessamine Bower.
+
+On entering the drawing-room he perceived Caroline, seated and alone.
+When he was announced, she did not move. He approached; her eyes still
+remained fixed on the ground, while the paleness of her complexion was
+even more remarkable than usual, and a very slight but universal tremor
+pervaded her whole frame. He stood before her, and as he did so,
+trembled himself with undefined apprehension.
+
+"Good heavens, Caroline!" he exclaimed, sinking on one knee, and
+attempting to take her hand. She withdrew it hastily, and her cheeks
+crimsoned while she cast one involuntary glance in the direction of the
+conservatory. Alfred rose, folded his arms, and stood for a moment
+silent, then said--"If I have been presumptuous, Lady Caroline, I have
+much to plead in my excuse, and the interview of yesterday in
+particular; I was certainly led to hope for a more favourable
+reception, however little I may be deserving of it."
+
+"I was--to blame," said Caroline, in a voice scarcely articulate, and
+still without looking up.
+
+"Is it possible! Do I interpret you right? Were those hopes, to me so
+full of joy, altogether fallacious? But no, Caroline, I will not, I
+cannot believe it! Lady Palliser objects, and you deem it your duty to
+submit: even this thought would be happiness, compared with that of your
+indifference! Or--or--"
+
+"My caprice!" said Caroline, looking up almost wildly for a moment,
+"Yes, think it my caprice!"
+
+"I cannot believe it," he replied.
+
+There was a considerable pause, during which he anxiously observed
+Caroline, and perceived that silent tears were stealing down her
+cheeks.
+
+"Those tears are not caused by caprice," he said in a tone of
+tenderness; "in compassion say," he added with sudden and vehement
+earnestness, "that you are acting in obedience to Lady Palliser's
+commands, and I too will submit." While speaking again he sank on his
+knee before her, and tried to take both her hands. The terror however
+with which she resisted, hastily rising as she did so--the more
+effectually to avoid him--so much for the moment resembled aversion,
+that he rose as hastily, and looking his amazement, said with a
+hysterical intonation of voice, "If it is indeed so, I have a thousand
+apologies to offer to Lady Caroline Montague for my impertinent
+intrusiveness. To retire, however, and offend no more, will perhaps be
+better than entering further into the subject." He was about to depart,
+when pausing he said, "I will ask one question--Am I rejected? Do you
+finally withdraw the hopes you yesterday bestowed?"
+
+"I do," she replied.
+
+He stood for a few moments to master his emotion, then pronouncing a
+haughty good morning, hastily quitted the room and the house. In a few
+moments after, he was pacing, without plan or intention, one of the many
+shady and usually quite solitary walks, which branch off in every
+direction from the general scene of gaiety, and near to which both
+villas stood.
+
+His pride, as well as every tenderer and worthier feeling, was wounded
+beyond description. He now appeared, even to himself, in the light of
+one who had indelicately, unfeelingly, and presumptuously sought a match
+of worldly advantage, to which he had no pretension; and though he
+could acquit himself of interested views in so doing, he felt that it
+would be a romance and absurdity to expect so candid an interpretation
+from any one else. The one continued dream, which had made up his whole
+existence for many weeks past, was now dissipated in an instant. Nay, he
+sought in vain among his own meditations for the apologies, even to
+himself, which had before seemed sufficient. Caroline, so silent, so
+fearful at the commencement of their acquaintance, had seemed to derive
+a new existence from his growing attentions, while Lady Palliser,
+instead of checking those attentions, and showing alarm at the visible
+pleasure with which her daughter received them, had herself given him
+what he then considered the most unequivocal encouragement, being always
+the first to make intercourse easy to both, by desiring the always
+timid Caroline to dance with him, walk with him, and sing with him. And
+then the silent glow of secret pleasure with which the welcome command
+was obeyed, confirmed sometimes perhaps by a momentary expression caught
+when the eyes accidentally met, or at other times merely by an alacrity
+of movement, or cheerfulness of tone in obeying or replying, which,
+notwithstanding, betrayed volumes in a character too fearful and gentle
+to let itself be regularly read aloud, yet too artless, too unpractised,
+to know how utterly to seal its pages.
