"You find my poor sister wonderfully composed," said the former.

"Charming woman, Lady Matilda!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the latter; "her feelings do honour to her head and heart!"

Mary sprang into the carriage as quick as possible to be saved the embarra.s.sment of a reply; and it was not till they were fairly out of sight that she ventured to raise her eyes to her cousin's face. There the expression of ill-humour and disgust were so strongly depicted that she could not longer repress her risible emotions, but gave way to a violent fit of laughter.

"How!" exclaimed her companion, "is this the only effect 'Matilda's moan' has produced upon you? I expected your taste for grief would have been highly gratified by this affecting representation."

"My appet.i.te, you ought rather to say," replied Mary; "taste implies some discrimination, which you seem to deny me."

"Why, to tell you the truth, I do look upon you as a sort of intellectual ghoul; you really do remind me of the lady in the Arabian Nights, whose taste or appet.i.te, which you will, led her to scorn everything that did not savour of the churchyard."

"The delicacy of your comparison is highly flattering," said Mary; "but I must be duller than the fatweed were I to give my sympathy to such as Lady Matilda Sufton."

"Well, I'm glad to hear you say so; for I a.s.sure you I was in pain lest you should have been taken in, notwithstanding my warning to say something _larmoyante--or_ join the soft echo--or heave a sigh--or drop a tear--or do something, in short, that would have disgraced you with me for ever. At one time, I must do you the justice to own, I thought I saw you with difficulty repress a smile, and then you blushed so, for fear you had betrayed yourself! The smile I suppose has gained you one conquest--the blush another. How happy you who can hit the various tastes so easily! Mrs. Downe Wright whispered me as she left the room, 'What a charming intelligent countenance your cousin has!' While my Lord Duke of Altamont observed, as he handed me along, 'What a very sweet modest-looking girl Miss Douglas was! 'So take your choice--Mrs. William Downe Wright, or d.u.c.h.ess of Altamont!"

"d.u.c.h.ess of Altamont, to be sure," said Mary: "and then such a man! Oh!

such a man!"

CHAPTER XIV.

"For marriage is a matter of more worth Than to be dealt with in attorneyship."

SHAKESPEARE.

"ALLOW me to introduce to you, ladies, that most high and puissant Princess, her Grace the d.u.c.h.ess of Altamont, Marchioness of Norwood, Countess of Penrose, Baroness of, etc. etc.," cried Lady Emily, as she threw open the drawing-room door, and ushered Mary into the presence of her mother and sister, with all the demonstrations of ceremony and respect. The one frowned-the other coloured.

"How vastly absurd!" cried Lady Juliana angrily.

"How vastly amusing!" cried Adelaide contemptuously.

"How vastly annoying!" cried Lady Emily; "to think that this little Highlander should bear a loft the ducal crown, while you and I, Adelaide, must sneak about in shabby straw bonnets," throwing down her own in pretended indignation. "Then to think, which is almost certain, of her Viceroying it someday; and you and I, and all of us, being presented to her Majesty--having the honour of her hand to kiss--retreating from the royal presence upon our heels.

"Oh! ye Sylphs and Gnomes!" and she pretended to sink down overwhelmed with mortification.

Lady Emily delighted in tormenting her aunt and cousin, and she saw that she had completely succeeded. Mary was disliked by her mother, and despised by her sister; and any attempt to bring her forward, or raise her to a level with themselves, never failed to excite the indignation of both. The consequences were always felt by her in the increased ill-humour and disdainful indifference with which she was treated; and on the present occasion her injudicious friend was only brewing phials of wrath for her. But Lady Emily never looked to future consequences--present effect was all she cared for; and she went on to relate seriously, as she called it, but in the most exaggerated terms, the admiration which the Duke had expressed for Mary, and her own firm belief that she might be d.u.c.h.ess when she chose; "that is, after the expiry of his mourning for the late d.u.c.h.ess. Everyone knows that he is desirous of having a family, and is determined to marry the moment propriety permits; he is now decidedly on the look-out, for the year must be very near a close; and then, hail d.u.c.h.ess of Altamont!"

"I must desire, Lady Emily, you will find some other subject for your wit, and not fill the girl's head with folly and nonsense; there is a great deal too much of both already."

"Take care what you say of the future representative of majesty of this may be high treason yet; only I trust your Grace will be as generous as Henry the Fifth was, and that the d.u.c.h.ess of Altamont will not remember the offences committed against Mary Douglas."

