There is no better test of the strength of affection than the ready turning of the mind to the little concerns of a friend, when preoccupied with important interests of our own. This was a proof of friendship, which Lady Davenant had lately given to Helen, for, at the time when she had entered with so much readiness and zeal into Helen's little difficulties and debts, great political affairs and important interests of Lord Davenant's were in suspense, and pressed heavily upon her mind.

What might be the nature of these political embarra.s.sments had not been explained. Lady Davenant had only hinted at them. She said, "she knew from the terror exhibited by the inferior creatures in office that some change in administration was expected, as beasts are said to howl and tremble before storm, or earthquake, or any great convulsion of nature takes place."

Since Lady Davenant's return from town, where Lord Davenant still remained, nothing had been said of the emba.s.sy to Russia but that it was delayed. Lady Cecilia, who was quick, and, where she was not herself concerned, usually right, in interpreting the signs of her mother's discomfiture, guessed that Lord Davenant had been circ.u.mvented by some diplomatist of inferior talents, and she said to Helen, "When an a.s.s kicks you never tell it, is a maxim which mamma heard from some friend, and she always acts upon it; but a kick, whether given by a.s.s or not, leaves a bruise, which sometimes tells in spite of ourselves, and my mother should remember another maxim of that friend's, that the faults and follies of the great are the delight and comfort of the little. Now, my mother, though she is so well suited, from her superior abilities and strength of mind, and all that, to be the wife of a great political leader, yet in some respects she is the most unfit person upon earth for _the situation_; for, though she feels the necessity of conciliating, she cannot unbend with her inferiors, that is, with half the world. As Catalani said of singing, it is much more difficult to descend than to ascend well. Shockingly mamma shows in her manner sometimes how tired she is of the stupid, and how she despises the mean; and all the underlings think she can undo them with papa, for it has gone abroad that she _governs_, while in fact, though papa asks her advice, to be sure, because she is so wise, she never does interfere in the least; but, now it has once got into the world's obstinate head that she does, it cannot be put out again, and mamma is the last person upon earth to take her own part, or condescend to explain and set things right. She is always thinking of papa's glory and the good of the public, but the public will never thank him and much less her; so there she is a martyr, without her crown; now, if I were to make a martyr of myself, which, Heaven forbid! I would at least take right good care to secure my crown, and to have my full glory round my head, and set on becomingly. But seriously, my dear Helen," continued Lady Cecilia, "I am unhappy about papa and mamma, I a.s.sure you. I have seen little clouds of discontent long gathering, lowering, and blackening, and I know they will burst over their heads in some tremendous storm at last."

Helen hoped not, but looked frightened.

"Oh, you may hope not, my dear, but I know it will be--we may not hear the thunder, but we shall see the lightning all the more dangerous. We shall be struck down, unless--" she paused.

"Unless what?" said Helen.

"Unless the storm be dispersed in time."

"And how?"

"The lightning drawn off by some good conductor--such as myself; I am quite serious, and though you were angry with me for laughing just now, as if I was not the best of daughters, even though I laugh, I can tell you I am meditating an act of self-devotion for my mother's sake--a grand _coup d'etat_."

"_Coup d'etat_? you, Cecilia! my dear--"

"I, Helen, little as you think of me."

"Of your political talents you don't expect me to think much, do you?"

"My political talents! you shall see what they are. I am capable of a grand _coup d'etat_. I will have next week a three days' congress, anti-political, at Clarendon Park, where not a word of politics shall be heard, nor any thing but nonsense if I can help it, and the result shall be, as you shall see, goodwill between all men and all women--women?

yes, there's the grand point. Mamma has so affronted two ladies, very influential as they call it, each--Lady Masham, a favourite at court, and Lady Bearcroft, risen from the ranks, on her husband's shoulders; he, 'a man of law,' Sir Benjamin Bearcroft, and very clever she is I hear, but loud and coa.r.s.e; absolutely inadmissible she was thought till lately, and now, only tolerated for her husband's sake, but still have her here I must."

