"All--except that she is in hopes of recovering some property, of which she says she has been unjustly defrauded by some of her relations. After I had paid my respects at the Admiralty, I made it my business to see the lady, and to offer my services; but into her lawsuits, I thank G.o.d, it was not my business to inquire, I recommended to her a good honest lawyer, and came here as fast as horses could carry me."

"But was not there some giving of diamonds, and exchanging of rings, one day, upon deck?" said Mrs. Beaumont.

"None," said Captain Walsingham; "that was a mere fable of poor Birch's imagination. I recollect the lady showed me a Spanish motto upon her ring; that is all I can remember about rings.--She had no diamonds, and very few clothes. Now," cried Captain Walsingham, growing a little impatient of the length of his trial, for he had not yet been able to speak for more than an instant to Amelia, "now, I hope, my trial is ended; else its length will be, as in some other cases, the worst of punishments."

"Acquitted! acquitted! honourably acquitted!" said Mr. Palmer.

"Acquitted, acquitted, honourably acquitted by general acclamation,"

cried Mr. Beaumont.

"Acquitted by a smile from Amelia, worth all our acclamations," said Mrs. Beaumont.

"Captain Walsingham," said Miss Hunter, "did the lady come to England and go to London in a Spanish dress and long waist?"

She spoke, but Captain Walsingham did not hear her important question.

She turned to repeat it, but the captain was gone, and Amelia with him.

"Bless me! how quick! how odd!" said Miss Hunter, with a pouting look, which seemed to add--n.o.body carries me off!

Mr. Beaumont looked duller than was becoming.

Mrs. Beaumont applied herself to adjust the pretty curls of Miss Hunter's hair; and Mr. Palmer, in one of his absent fits, hummed aloud, as he walked up and down the room,

"'And it's, Oh! what will become of me?

Oh! what shall I do?

n.o.body coming to marry me, n.o.body coming to woo.'"

CHAPTER XV.

"True love's the gift which G.o.d has giv'n To man alone, beneath the heav'n; It is the secret sympathy, The silver link, the silken tie, Which heart to heart, and mind to mind, In body and in soul can bind."

Happy love, though the most delightful in reality, is the most uninteresting in description; and lovers are proverbially bad company, except for one another: therefore we shall not intrude on Captain Walsingham and Amelia, nor shall we give a journal of the days of courtship; those days which, by Rousseau, and many people, have been p.r.o.nounced to be the happiest; by others, the only happy days of existence; and which, by some privileged or prudent few, have been found to be but the prelude to the increasing pleasures of domestic union.

Now that Mr. Beaumont saw his sister and his friend thus gratified in their mutual esteem and affection,--now that he saw all obstacles to their union removed, he became uncontroulably impatient to declare his own attachment to Miss Walsingham.

"My dear mother, I can bear it no longer. Believe me, you are mistaken in the whole romance you have imagined to yourself about Miss Hunter.

She is no more in love with me than I am with her. Since you fixed my attention upon her, I have studied the young lady. She is not capable of love: I don't mean that she is not capable of wishing to be married, but that is quite a different affair, which need not give me any peculiar disturbance. My dear mother, find another husband for her, and my life for it, her heart will not break; especially if you give her bales of wedding finery enough to think and talk about for a calendar year.

"You abominably malicious monster of cruelty, I will not smile, nor will I allow you to indulge your humour in this manner at the expense of your poor victim."

"Victim! never saw a girl look less like a victim, except, indeed, as to her ornaments. I believe it is the etiquette for victims to appear dressed out with garlands, and ribands, and flowers."

"Positively, Edward, I won't allow you to go on in this style;--do you know you seriously hurt and offend me? do you consider that Miss Hunter's mother was my most intimate friend, and this match I have anxiously wished, in consequence of an agreement made between us at your birth and Albina's?"

"Oh, ma'am, those agreements never turned out well, from the time of the Arabian tales to the present moment. And you must pardon me if, after having tried all that reason and patience would do, in vain, I now come to impatience, and a little innocent ridicule. Except by laughing, I have no other way left of convincing you that I never can or will marry this young lady."

"But so pretty a creature! Surely you _have thought_ her pretty."

"Extremely pretty. And I acknowledge that there have been moments when the influence of her--beauty, I can't call it--prettiness, joined to the power of my mother's irresistible address, have almost lapped me in elysium--a fool's paradise. But, thank Heaven and Miss Walsingham!

I unlapped myself; and though the sweet airs took my fancy, they never imprisoned my soul."

"Vastly poetical! quite in the blue-stocking style."

"Blue-stocking! Dear mother, that expression is not elegant enough for you. That commonplace taunt is unworthy of my mother," said Mr.

Beaumont, warmly, for he was thrown off his guard by the reflection implied on Miss Walsingham. "Ignorant silly women may be allowed to sneer at information and talents in their own s.e.x, and, if they have read them, may talk of _'Les Precieuses Ridicules_,' and _'Les Femmes Savantes_,' and may borrow from Moliere all the wit they want, to support the cause of folly. But from women who are themselves distinguished for talents, such apostasy--but I am speaking to my mother--I forbear."

"Great forbearance to your mother you have shown, in truth," cried Mrs.

Beaumont, reddening with genuine anger: "Marry as you please! I have done. Fool that I have been, to devote my life to plans for the happiness and aggrandizement of my children! It is now time I should think of myself. You shall not see me the defeated, deserted, duped, despised mother--the old dowager _permitted_ in the house of which she was once the mistress! No, no, Mr. Beaumont," cried she, rising indignantly, "this shall never, never be."