Lady Juliana, to whom a jest was an outrage, and raillery incomprehensible, now started up, and, as she pa.s.sionately swept out of the room, threw down a stand of hyacinths, which, for the present, put a stop to Lady Emily's diversion.

The following day Mrs. Downe Wright arrived with her son, evidently primed for falling in love at first sight. He was a very handsome young man, gentle, and rather pleasing in his manners; and Mary, to whom his intentions were not so palpable, thought him by no means deserving of the contempt her cousin had expressed for him.

"Well!" cried Lady Emily, after they were gone, "the plot begins to thicken; lovers begin to pour in, but all for Mary; how mortifying to you and me, Adelaide! At this rate we shall have nothing to boast of in the way of disinterested attachment n.o.body refused!--nothing renounced!

By-and-bye Edward will be reckoned a very good match for _me,_and _you_ will be thought greatly married if you succeed in securing Lindore--_poor_ Lord Lindore, as it seems that wretch Placid calls him."

Adelaide heard all her cousin's taunts in silence and with apparent coolness; but they rankled deep in a heart already festering with pride, envy, and ambition. The thoughts of her sister--and that sister so inferior to herself--attaining a more splendid alliance, was not to be endured. True, she loved Lord Lindore, and imagined herself beloved in return; but even that was not sufficient to satisfy the craving pa.s.sions of a perverted mind. She did not, indeed, attach implicit belief to all that her cousin said on the subject; but she was provoked and irritated at the mere supposition of such a thing being possible; for it is not merely the jealous whose happiness is the sport of trifles light as air--every evil thought, every unamiable feeling, bears about with it the bane of that enjoyment after which it vainly aspires.

Mary felt the increasing ill-humour which this subject drew upon her, without being able to penetrate the cause of it; but she saw that it was displeasing to her mother and sister, and that was sufficient to make her wish to put a stop to it. She therefore earnestly entreated Lady Emily to end the joke.

"Excuse me," replied her Ladyship, "I shall do no such thing. In the first place, there happens to be no joke in the matter. I'm certain, seriously certain, or certainly serious, which you like, that you may be d.u.c.h.ess of Altamont, if you please. It could be no common admiration that prompted his Grace to an original and spontaneous effusion of it. I have met with him before, and never suspected that he had an innate idea in his head. I certainly never heard him utter anything half so brilliant before--it seemed quite like the effect of inspiration."

"But I cannot conceive, even were it as you say, why my mother should be so displeased about it. She surely cannot suppose me so silly as to be elated by the unmeaning admiration of anyone, or so meanly aspiring as to marry a man I could not love, merely because he is a Duke. She was incapable of such a thing herself, she cannot then suspect me."

"It seems as impossible to make you enter into the characters of your mother and sister as it would be to teach them to comprehend yours, and far be it from me to act as interpreter betwixt your understandings. If you can't even imagine such things as prejudice, narrow-mindedness, envy, hatred, and malice, your ignorance is bliss, and you had better remain in it. But you may take my word for one thing, and that is, that 'tis a much wiser thing to resist tyranny than to submit to it. Your patient Grizzles make nothing of it, except in little books: in real life they become perfect pack-horses, saddled with the whole offences of the family. Such will you become unless you pluck up spirit and dash out. Marry the Duke, and drive over the necks of all your relations; that's my advice to you."

"And you may rest a.s.sured that when I follow your advice it shall be in whole not in part."

"Well, situated so detestably as you are, I rather think the best thing you could do would be to make yourself d.u.c.h.ess of Altamont. How disdainful you look! Come, tell me honestly now, would you really refuse to be Your Grace, with ninety thousand a year, and remain simple Mary Douglas, pa.s.sing rich with perhaps forty?"

"Unquestionably," said Mary.

"What! you really pretend to say you would not marry the Duke of Altamont?" cried Lady Emily. "Not that I would take him myself; but as you and I, though the best of friends, differ widely in our sentiments on most subjects, I should really like to know how it happens that we coincide in this one. Very different reasons, I daresay, lead to the same conclusion; but I shall generously give you the advantage of hearing mine first. I shall say nothing of being engaged--I shall even banish that idea from my thoughts; but were I free as air--unloving and unloved--I would refuse the Duke of Altamont; first, because he: is old--no, first, because he is stupid; second, because he is formal; third, because he swallows all Lady Matilda's flummery; fourth, because he is more than double my age; fifth, because he is not handsome; and, to sum up the whole in the sixth, he wants that inimitable _Je ne scais quoi_ which I consider as a necessary ingredient in the matrimonial cup.

