initial commit of ebook 35769HEADmain

1 files changed, 4460 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/35769-8.txt b/35769-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..03da46a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/35769-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,4460 @@
+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
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DILEMMAS OF PRIDE, (VOL 1 OF 3) ***
+
+***** This file should be named 35769-8.txt or 35769-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/7/6/35769/
+
+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)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+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
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.