"I think you had better not," remonstrated Helen; "if she is so very vulgar, Lady Davenant and the general will never endure her."

"Oh, he will! the general will bear a great deal for mamma's sake, and more for papa's. I must have her, my dear, for the husband is of consequence and, though he is ashamed of her, for that very reason he cannot bear that any body should neglect her, and terribly mamma has neglected her! Now, my dear Helen, do not say a word more against it."

Very few words had Helen said. "I must ponder well," continued Cecilia, "and make out my list of worthies, my concordatum party."

Helen much advised the consulting Lady Davenant first; but Lady Cecilia feared her mother might be too proud to consent to any advance on her own part. Helen still feared that the bringing together such discordant people would never succeed, but Lady Cecilia, always happy in paying herself with words answerable to her wishes, replied, "that discords well managed often produced the finest harmony." The only point she feared was, that she should not gain the first step, that she should not be able to prevail upon the general to let her give the invitations. In truth, it required all her persuasive words, and more persuasive looks to accomplish this preliminary, and to bring General Clarendon to invite, or permit to be invited, to Clarendon Park, persons whom he knew but little, and liked not at all. But as Lady Cecilia pleaded and urged that it would soon be over, "the whole will be over in three days--only a three days' visit; and for mamma!--I am sure, Clarendon--you will do anything for her, and for papa, and your own Cecilia? "--the general smiled, and the notes were written, and the invitations were accepted, and when once General Clarendon had consented, he was resolutely polite in his reception of these to him unwelcome guests. His manner was not false; it was only properly polite, not tending to deceive any one who understood the tokens of conventional good breeding. It however required considerable power over himself to keep the line of demarcation correctly, with one person in particular to whom he had a strong political aversion: Mr. Harley.--His very name was abhorrent to General Clarendon, who usually designated him as "That Genius, Cecilia--that favourite of your mother's! "--while to Lady Davenant Mr. Harley was the only person from whose presence she antic.i.p.ated any pleasure, or who could make the rest of the party to her endurable. Helen, though apprehensive of what might be the ultimate result of this congress, yet could not help rejoicing that she should now have an opportunity of seeing some of those who are usually considered "high as human veneration can look." It is easy, after one knows who is who, to determine that we should have found out the characteristic qualities and talents in each countenance. Lady Cecilia, however, would not tell Helen the names of the celebrated unknown who were a.s.sembled when they went into the drawing-room before dinner, and she endeavoured to guess from their conversation the different characters of the speakers; but only a few sentences were uttered, signifying nothing; snuff-boxes were presented, pinches taken and inclinations made with becoming reciprocity, but the physiognomy of a snuff-box Helen could not interpret, though Lavater a.s.serts that every thing in nature, even a cup of tea, has a physiognomy.

Dinner was announced, and the company paired off, seemingly not standing on the order of their going; yet all, especially as some were strangers, secretly mindful of their honours, and they moved on in precedence just, and found themselves in places due at the dinner-table.

But Helen did not seem likely to obtain more insight into the characters of these great personages in the dining-room than she had done in the drawing-room. For it often happens that, when the most celebrated, and even the most intellectual persons are brought together expressly for the purpose of conversation, then it does not flow, but sinks to silence, and ends at last in the stagnation of utter stupidity. Each seems oppressed with the weight of his own reputation, and, in the pride of high celebrity, and the shyness, real or affected, of high rank, each fears to commit himself by a single word. People of opposite parties, when thrown together, cannot at once change the whole habit of their minds, nor without some effort refrain from that abuse of their opposites in which they are accustomed to indulge when they have it all to themselves. Now every subject seems laboured--for in the pedantry of party spirit no partisan will speak but in the slang or cant of his own craft. Knowledge is not only at one entrance, but at every entrance quite shut out, and even literature itself grows perilous, so that to be safe they must all be dumb.