I shall not, in addition to these defects, dwell upon his unmeaning stare, his formal bow, his little senseless simper, etc. etc. etc. All these enormities, and many more of the same stamp, I shall pa.s.s by, as I have no doubt they had their due effect upon you as well as me; but then I am not like you, under the torments of Lady Juliana's authority. Were that the case, I should certainly think it a blessing to become d.u.c.h.ess of anybody to-morrow."

"And can you really imagine," said Mary, "that for the sake of shaking off a parent's authority I would impose upon myself chains still heavier, and even more binding? Can you suppose I would so far forfeit my honour and truth as that I would swear to love, honour, and obey, where I could feel neither love nor respect, and where cold constrained obedience would be all of my duty I could hope to fulfil?"

"Love!"

exclaimed Lady Emily; "can I credit my ears? Love! did you say I thought that had only been for naughty ones, such as me; and that saints like you would have married for anything and everything but love! Prudence, I thought, had been the word with you proper ladies--a prudent marriage! Come, confess, is not that the climax of virtue in the creed of your school?"

"I never learnt the creed of any school," said Mary, "nor ever heard anyone's sentiments on the subject, except my dear Mrs. Douglas's."

"Well, I should like to hear your oracle's opinion, if you can give it in shorthand."

"She warned me there was a pa.s.sion which was very fashionable, and which I should hear a great deal of, both in conversation and books, that was the result of indulged fancy, warm imaginations, and ill-regulated minds; that many had fallen into its snares, deceived by its glowing colours and alluring name; that--"

"A very good sermon, indeed!" interrupted Lady Emily; "but, no offence to Mrs. Douglas, I think I could preach a better myself. Love is a pa.s.sion that has been much talked of, often described, and little understood. Cupid has many counterfeits going about the world, who pa.s.s very well with those whose minds are capable of pa.s.sion, but not of love. These Birmingham Cupids have many votaries amongst boarding-school misses, militia officers, and milliners 'apprentices; who marry upon the mutual faith of blue eyes and scarlet coats; have dirty houses and squalling children, and hate each other most delectably. Then there is another species for more refined souls, which owes its birth to the works of Rousseau, Goethe, Cottin, etc. Its success depends very much upon rocks, woods, and waterfalls; and it generally ends daggers, pistols, or poison. But there, I think, Lindore would be more eloquent than me, so I shall leave it for him to discuss that chapter with you.

But, to return to your own immediate concerns. Pray, are you then positively prohibited from falling in love? Did Mrs. Douglas only dress up a scarecrow to frighten you, or had she the candour to show you Love himself in all his majesty?"

"She told me," said Mary, "that there was a love which even the wisest and most virtuous need not blush to entertain--the love of a virtuous object, founded upon esteem, and heightened by similarity of tastes and sympathy of feelings, into a pure and devoted attachment: unless I feel all this, I shall never fancy myself in love."

"Humph! I can't say much as to the similarity of tastes and sympathy of souls between the Duke and you, but surely you might contrive to feel some love and esteem for a coronet and ninety thousand a year."

"Suppose I did," said Mary, with a smile, "the next point is to honour; and surely he is as unlikely to excite that sentiment as the other. Honour---"

"I can't have a second sermon upon honour. 'Can honour take away the grief of a wound?' as Falstaff says. Love is the only subject I care to preach about; though, unlike many young ladies, we can talk about other things too; but as to this Duke, _I_ certainly 'had rather live on cheese and garlic, in a windmill far, than feed on cakes, and have him talk to me in any summer-house in Christendom;' and now I have had Mrs.

Douglas's second-hand sentiments upon the subject, I should like to hear your own."

"I have never thought much upon the subject," said Mary; "my sentiments are therefore all at second-hand, but I shall repeat to you what I think is not love, and what is." And she repeated these pretty and well-known lines:--

CARELESS AND FAITHFUL LOVE.

To sigh--yet feel no pain; To weep-yet scarce know why; To sport an hour with beauty's chain, Then throw it idly by; To kneel at many a shrine, Yet lay the heart on none; To think all other charms divine But those we just have won:-- This is love-careless love-- Such as kindleth hearts that rove.

To keep one sacred flame Through life, unchill'd, unmov'd; To love in wint'ry age the same That first in youth we loved; To feel that we adore With such refined excess, That though the heart would break with more, We could not love with less:-- This is love--faithful love-- Such as saints might feel above.