"Oh! grown quite fat and coa.r.s.e," said Jessie; "but you may judge for yourself on Monday. Dear Mrs. Langford is so kind as to give us a regular Christmas party, and all the Evanses and Dittons are coming. And we are to dance in the dining-room, the best place for it in the county; the floor is so much better laid down than in the Allonfield a.s.sembly-room."

"No such good place for dancing as the deck of a frigate," said Roger.

"This time last year we had a ball on board the Euphrosyne at Rio. I took the prettiest girl there in to supper--don't be jealous, Jessie, she had not such cheeks as yours. She was better off there than in the next ball where I met her, in the town. She fancied she had got rather a thick sandwich at supper: she peeped in, and what do you think she found? A great monster of a c.o.c.kroach, twice as big as any you ever saw."

"O, you horrid creature!" cried Jessie, "I am sure it was your doing.

I am sure it was your doing. I am sure you will give me a scorpion, or some dreadful creature! I won't let you take me in to supper on Monday, I declare."

"Perhaps I won't have you. I mean to have Cousin Henrietta for my partner, if she will have me."

"Thank you, Cousin Roger," faltered Henrietta, blushing crimson, with the doubt whether she was saying the right thing, and fearing Jessie might be vexed. Her confusion was increased the next moment, as Roger, looking at her more fully than he had done before, went on, "Much honoured, cousin. Now, all of you wish me joy. I am safe to have the prettiest girl in the room for my partner. But how slow of them all not to have engaged her before. Eh! Alex, what have you to say for yourself?"

"I hope for Queen Bee," said Alex.

"And Jessie must dance with me, because I don't know how," said Carey.

"My dears, this will never do!" interposed grandmamma. "You can't all dance with each other, or what is to become of the company? I never heard of such a thing. Let me see: Queen Bee must open the ball with little Henry Hargrave, and Roger must dance with Miss Benson."

"No, no," cried Roger, "I won't give up my partner, ma'am; I am a privileged person, just come home. Knight Sutton has not had too much of Henrietta or me, so you must let us be company. Come, Cousin Henrietta, stick fast to your engagement; you can't break the first promise you ever made me. Here," proceeded he, jumping up, and holding out his hand, "let us begin this minute; I'll show you how we waltz with the Brazilian ladies."

"Thank you, Cousin Roger, I cannot waltz," said Henrietta.

"That's a pity. Come, Jessie, then."

If the practice of waltzing was not to be admired, there was something which was very nice in the perfect good humour with which Jessie answered her cousin's summons, without the slightest sign of annoyance at his evident preference of Henrietta's newer face.

"If I can't waltz, I can play for you," said Henrietta, willing not to seem disobliging; and going to the piano, she played whilst Roger and Jessie whirled merrily round the room, every now and then receiving shocks against the furniture and minding them not the least in the world, till at last, perfectly out of breath, they dropped laughing upon the sofa.

The observations upon the wild spirits of sailors ash.o.r.e then sank into silence; Mrs. Roger Langford reproved her son for making such a racket, as was enough to kill his Aunt Mary; with a face of real concern he apologised from the bottom of his heart, and Aunt Mary in return a.s.sured him that she enjoyed the sight of his merriment.

Grandmamma announced in her most decided tone that she would have no waltzes and no polkas at her party. Roger a.s.sured her that there was no possibility of giving a dance without them, and Jessie seconded him as much as she ventured; but Mrs. Langford was unpersuadable, declaring that she would have no such things in her house. Young people in her days were contented to dance country dances; if they wanted anything newer, they might have quadrilles, but as to these new romps, she would not hear of them.

And here, for once in her life, Beatrice was perfectly agreed with her grandmamma, and she came to life again, and sat forward to join in the universal condemnation of waltzes and polkas that was going on round the table.

With this drop of consolation to her, the party broke up, and Jessie, as she walked home to Sutton Leigh, found great solace in determining within herself that at any rate waltzing was not half so bad as dressing up and play-acting, which she was sure her mamma would never approve.

Beatrice came to her aunt's room, when they went upstairs, and pet.i.tioned for a little talk, and Mrs. Frederick Langford, with kind pity for her present motherless condition, accepted her visit, and even allowed her to outstay Bennet, during whose operations the discussion of the charade, and the history of the preparations and contrivances gave subject to a very animated conversation.

Then came matters of more interest. What Beatrice seemed above all to wish for, was to relieve herself by the expression of her intense dislike to the ball, and all the company, very nearly without exception, and there were few elders to whom a young damsel could talk so much without restraint as to Aunt Mary.

The waltzing, too, how glad she was that grandmamma had forbidden it, and here Henrietta chimed in. She had never seen waltzing before; had only heard of it as people in their quiet homes hear and think of the doings of the fashionable world, and in her simplicity was perfectly shocked and amazed at Jessie, a sort of relation, practising it and pleading for it.

"My dear!" said Beatrice, laughing, "I do not know what you would do if you were me, when there is Matilda St. Leger polka-ing away half the days of her life."

"Yes, but Lady Matilda is a regular fashionable young lady."

"Ay, and so is Jessie at heart. It is the elegance, and the air, and the society that are wanting, not the will. It is the circ.u.mstances that make the difference, not the temper."

"Quite true, Busy Bee," said her aunt, "temper may be the same in very different circ.u.mstances."

"But it is very curious, mamma," said Henrietta, "how people can be particular in one point, and not in another. Now, Bee, I beg your pardon, only I know you don't mind it, Jessie did not approve of your skating."

"Yes," said Beatrice, "every one has scruples of his own, and laughs at those of other people."

"Which I think ought to teach Busy Bees to be rather less stinging,"

said Aunt Mary.