Lady Cecilia Clarendon was little aware of what she undertook when she called together this heterogeneous a.s.sembly of uncongenials and dissimilars round her dinner-table. After she had in vain made what efforts she could, and, well skilled in throwing the ball of conversation, had thrown it again and again without rebound from either side, she felt that all was flat, and that the silence and the stupidity were absolutely invincible. Helen could scarcely believe, when she tried afterwards to recollect, that she had literally this day, during the whole of the first course, heard only the following sentences, which came out at long intervals between each couple of questions and answers--or observations and acquiescences:--"We had a shower."--"Yes, I think so." "But very fine weather we have had."--"Only too hot."--"Quite." "The new buildings at Marblemore--are they getting on, my Lord?"--"Do not know; did not come that way." "Whom have they now at Dunstanbury?" was the next question. Then in reply came slowly a list of fashionable names. "Sir John died worth a million, they say."--"Yes, a martyr to the gout." "Has Lady Rachel done any thing for her eyes?"--"Gone to Brighton, I believe." "Has any thing been heard of the North Pole expedition?"--"Not a word." "Crockly has got a capital cook, and English too."--"English! eh?"--"English--yes." Lord Davenant hoped this English cook would, with the a.s.sistance of several of his brother _artistes_ of the present day, redeem our country from one-half of the Abbe Gregoire's reproach. The abbe has said that England would be the finest country in the world, but that it wants too essentials, _sunshine_ and _cooks_. "Good! Good! Very!" voices from different sides of the table p.r.o.nounced; and there was silence again.

At the dessert, however, after the servants had withdrawn, most people began to talk a little to their next neighbours; but by this Helen profited not, for each pair spoke low, and those who were beside her on either hand, were not disposed to talk; she was seated between Sir Benjamin Bearcroft and Mr. Harley--Sir Benjamin the man of law, and Mr.

Harley the man of genius, each eminent in his kind; but he of law seemed to have nothing in him but law, of which he was very full. In Sir Benjamin's economy of human life it was a wholesome rule, which he practised invariably, to let his understanding sleep in company, that it might waken in the courts, and for his repose he needed not what some great men have professed so much to like--"the pillow of a woman's mind." Helen did not much regret the silence of this great legal authority, but she was very sorry that the man of genius did not talk; she did not expect him to speak to her, but she wished to hear him converse with others. But something was the matter with him; from the moment he sat down to dinner Helen saw he seemed discomfited. He first put his hand across his eyes, then pressed his forehead: she feared he had a bad headache. The hand went next to his ear, with a shrinking, excruciating gesture; it must be the earache thought Helen. Presently his jaws were pinched together; toothache perhaps. At last she detected the disturbing cause. Opposite to Mr. Harley, and beside Lady Davenant, sat a person whom he could not endure; one, in the first place, of an opposite party, but that was nothing; a man who was, in Mr. Harley's opinion, a disgrace to any party, and what could bring him here? They had had several battles in public, but had never before met in private society, and the aversion of Mr. Harley seemed to increase inversely as the squares of the distance. Helen could not see in the object adequate cause for this antipathy: the gentleman looked civil, smiling, rather mean, and quite insignificant, and he really was as insignificant as he appeared--not of consequence in any point of view. He was not high in office, nor amba.s.sador, nor _charge-d'affaires_; not certain that he was an _attache_ even, but he was said to have the ear of _somebody_, and was reputed to be secretly employed in diplomatic transactions of equivocal character; disclaimed, but used, by his superiors, and courted by his timid inferiors, whom he had persuaded of his great influence _somewhere_. Lady Cecilia had been a.s.sured, from good authority, that he was one who ought to be propitiated on her father's account, but now, when she perceived what sort of creature he was, sorely did she repent that he had been invited; and her mother, by whom he sat, seemed quite oppressed and nauseated.

So ended the dinner. And, as Lady Cecilia pa.s.sed the general in going out of the room, she looked her contrition, her acknowledgment that he was perfectly right in his prophecy that it would never do.

CHAPTER IX.

