down the lamp, and slammed the door-the very cloquence of anger to the vulgar. Disappointment too great to bear-vexation at the timidity which had prevented her asking about Lorraineanger at her reception-dismay at her situation, overcame all her resolution, and it was long before she even struggled with her passion of tears. The absurdity would have lightened the insult, could she have suspected that her hostess was jealous, not inhospitable. Jealousy ought to be tragic, to save it from being ridiculous. CHAPTER XVIII. "You're very welcome." "Yet the charmed spell Which summons man to high discovery SHAKSPEARE. Though they alone may hear it who have hearts To seek the perfumes of spiceladen winds Cambridge Prize Poem: the North West Passage. "DON'T you, Mandeville, take an especial interest in your young plantations, and say to yourself, 'How much more taste I have in the disposition of oak, elm, and beech, than my ancestors had!'" "To what does this allusion, whose truth I confess, tend? said her husband, smiling. 66 Why, I want you to sympathise with me in my rejoicing over Emily's improvement; you know I set it all down to my own judicious advice and exquisite example." You need not put on a deprecating look; I am not going to find a single fault. Emily is wonderfully improved --she has lost all that was painful, and retained all that was pleasing, in her timidity; and to her own natural graces she has added divers acquired ones, for which I do confess she is greatly indebted to you; and then she is so very much prettier than I ever gave her credit for being." "That is," said Lady Mandeville, "because now you always see her dressed to advantage.' 66 Nay, Ellen, you will not tell me that a pretty gown makes a pretty woman.' "It does a great deal towards it; but you gentlemen always run away with some vague idea of white muslin and cottage bonnet simplicity, which you call dress which in reality ought to be numbered among the fine arts, and requires both natural and cultivated taste. Now, Emily had the one, but wanted the other. During her first season she was left to her own inventions-the heaviest of misfortunes to a young damsel. Lady Alicia was just 'ivorie neatly fashioned; and Emily came up to town a domestic darling and rural beauty. Her selfestimate was at once true and false-true, as regarded the really pretty face she did possess; false, as regarded the effect to be produced by the said face. She was not so much vain, as convinced of her own importance, from having been all her life the principal object in her own circle; finding herself suddenly of little consequence, she shrunk back into all her natural timidity, and left London with a great stock of mortification, a little sentiment, and having acquired more knowledge than wisdom." "Wisdom," observed Lord Mandeville, "is only knowledge well applied." 66 My pretty protegee was very little likely to turn hers to much account. Remember how we found her-living in the most entire seclusion, cherishing grief like a duty, nursing all sorts of fancies vain and void,' neglecting herself, indulging in the most morbid sensibility, and having every probability of wasting the best days of her life in sickly seclusion, and either dying of a consumption, or, when she came to the romantic age in woman—I mean between forty and fifty-marrying some fortune hunter who could talk sentiment, or resembled her first love. Nous avons change tout cela. A beauty and an heiress— coming out under my auspices! think of the effect Emily Arundel will produce next season.' 66 Why not marry her at once to Cecil Spenser?" said Lord Mandeville, abruptly. There is a most characteristic difference in the way a man and a woman take to introduce a desired topic: the one, like a knight, claps spurs to his steed, and rides straight into the field; the other, like an Indian, fights behind cover, and watches her opportunity: the knight often misses the enemy, the Indian never. Lord Mandeville was more abrupt than ingenious. "I marry Emily to Mr. Spenser?" said the lady, with a most meek air of utter inability; "really I do think she may be allowed a choice of her own. I cannot take her feelings, as well as her ringlets, under my charge. You give me credit for authority which I not only do not possess, but should be sorry to acquire." "Well, Ellen, you must have your own way; but this I must say, Emily Arundel is a girl of whose strong feelings I think even your penetration is scarcely aware.” 