+
+While such things had been, the prejudices of society had faded from his
+mind; he had believed it not impossible that where an only child already
+possessed immense estates, a parent might prefer the happiness of that
+child to the unnecessary addition of other estates. Now all the
+artificial estimates of life and manners, taught by early education,
+returned in their fullest force, and he thought himself a madman ever to
+have entertained such an opinion.
+
+He now believed that every one who knew he had had the presumption to
+pay his addresses to Lady Caroline Montague, would reprobate him and
+say, that because he was a younger brother, and of course a beggar, he
+wanted to make his fortune by marrying an heiress. How bitterly did he
+now regret that he had ever had the rash folly to confess his passion.
+Yet, so thoroughly disinterested had that passion been, that he had even
+for the time lost sight of the possibility of being suspected by others
+of motives of which he was himself incapable: all that through the
+happy intoxication of his feelings had presented itself respecting
+fortune, was a vaguely delightful remembrance that his poverty could
+never entail any privations on Caroline. What was now to be done? The
+wretched state of his feelings would have induced him to quit Cheltenham
+immediately, but wounded pride prompted him to remain; he wished to let
+Lady Caroline Montague see that her caprices should not govern his
+conduct; that he could behave with composure in her society--with polite
+self-possession even towards herself. But in this first moment of just
+resentment, he knew not the difficulty of the task he courted. He
+resolved to conceal the whole affair from Willoughby, and if his mother
+and sisters persisted in making allusion to the subject of his
+admiration of Lady Caroline Montague, to assure them gravely that he
+never meant, in his circumstances, to subject himself to the suspicion
+of seeking an heiress because she was an heiress.
+
+Having come to so dignified a resolve, he flattered himself for the
+moment that he was almost composed. Scarcely however had he arrived at
+this conclusion, than fond memory, more at leisure than it had been
+during the late angry burst of disappointed passion, began retracing
+scenes, recalling looks, repeating words, recounting circumstances, till
+his mind again became a troubled sea, from amidst the breakers of which
+he beheld, but now with all the aggravated feelings of one sent adrift
+in a bark without rudder or oar, tantalizing views, but too distant to
+admit a hope of reaching a smiling happy shore--a haven of bliss to
+fancy's eye, which appeared the more perfect now that it was
+unattainable.
+
+At one time he stopped short, and stood for about ten minutes like an
+absolute statue, quite unconscious of any outward object. He was asking
+himself, if it were not still possible that Caroline was acting under
+the influence of Lady Palliser and if there might not come a time when
+that influence would cease?
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER XXII.
+
+
+No language can paint the utter desolation of poor Caroline's mind; for
+she was too young, too inexperienced, too much accustomed from infancy,
+to be the unmurmuring slave of her mother's capricious tyranny to have
+any thing like a just estimate of her own situation.
+
+Had she ventured to think, which she had never yet done, that when of
+age she should be her own mistress, she would, as very young people do
+when they look forward three or four years, have thought the period so
+remote as to be scarcely an object of hope; while she would still have
+trembled at the thought of venturing at any time, however distant, to
+disobey her mother, unless indeed she could be quite sure of never
+seeing her again.
+
+Lady Palliser's plan of government when Caroline was a mere infant, had
+been a system of terror; nor had any thing in her subsequent conduct
+tended to soften that first impression. Frowns and menacing attitudes
+had been used towards the baby before it could understand words, if when
+occasionally brought into its mother's presence it had happened to
+stretch its little hand towards any attractive object. Hours of solitary
+imprisonment in a dark room had been inflicted on the child, for but a
+fancied dilatoriness of movement in the execution of a command, till
+poor Caroline had learned to start with nervous alarm, and fly with the
+alacrity of terror at the very sound of her mother's voice; while it was
+melancholy to see, during the seemingly willing movement the little
+innocent face of the child filled with the contradictory expressions of
+anxiety and dread.
+
+Thus had early associations followed up by constant tyranny, imposed at
+the dictates of a temper unreasonable, capricious, and unfeeling, taught
+Caroline to view with a sinking of the heart the very smiles of her
+mother's countenance, as played off in company; none of them she knew
+were intended for her, even when their light, perchance, was turned upon
+her.