It was rather worse when the ladies were by themselves. Some of the party were personally strangers to Lady Davenant; all had heard of her sufficiently; most had formed a formidable and false opinion of her. Helen was quite astonished at the awe her ladyship inspired in strangers. Lady Davenant's appearance and manner at this moment were not, indeed, calculated to dispel this dread. She was unusually distant and haughty, from a mistaken sort of moral pride. Aware that some of the persons now before her had, in various ways, by their own or their husbands' means, power to serve or to injure Lord Davenant, she disdained to propitiate them by the slightest condescension.

But how any persons in England--in London--could be strangers to Lady Davenant, was to a foreign lady who was present, matter of inexpressible surprise. She could not understand how the wives of persons high in political life, some of opposite, but some of the same parties, should often be personally strangers to each other. Foreigners are, on first coming to England, apt to imagine that all who act together in public life must be of the same private society; while, on the contrary, it often happens that the ladies especially of the same party are in different grades of fashion--moving in different orbits. The number of different circles and orbits in London is, indeed, astonishing to strangers, and the manner in which, though touching at tangents, these keep each their own path, attracted and repelled, or mutually influential, is to those who have not seen and studied the planisphere, absolutely incomprehensible. And, as she pondered on this difficulty, the amba.s.sadress, all foreigner as she was, and all unused to silence, spoke not, and no one spoke: and nought was heard but the cup on the saucer, or the spoon in the cup, or the buzzing of a fly in the window.

In the midst of this awful calm it was that Lady Bearcroft blurted out with loud voice--"Amazing entertaining we are! so many clever people got together, too, for what?" It was worth while to have seen Lady Masham's face at that moment! Lady Bearcroft saw it, and, fearing no mortal, struck with the comic of that look of Lady Masham's, burst into laughter uncontrolled, and the contrast of dignity and gravity in Lady Davenant only made her laugh the more, till out of the room at last she ran. Lady Masham all the while, of course, never betrayed the slightest idea that she could by any possibility have been the object of Lady Bearcroft's mirth. But Lady Davenant--how did she take it? To her daughter's infinite relief, quite quietly; she looked rather amused than displeased. She bore with Lady Bearcroft, altogether, better than could have been expected; because she considered her only as a person unfortunately out of her place in society, and, without any fault of her own, dragged up from below to a height of situation for which nature had never intended, and neither art nor education had ever prepared her; whose faults and deficiencies were thus brought into the flash of day at once, before the malice of party and the fastidiousness of fashion, which knows not to distinguish between _manque d'esprit_, and _manque d'usage_.

Not so Lady Davenant: she made liberal and philosophic allowance for even those faults of manner which were most glaring, and she further suspected that Lady Bearcroft purposely exaggerated her own vulgarity, partly for diversion, partly to make people stare, and partly to prevent their seeing what was habitual, and what involuntary, by hiding the bounds of reality. Of this Lady Masham had not the most distant conception; on the contrary, she was now prepared to tell a variety of odd anecdotes of Lady Bearcroft. She had seen, she said, this extraordinary person before, but had never met her in society, and delighted she was unexpectedly to find her here--"quite a treat."

Such characters are indeed seldom met with at a certain height in the atmosphere of society, and such were peculiarly and justly Lady Masham's delight, for they relieved and at the same time fed a sense of superiority insufficient to itself. Such a person is fair, privileged, safe game, and Lady Masham began, as does a reviewer determined to be especially severe, with a bit of praise.

"Really very handsome, Lady Bearcroft must have been! Yes, as you say, Lady Cecilia, she is not out of blow yet certainly, only too full blown rather for some tastes--fortunately not for Sir Benjamin; he married her, you know, long ago, for her beauty; she is a very correct person--always was; but they do repeat the strangest things she says--so very odd! and they tell such curious stories, too, of the things she does." Lady Masham then detailed a variety of anecdotes, which related chiefly to Lady Bearcroft's household cares, which never could she with haste despatch; then came stories of her cheap magnificence and extraordinary toilette expedients. "I own," continued Lady Masham, "that I always thought the descriptions I heard must be exaggerated; but one is compelled to acknowledge that there is here in reality a terrible want of tact. Poor Sir Benjamin! I quite pity him, he must so see it!