66 Truly I am one very likely to encourage romance in any young lady! Did you ever know me to patronise moonlight walks, or talk even forgivingly of cottages and roses? and have I not a natural antipathy to honeysuckle?" "And raillery takes the field for reason:' it is vain to argue with a woman: just like walking in London on a rainy day, for every step forward, you slide back two at least; and even as the mud slips from under you, so does her mind. I wish, Ellen, you were a little more reasonable." "You should have thought of that before me; but now your misfortune is irreparable, 'Till gentle death shall come and set you free.' you married And there is the carriage; so now for our drive-I want to make some purchases in La Strada." How very satisfactory those dicussions must be, where each party retains their own opinion! Presentiments— those clouds, indicative of change, which pass over the mind-what are they? They come, and they come not. Who shall deny but that some events" cast their shadows before;" while others, and those, too, the great ones of our life, come suddenly and without sign: "As ships that have gone down at sea Surely some presentiment ought to have informed both Emily and Lady Mandeville of the event that day was to bring forth. It came not; and they set off for the gay shops of La Strada, as if only a few yards of riband had depended on that morning. They were all in the very act of returning to the carriage, when who should emerge from a small, mean looking jeweller's shop, but Edward Lorraine? Emily saw him first-how soon we recognise the object uppermost in the mind!—she did not, however, even attempt to speak-her cheek grew pale-her heart seemed to stop beating-she almost felt as if she wished him not to recognise them: the next minute they all met, and Lady Mandeville was the first to exclaim, "Mr. Lorraine! now what chance brought you here?" "A most fortunate one," replied Edward; and mutual and cordial greetings took place,-though there was something very satisfactory to Cecil Spenser in Emily's silence, and cold and distant bow. There are a great many false things in this world, but none are so false as appearances. "Of course you will accompany us home," said Lord Mandeville. 66 I suppose you are just arrived." "I arrived yesterday." Inquiries of that small kind with which conversation, after absence, always commences among friends, occupied the way to the carriage. Lorraine was installed in the vacant place, the other two gentlemen followed on horseback. Lady Mandeville was in the best of all possible humors-she was really glad to see Edward on his own, and delighted to see him on Emily's account. In short,. to use the favorite newspaper phrase for all cases of escape, whether from fire, water, or mail coachmen (we mean their driving), his appearance was "quite providential.". She was only anxious about Miss Arundel's looks -they were irreproachable. The pretty little mouth, all unconsciously, had broken into "dimples and smiles," the eyes darkened and danced in their own delight, and her color was like that of the young rose when it puts back its green hood from its cheek, crimson with the first kisses of the morning. A little judicious encouragement soon led her to take part in the conversation, and the drive seemed ended almost before it had began. Edward could not help pausing on the steps of the hall, to express his admiration of the great improvement in Emily. "What a lovely creature she is grown!" Lady Mandeville gave him the very sweetest of smiles. Their early dinner was ready; and some of the party, at least, were very happy. Lord Mandeville partially forgot the interests of his young friend in the charm of Edward's conversation. Cecil was the only one who was in the "winter of discontent;" but it was very hard to be placed himself between a French countess young, pretty, and exacting the amount of such demands in full-and a Miss Arabin, an English heiress, whose designs upon him had grown from amusing to alarming. He had not even the consolation of sitting opposite to Emily; she was on the other side, between the countess's husband—a man whom nothing abstracted from the glorious science to which, as he said, he had for years devoted every faculty of his body and mind, viz. eating. To enjoy his dinner first, and afterwards to reflect on that enjoyment, comprised the whole of his estimate of table duties as for talking, it was sometimes matter of necessity, but never of pleasure. It was said he only married in order to have a wife to talk for him; and if any one asked him how he did, his constant reply was, mais demandez a ma femme. There was no hope, therefore, of his distracting Emily's attention from the handsome Lorraine on the other side. How is human happiness ever to be arranged, when the same cause produces such different effects? Emily's satisfaction was utterly irreconcilable with Cecil's. In the position of the table she could imagine no change for the better. Poor Cecil resigned himself in despair to the gaiety of the countess, and the sentiment of the heiress. He turned from the bright black eyes of the one to the soft blue eyes of the other, and he escaped from a smile only to be lost in a sigh. Miss Arabin looked at him, la belle comtesse laughed at him. Please to remember there are two ways of laughing at a person; and Madame de St. Ligne had often had the pretty French madrigal applied to her: "Elle a très bien cette gorge d'albâtre, Ce doux parler, et ces beaux yeux; Mais, en effet, ce petit ris folâtre C'est à mon gré ce qui lui sied le mieux." |