"But then, mamma," said Henrietta, "we must hold to the right scruples, and what are they? I do not suppose that in reality Jessie is less--less desirous of avoiding all that verges towards a want of propriety then we are, yet she waltzes. Now we were brought up to dislike such things."

"O, it is just according to what you are brought up to," said Beatrice.

"A Turkish lady despises us for showing our faces: it is just as you think it."

"No, that will not do," said Henrietta. "Something must be actually wrong. Mamma, do say what you think."

"I think, my dear, that woman has been mercifully endowed with an instinct which discerns unconsciously what is becoming or not, and whatever at the first moment jars on that sense is unbecoming in her own individual case. The fineness of the perception may be destroyed by education, or wilful dulling, and often on one point it may be silent, though alive and active on others."

"Yes," said Henrietta, as if satisfied.

"And above all," said her mother, "it, like other gifts, grows dangerous, it may become affectation."

"Pruding," said Beatrice, "showing openly that you like it to be observed how prudent and proper you are."

"Whereas true delicacy would shrink from showing that it is conscious of anything wrong," said Henrietta. "Wrong I do not exactly mean, but something on the borders of it."

"Yes," said Aunt Mary, "and above all, do not let this delicacy show itself in the carping at other people, which only exalts our own opinion of ourselves, and very soon turns into 'judging our neighbour.'"

"But there is false delicacy, aunt."

"Yes, but it would be false kindness to enter on a fresh discussion tonight, when you ought to be fast asleep."

CHAPTER XI.

The Queen Bee, usually undisputed sovereign of Knight Sutton, found in her cousin Roger a formidable rival. As son and heir, elder brother, and newly arrived after five years' absence, he had considerable claims to attention, and his high spirits, sailor manners, sea stories, and bold open temper, were in themselves such charms that it was no wonder that Frederick and Alexander were seduced from their allegiance, and even grandpapa was less than usual the property of his granddaughter.

This, however, she might have endured, had the sailor himself been amenable to her power, for his glories would then have become hers, and have afforded her further opportunities of coquetting with Fred. But between Roger and her there was little in common: he was not, and never had been, accessible to her influence; he regarded her, indeed, with all the open-hearted affection of cousinly intercourse, but for the rest, thought her much too clever for him, and far less attractive than either Henrietta or Jessie.

If she would, Henrietta might have secured his devotion, for he was struck with her beauty, and considered it a matter of credit to himself to engross the prettiest person present. Had Beatrice been in her place, it may be doubted how far love of power, and the pleasure of teasing, might have carried her out of her natural character in the style that suited him; but Henrietta was too simple, and her mind too full of her own affairs even to perceive that he distinguished her. She liked him, but she showed none of the little airs which would have seemed to appropriate him. She was ready to be talked to, but only as she gave the attention due to any one, nay, showing, because she felt, less eagerness than if it had been grandpapa, Queen Bee, or Fred, a talk with the last of whom was a pleasure now longed for, but never enjoyed. To his stories of adventures, or accounts of manners, she lent a willing and a delighted ear; but all common-place jokes tending to flirtation fell flat; she either did not catch them, or did not catch at them. She might blush and look confused, but it was uncomfortable, and not gratified embarra.s.sment, and if she found an answer, it was one either to change the subject, or honestly manifest that she was not pleased.

She did not mortify Roger, who liked her all the time; and if he thought at all, only considered her as shy or grave, and still continued to admire her, and seek her out, whenever his former favourite, Jessie, was not in the way to rattle with in his usual style. Jessie was full of enjoyment, Henrietta was glad to be left to her own devices, her mamma was still more rejoiced to see her act so properly without self-consciousness or the necessity of interference, and the Queen Bee ought to have been duly grateful to the one faithful va.s.sal who was proof against all allurements from her side and service.

She ought, but the melancholy fact is that the devotion of womankind is usually taken as a matter of course. Beatrice would have despised and been very angry with Henrietta had she deserted to Roger, but she did not feel in the least grateful for her adherence, and would have been much more proud of retaining either of the boys. There was one point on which their attention could still be commanded, namely, the charades; for though the world may be of opinion that they had had quite a sufficiency of amus.e.m.e.nt, they were but the more stimulated by their success on Thursday, and the sudden termination in the very height of their triumph.

They would, perhaps, have favoured the public with a repet.i.tion of Shylock's trial the next evening, but that, to the great consternation, and, perhaps, indignation of Beatrice, when she came down to breakfast in the morning, she found their tiring-room, the study, completely cleared of all their various goods and chattels, Portia's wig in its box, the three caskets gone back to the dressing-room, the duke's throne safe in its place in the hall, and even Shylock's yellow cap picked to pieces, and rolled up in the general h.o.a.rd of things which were to come of use in seven years' time. Judith, who was putting the finishing touches to the re-arrangement by shaking up the cushions of the great chair, and restoring the inkstand to its place in the middle of the table, gave in answer to her exclamations the information that "Missus had been up since seven o'clock, helping to put away the things herself, for she said she could not bear to have Mr. Geoffrey's room not fit for anybody to sit in." This might certainly be considered as a tolerably broad hint that they had better discontinue their representations, but they were arrived at that state of eagerness which may be best ill.u.s.trated by the proverb referring to a blind horse. Every one, inclined to that same impetuosity, and want of soberness, can remember the dismay with which hosts of such disregarded checks will recur to the mind when too late, and the poor satisfaction of the self-justification which truly answers that their object was not even comprehended.

Henrietta, accustomed but little to heed such indications of dissent from her will, did not once think of her grandmamma's dislike, and Beatrice with her eyes fully open to it, wilfully despised it as a fidgety fancy.