Though not of the first water himself, yet still he must feel, when he sees Lady Bearcroft with other people! He has feeling, though n.o.body would guess it from his look, and he shows it too, I am told; sadly annoyed he is sometimes by her _malapropoisms_. One day, she at one end of the table and he at the other, her ladyship, in her loud voice called out to him, 'Sir Benjamin! Sir Benjamin! this is our wedding-day!' He, poor man, did not hear; she called out again louder, 'Sir Benjamin, my dear, this day fifteen years ago you and I were married!' 'Well, my dear,' he answered, 'well, my dear, how can I possibly help that now!'"

Pleased with the success of this anecdote, which raised a general smile, Lady Masham vouched for its perfect correctness, "she had it from one, who heard it from a person who was actually present at the time it happened." Lady Davenant had not the least doubt of the correctness of the story, but she believed the names of the parties were different; she had heard it years ago of another person. It often happens, as she observed, to those who make themselves notoriously ridiculous, as to those who become famous for wit, that all good things in their kinds are attributed to them; though the one may have no claim to half the witticisms, and the other may not be responsible for half the absurdities for which they have the reputation. It required all Lady Masham's politeness to look pleased, and all her candour to be quite happy to be set right as to that last anecdote. But many she had heard of Lady Bearcroft were really incredible. "Yet one would almost believe anything of her." While she was yet speaking, Lady Bearcroft returned, and her malicious enemy, leaning back in her chair as if in expectation of the piece beginning, waited for her puppet to play or be played off.

All this time Lady Cecilia was not at ease; she, well aware what her mother would feel, and had felt, while Lady Masham was going on with this gossip-talk, had stood between her ladyship and Lady Davenant, and, as Lady Masham did not speak much above her breath, Cecilia had for some time flattered herself that her laudable endeavours to intercept the sound, or to prevent the sense from reaching her mother's ear, had succeeded, especially as she had made as many exclamations as she could of "Really!" "Indeed!" "How extraordinary!" "You do not say so?" which, as she p.r.o.nounced them, might have excited the curiosity of commonplace people, but which she knew would in her mother's mind deaden all desire to listen. However, Lady Masham had raised her voice, and from time to time had stretched her neck of snow beyond Lady Cecilia's intercepting drapery, so as actually to claim Lady Davenant's attention. The consequences her daughter heard and felt. She heard the tap, tap, tap of the ivory folding-knife upon the table; and well interpreting, she knew, even before she saw her mother's countenance, that Lady Masham had undone herself, and, what was of much more consequence, had destroyed all chance of accomplishing that reconciliation with "mamma," that projected coalition which was to have been of such ultimate advantage to "papa."

Notwithstanding Lady Bearcroft's want of knowledge of the great world, she had considerable knowledge of human nature, which stood her wonderfully in stead. She had no notion of being made sport of for the _elegantes_, and, with all Lady Masham's plausibility of persiflage, she never obtained her end, and never elicited anything really absurd by all attempts to draw her out--out she would not be drawn. After an unconquerable silence and all the semblance of dead stupidity, Lady Bearcroft suddenly showed signs of life, however, and she, all at once, began to talk--to Helen of all people!--And why?--because she had taken, in her own phrase, a monstrous fancy to Miss Stanley; she was not sure of her name, but she knew she liked her nature, and it would be a pity that her reason should not be known and in the words in which she told it to Lady Cecilia, "Now I will just tell you why I have taken such a monstrous fancy to your friend here, Miss Hanley--"

"Miss Stanley--give me leave to mention," said Lady Cecilia. "Let me introduce you regularly."