+
+Overweening, all-engrossing vanity, was Lady Palliser's ruling passion;
+society therefore in which she could be the object of universal
+admiration was her only element. Not that she was what is commonly
+called a flirt:--she was too haughty--too exacting of general adoration
+for such a condescension towards any individual in particular; while yet
+within her hidden thoughts, concealed beneath an appearance of
+statue-like coldness, she had a secret delight in imagining every man
+with whom she was acquainted, as much in love with her as he dared to
+be, and withheld from a declaration of his passion only by her own
+haughty reserve: nay, so far did she carry this dream of vanity, that
+she felt more or less of resentment towards every man of her
+acquaintance who married or attached himself to any other woman.
+
+Such was the person with whom poor Caroline had hitherto spent every
+domestic hour she could remember. Her home, which had thus never been a
+happy one, now by contrast with the vague hopes in which she had
+latterly ventured to indulge, presented to her imagination a long
+perspective of tenfold dreariness. The frowns in private, the artificial
+smiles in public of her unkind parent, were all that she anticipated in
+future. Her very youth seemed an aggravation of her misery, for the
+grave itself, which, in her present exaggerated and hopeless state of
+feeling, was she believed, the only refuge to which she could look
+forward, appeared at an immeasurable distance, the path to it stretching
+before her mind's eye an interminable pilgrimage of weariness.
+
+We do not mean to support these views of the subject as rational or
+just; but Caroline in experience and knowledge of the world, as well as
+in chancery phraseology, was still an infant; even her love had at
+present something in it of the feelings of the child turning to the kind
+and gentle, as a refuge from the harshness of the more severe; and with
+the idea of Alfred was blended thoughts of his sisters and of Lady
+Arden, and of their happy home--that scene of cheerfulness and general
+goodwill, which she had latterly enjoyed the privilege of entering
+without ceremony, and which she had never quitted without regret.
+
+The most severe, however, of all her sufferings was the thought that
+Alfred must now hate and despise her.
+
+She was shut up in her own apartment weeping bitterly and giving way to
+a succession of dreary reflections, when she received a summons from her
+mother to appear in the drawing-room. So much was she accustomed to
+obey implicitly that she did not dare to excuse herself.
+
+On descending, she found with Lady Palliser, Sir Willoughby Arden and
+his cousin Geoffery. Willoughby was turning over new songs and
+professing himself a great admirer of music; the true secret of which
+was that he sang remarkably well himself. After some trivial
+conversation, he discovered several duets in which he had often taken a
+part with his sisters, and intreated that Caroline would try one of
+them. She excused herself on the plea of a headache caused by the music,
+lights, and late hours of the previous evening; but Lady Palliser
+interfering, she was compelled to make a wretched attempt; the manner
+spiritless, the voice tremulous and even out of tune. Willoughby's
+performance, however, was really good; he was therefore quite
+delighted. As the song was being concluded, Lady and the Misses Arden
+came in, and the latter being prevailed on to assist Willoughby with
+some more of his favourite duets, the visit was prolonged into quite a
+morning concert.
+
+When the Ardens were about to take their departure for the avowed
+purpose of a walk, Lady Palliser insisted on Caroline's accompanying
+them, saying that the air would take away her headache. Caroline made a
+faint effort to excuse herself, but in this, as in every thing, was
+obliged to submit.
+
+They soon met and were joined by Lord Darlingford and Sir James Lindsey;
+and it not being an hour at which any part of the walks was particularly
+crowded, they wandered on to where the shade by its coolness was
+inviting.
+
+Willoughby attached himself entirely to our heroine, with whom he
+already fancied himself in love. Lord Darlingford walked soberly beside
+Jane, who after many relapses of a hope, fainter at each return, had
+resigned her early dream of first and mutual love, and was now quietly
+receiving his serious addresses. She had at length brought her mind to
+anticipate, with a placid sort of happiness, the hope of obtaining for
+life the companionship and protection of a friend whom she could
+respect; together with the certainty of securing a perfectly eligible
+establishment, and thus escaping all those miseries inflicted by the
+unfeeling world's scorn on the poor and the unprotected;--miseries
+against which her mother and her aunt had so often warned her.