Touched and astonished by a burst of pa.s.sion, such as he scarcely had ever before seen from his mother, Mr. Beaumont stopped her as she rose; and taking her hand in the most affectionate manner, "Forgive me, my dear mother, the hasty words I said just now. I was very much in the wrong. I beg your pardon. Forgive your son."

Mrs. Beaumont struggled to withdraw the hand which her son forcibly detained.

"Be always," continued he, "be always mistress of this house, of me, and mine. The chosen wife of my heart will never torment you, or degrade herself, with paltry struggles for power. Your days shall be happy and honoured: believe me, I speak from my heart."

Mrs. Beaumont looked as if her anger had subsided; yet, as if struggling with unusual feelings, she sat silent. Mr. Beaumont continued, "Your son--who is no sentimentalist, no speech-maker--your son, who has. .h.i.therto perhaps been too rough, too harsh--now implores you, by these sincere caresses, by all that is tender and true in nature, to believe in the filial affection of your children. Give us, simply give us your confidence; and our confidence, free and unconstrained, shall be given in return. Then we shall be happy indeed."

Touched, vanquished, Mrs. Beaumont leaned her head on her son, and said, "Then we shall be happy indeed!" The exclamation was sincere: at this moment she thought as she spoke. All her schemes were forgotten: the reversionary t.i.tle, the Wigram estate--all, all forgotten: miraculous eloquence and power of truth!

"What happiness!" said Mrs. Beaumont: "I ask no other. You are right, my dear son; marry Miss Walsingham, and we have enough, and more than enough, for happiness. You are right; and henceforward we shall have but one mind amongst us."

With true grat.i.tude and joy her son embraced her; and this was the most delightful, perhaps the only really delightful, moment she had felt for years. She was sincere, and at ease. But this touch of nature, strong as it was, operated only for a moment: habit resumed her influence; art regained her pupil and her slave! Captain Lightbody and Miss Hunter came into the room; and with them came low thoughts of plots, and notes, and baronets, and equipages, and a reversionary t.i.tle, and the Wigram estate. What different ideas of happiness! Her son, in the mean time, had started up, mounted his horse, and had galloped off to realize some of his ideas of felicity, by the immediate offer of his hand to the lady who possessed his whole heart. Cool as policy, just recovered from the danger of imprudent sensibility, could make her, Mrs. Beaumont was now all herself again.

"Have you found much amus.e.m.e.nt shooting this morning, Lightbody?" said she, carelessly.

"No, ma'am; done nothing--just nothing at all--for I met Sir John in the grounds, and could not leave him. Poor Sir John, ma'am; I tell him we must get him a crook; he is quite turned despairing shepherd. Never saw a man so changed. Upon my soul, he is--seriously now, Mrs. Beaumont, you need not laugh--I always told Sir John that his time of falling in love would come; and come it has, at last, with a vengeance."

"Oh, nonsense! nonsense, Lightbody! This to me! and of Sir John Hunter!"

Though Mrs. Beaumont called it, and thought it nonsense, yet it flattered her; and though she appeared half offended by flattery so gross, as to seem almost an insult upon her understanding, yet her vanity was secretly gratified, even by feeling that she had dependents who were thus obliged to flatter; and though she despised Captain Lightbody for the meanness, yet he made his court to her successfully, by persisting in all the audacity of adulation. She knew Sir John Hunter too well to believe that he was liable to fall in love with any thing but a fair estate or a fine fortune; yet she was gratified by feeling that she possessed so great a share of those charms which age cannot wither; of that substantial power, to which men do not merely feign in poetical sport to submit, or to which they are slaves only for a honey-moon, but to which they do homage to the latest hour of life, with unabating, with increasing devotion. Besides this sense of pleasure arising from calculation, it may be presumed that, like all other female politicians, our heroine had something of the woman lurking at her heart; something of that feminine vanity, which inclines to believe in the potency of personal charms, even when they are in the wane. Captain Lightbody's a.s.severations, and the notes Sir John Hunter wrote to his sister, were at last listened to by Mrs. Beaumont with patience, and even with smiles; and, after it had been sufficiently reiterated, that really it was using Sir John Hunter ill not to give him some more decisive answer, when he was so unhappy, so impatient, she at length exclaimed, "Well, Lightbody, tell your friend Sir John, then, since it must be so, I will consult my friends, and see what can be done for him."

"When may I say? for I dare not see Sir John again--positively I dare not meet him--without having some hope to give, something decisive. He says the next time he comes here he must be allowed to make it known to the family that he is Mrs. Beaumont's admirer. So, when may I say?"

"Oh, dearest Mrs. Beaumont," cried Miss Hunter, "say to-morrow."

"To-morrow! impossible!"

"But when?" said Miss Hunter: "only look at my brother's note to me again; you see he is afraid of being cast off at last as he was before about Amelia, if Mr. Palmer should object; and he says this disappointment would be such a very different affair."

"Indeed," said Captain Lightbody, "I, who am in Sir John's confidence, can vouch for that; for I have reason to believe, that--that _the connexion_ was the charm, and that the daughter would not have been thought of. Stop, I was charged not to say this. But _when_ Mrs.

Beaumont, to return to my point--"

"Oh! name an early day," cried Miss Hunter, in a fondling tone; "name an early day for my brother's coming; and then, you know, it will be so _nice_ to have the wedding days fixed for both marriages. And, dearest Mrs. Beaumont, remember I am to be your bride's-maid; and we'll have a magnificent wedding, and I shall be bride's-maid!"

"The dear innocent little creature, how mad she is with spirits! Well, you shall be my bride's-maid, if the thing takes place."