"Oh! by no means; don't trouble yourself now, Lady Cecilia, for I hate regular introductions. But, as I was going to tell you how, before dinner to-day, as I came down the great staircase, I had an uncommon large, big, and, for aught I know, yellow corking-pin, which that most careless of all careless maids of mine--a good girl, too--had left sticking point foremost out of some part of me. Miss Hanley--Stanley (beg pardon) was behind, and luckily saw and stopped. Out she pulled it, begging my pardon; so kindly too, I only felt the twitch on my sleeve, and turned, and loved the first sight I had of that pretty face, which need never blush, I am sure, though it's very becoming the blush too. So good-natured, you know, Lady Cecilia, it was, when n.o.body was looking, and before any body was the wiser. Not like some young ladies, or old even, that would have _showed one up_, rather than help one out in any pin's point of a difficulty."

Lady Cecilia herself was included in Lady Bearcroft's good graces, for she liked that winning way, and saw there was a real good-nature there, too. She opened to both friends cordially, _a propos_ to some _love_ of a lace tr.i.m.m.i.n.g. Of lace she was a famous judge, and she went into details of her own good bargains, with histories of her expeditions into the extremity of the city in search of cheap goods and unheard of wonders at prime cost, in regions unknown. She told how it was her clever way to leave her carriage and her _people_, and go herself down narrow streets and alleys, where only wheel-barrows and herself could go; she boasted of her feats in diving into dark dens in search of run goods, charming things--French warranted--that could be had for next to nothing, and, in exemplification, showed the fineness of her embroidered cambric handkerchiefs, and told their price to farthing!

Lady Masham's "Wonderful!" was worthy of any Jesuit male or female, that ever existed.

From her amazing bargains, the lady of the law-knight went on to smuggling; and, as she got into spirits, talking loudly, she told of some amber satin, a whole piece capitally got over in an old gentleman's "Last Will and Testament," tied up with red tape so nicely, and sealed and superscribed and all, got through untouched! "But a better thing I did myself," continued she; "the last trip I made to Paris--coming back, I set at defiance all the searchers and _stabbers_, and custom-house officers of both nations. I had hundreds of pounds worth of Valenciennes and Brussels lace hid--you would never guess where. I never told a servant--not a mortal maid even; that's the only way; had only a confidante of a coachmaker. But when it came to packing-up time, my own maid smelt out the lace was missing; and gave notice, I am, confident, to the custom-house people to search me. So much the more glory to me.

I got off clear; and, when they had stabbed the cushions, and torn the inside of my carriage all to pieces, I very coolly made them repair the mischief at their own cost. Oh, I love to do things bravely! and away I drove triumphant with the lace, well stuffed, packed, and covered within the pole leather of the carriage they had been searching all the time."

At this period of her narrative the gentlemen came into the drawing-room. "But here comes Sir Benjamin! mum, mum! not a word more for my life! You understand, Lady Cecilia! husbands must be minded. And let me whisper a favour--a whist-party I must beg; nothing keeps Sir Ben in good-humour so certainly as whist--when he wins, I mean."

The whist-party was made, and Lady Cecilia took care that Sir Benjamin should win, while she lost with the best grace possible. By her conciliating manners and good management in dividing to govern, all parties were arranged to general satisfaction. Mr. Harley's antipathy, the _attache_, she settled at ecarte with Lady Masham, who found him "quite a well-mannered, pleasant person." Lady Cecilia explained to Mr.

Harley, that it was her fault--her mistake entirely--that this person had been invited. Mr. Harley was now himself again, and happy in conversation with Lady Davenant, beside whom he found his place on the sofa.