+
+Louisa was attended by Sir James, her expected marriage with whom was
+now the universal theme. She had herself, however, by no means made up
+her mind; she could not even approach a decision, her meditations on the
+subject always ending in a fruitless wish that Henry were the elder
+brother.
+
+Madeline, who did not happen to have a lover present walked and talked
+with her cousin Geoffery.
+
+Mrs. Dorothea had been called for as they passed her door; she was the
+companion of Lady Arden.
+
+Arranged in the order we have described, our party came suddenly upon
+Alfred, standing where we last left him, and having just brought his
+solitary musings to the final summing up with which we concluded the
+last chapter.
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+
+Alfred could not without an appearance of great singularity avoid
+joining the party; he turned, therefore, and making his salutation to
+Caroline, and what other recognitions were necessary, in as hurried a
+manner as possible, took the unoccupied side of Madeline. Geoffery saw a
+good deal, and suspected more. "Where have you been all the morning,
+Alfred?" he said. "We have had some delightful music at Lady
+Palliser's."
+
+"Indeed!" replied our hero.
+
+"Yes," added Willoughby, "Lady Caroline was so obliging as to try one
+or two charming duets, in which her ladyship permitted me to attempt a
+part."
+
+Alfred could scarcely credit that he heard aright--was it
+possible!--could Caroline indeed be so utterly devoid of feeling? What,
+but a few moments after having driven him from her presence, overwhelmed
+with despair by her capricious perfidy? However strangely changed,
+however indifferent she had herself become, had she not even the grace
+to compassionate the sufferings she had wilfully inflicted? Could she
+within the very same half hour be in such exuberant spirits that it was
+necessary to exhaust them by singing for the amusement of her morning
+visitors? Or was it indeed possible, that young as she was, she had
+already learned worldly wisdom sufficient to prefer the possessor of
+the Arden estates to his landless younger brother? So indeed it would
+appear. Had she not last night danced with Willoughby in preference to
+himself?--Had she not afterwards departed from her usual line of conduct
+to waltz with him also?--This morning, had not every thought and feeling
+undergone an evident and sudden revolution. That prudential
+considerations had been strongly represented to Caroline he made no
+doubt; it was highly improbable that such views had arisen spontaneously
+in her own mind; but of what value could the merely fanciful preference
+be that could be so easily turned aside? To believe Caroline worthless
+cost him a more cruel pang than even the knowledge that she was lost to
+him for ever.
+
+As soon as the Arden family had reached home, after having left Caroline
+at Lady Palliser's, and parted from Lord Darlingford and Sir James at
+the door, the sisters began as usual to banter Alfred about his love;
+and Lady Arden observed laughingly, "But you seem to have quite resigned
+your post to Willoughby." Alfred made a strong effort to treat the
+subject with seeming carelessness, and replied generally, that younger
+brothers had no pretensions.
+
+"That is," replied his mother, "as the lady may think. And I am sure
+Willoughby would be very sorry to interfere with your prospects; an
+heiress can be no object to him."
+
+Willoughby looked amazed. Alfred begged Lady Arden would not treat the
+subject with such unnecessary solemnity, and assured his brother, with
+an earnestness that surprised the ladies of the family, that he had not
+the most distant intention of ever addressing Lady Caroline Montague,
+nor the slightest reason to suppose that if he were guilty of so silly a
+presumption, his forwardness would not meet with the repulse it should
+deserve.
+
+"I don't know that," said Geoffery; "it must depend on the share of
+encouragement a lady pleases to give."
+
+"Lady Caroline Montague," observed Willoughby, "is certainly much to be
+admired; at the same time," he added, with evident pique, "I should be
+sorry, were I ever to enter the lists among her ladyship's adorers, to
+owe my success to being an elder brother, as my mother would infer!"
+
+The girls persisted in laughing, and declaring there must have been a
+lover's quarrel; for that Alfred did not speak of Lady Caroline in the
+least like the way he used to do.
+
+"There is certainly a great change," said Mrs. Dorothea; "every thing
+appeared to be going on just as Alfred's best friends could have
+wished."
+
+"How busy people make themselves," thought Willoughby, "but they shall
+not influence my conduct."
+
+To avoid the painful topic, Alfred sauntered into the lawn by one of the
+open French windows. He was almost instantly followed by Willoughby, who
+took his arm and walked for some time up and down in silence.
+
+"I wish Alfred you would be candid with me," said Willoughby at last, "I
+certainly admire Lady Caroline Montague, but mine is the admiration--the
+acquaintance of a day--an hour. If you are seriously attached, still
+more, if the attachment is, as my mother and sisters seem to think,
+mutual, tell me so honestly, and I am sure you will do me the justice to
+believe, that had I the vanity to suppose I could succeed in such an
+attempt, I would be the last being in existence to wish to interfere
+with your happiness; so far from it, that if fortune is the obstacle,
+say so, and I will make a settlement on you so splendid, as to leave no
+room for objection on that head."
+
+Alfred, quite overcome by his brother's generosity, was unable to
+articulate; he drew Willoughby's arm closer to his side in token of his
+gratitude, and they walked on a little, till finding themselves
+sheltered from the immediate view of the windows by a drooping
+acacia-tree, they paused by a sort of mutual consent, and Alfred, making
+an effort to master his emotion, said--"I feel Willoughby, if possible,
+more gratitude than if I were about to accept and be made happy by your
+noble offer. I feel too," he added, hesitating, "that I--owe it to your
+generous nature to make a confession, which else I had gladly avoided.
+I--I have been already rejected--rejected not by Lady Palliser on the
+plea of want of fortune, but by Lady Caroline Montague herself. You are,
+therefore, of course--free--to--to--" but he could not bring himself to
+give the palpable form of words to the remainder of the inference.
+
+"Rejected already! and by Lady Caroline herself!" repeated Willoughby.
+"Thank heaven then, my interference at least can never be alleged. What
+occurred before my arrival cannot be laid to my charge. This, under
+whatever circumstances may arise, will be an infinite consolation to my
+mind."
+
+Alfred did not judge it necessary to correct the slight error in
+chronology which his brother had made, and a protracted silence
+followed; at length Willoughby said, "Do you think it probable, Alfred,
+that you will be induced to renew your addresses?"
+
+"Certainly not!" replied Alfred.
+
+"In that case," said Willoughby, again breaking the silence, "who may or
+who may not ultimately succeed in making themselves acceptable to Lady
+Caroline Montague can in no wise affect your happiness?"
+
+"My happiness," replied Alfred, in a strange hurried manner, "is quite
+irrelevant to the present subject: but I am not, I trust, so selfish as
+to feel any desire to condemn a lady to a life of celibacy, merely
+because--but let us lay aside this painful subject; I shall endeavour
+as quickly as possible to forget all things connected with it, except,
+indeed, the feelings of heartfelt gratitude so justly due to you, my
+dear Willoughby."
+
+While this conversation was passing in the lawn, Geoffery, whom we left
+in the drawing-room with the ladies of the family, addressed Mrs.
+Dorothea Arden thus:
+
+"So you really think it will be a match between Alfred and Lady Caroline
+Montague?"
+
+"I should think so, certainly," replied Mrs. Dorothea; "his attentions
+have been very marked, and have been received with decided approbation,
+both by mother and daughter; and I am sure that he is, poor fellow, very
+sincerely attached."
+
+"We all thought it quite settled," said Jane. Her sisters echoed nearly
+the same sentiment.
+
+"There can be no doubt," observed Lady Arden, "that Alfred would have a
+right to consider himself very ill treated, if any objection to his
+pretensions were started at this late period."
+
+"There was a great difference, however, last night," said Louisa, "in
+Lady Caroline's manner."
+
+"And a still greater this morning," added Madeline.
+
+"Your ladyship thinks Alfred attached to Lady Caroline?" asked Geoffrey.
+
+"Unquestionably!" replied Lady Arden. "If the affair should not go on,
+it will be a very serious disappointment to him, I am convinced."
+
+"And her ladyship received him well up to last night?" persisted
+Geoffrey.
+
+"I should certainly say so," Lady Arden replied.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+                            END OF VOL. I.
+
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+                  C. WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSE, STRAND.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Dilemmas of Pride, (VOL 1 OF 3), by Margracia Loudon
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