After Helen had done her duty at harp and piano-forte, Cecilia relieved her, and whispered that she might now go to her mother's sofa, and rest and be happy. "Mamma's work is in some puzzle, Helen; you must go and set it to rights, my dear." Lady Davenant welcomed her with a smile, made room for her on the sofa, and made over to her the tambour-frame; and now that Helen saw and heard Mr. Harley in his natural state, she could scarcely believe that he was the same person who had sat beside her at dinner. Animated and delightful he was now, and, what she particularly liked in him, there was no display--nothing in the Churchill style. Whenever any one came near, and seemed to wish to hear or speak, Mr. Harley not only gave them fair play, but helped them in their play. Helen observed that he possessed the art which she had often remarked in Lord Davenant, peculiar to good-natured genius--the art of drawing something good out of every body; sometimes more than they knew they had in them till it was brought out. Even from Lord Masham, insipid and soulless though he was, as any courtier-lord in waiting could be, something was extracted: Lord Masham, universally believed to have nothing in him, was this evening surprisingly entertaining. He gave Lady Davenant a description of what he had been so fortunate as to see--the first public dinner of the king of France on his restoration, served according to all the _ci-devant_ ceremonials, and in the etiquette of Louis the Fourteenth's time. Lord Masham represented in a lively manner the Marquis de Dreux, in all his antiquarian glory, going through the whole form prescribed: first, knocking with his cane at the door; then followed by three guards with shouldered carbines, marching to b.u.t.tery and hall, each and every officer of the household making reverential obeisance as they pa.s.sed to the _Nef_--the _Nef_ being, as Lord Masham explained to Miss Stanley, a piece of gilt plate in the shape of the hull of a ship, in which the napkins for the king's table are kept. "But why the hull of a ship should be appropriated to the royal napkins?"

was asked. Lord Masham confessed that this was beyond him, but he looked amazingly considerate--delicately rubbed his polished forehead with the second finger of the right hand, then regarded his ring, and turned it thrice slowly round, but the talismanic action produced nothing, and he received timely relief by a new turn given to the conversation, in which he was not, he thought, called upon to take any share--the question indeed appeared to him irrelevant, and retiring to the card-table, he "left the discussion to abler heads."

The question was, why bow to the Nef at all?--This led to a discussion upon the advantages of ceremonials in preserving respect for order and reverence for authority, and then came an inquiry into the abuses of this real good. It was observed that the signs of the times should always be consulted, and should guide us in these things.--How far?

was next to be considered. All agreed on the principle that 'order is Heaven's first law,' yet there were in the application strong shades of difference between those who took part in the conversation. On one side, it was thought that overturning the _tabouret_ at the court of France had been the signal for the overthrow of the throne; while, on the other hand, it was suggested that a rigid adherence to forms unsuited to the temper of the times only exasperates, and that, wherever reliance on forms is implicit, it is apt to lead princes and their counsellors to depend too much on the strength of that fence which, existing only in the imagination, is powerless when the fashion changes. Ins a court quite surrounded and enveloped by old forms, the light of day cannot penetrate to the interior of the palace, the eyes long kept in obscurity are weakened, so that light cannot be borne: when suddenly it breaks in, the royal captive is bewildered, and if obliged to act, he gropes, blunders, injures himself, and becomes incapable of decision in extremity of danger, reduced to the helplessness which marks the condition of the Eastern despot, or _les rois faineans_ of any time or country.

As Helen sat by, listening to this conversation, what struck and interested her most was, the manner in which it went on and went off without leading to any unpleasant consequences, notwithstanding the various shades of opinion between the parties. This she saw depended much on the good sense and talents, but far more on the good breeding and temper of those who spoke and those who listened. Time in the first place was allowed and taken for each to be understood, and no one was urged by exclamation, or misconception, or contradiction, to say more than just the thing he thought.

Lady Cecilia, who had now joined the party, was a little in pain when she heard Louis the Fourteenth's love for punctuality alluded to. She dreaded, when the general quoted "Punctuality is the virtue of princes,"

that Mr. Harley, with the usual impatience of genius, would have ridiculed so antiquated a notion; but, to Lady Cecilia's surprise, he even took the part of punctuality: in a very edifying manner he distinguished it from mere ceremonial etiquette--the ceremonial of the German courts, where "they lose time at breakfast, at dinner, at supper; at court, in the antechamber, on the stairs, everywhere:"--punctuality was, he thought, a habit worthy to be ranked with the virtues, by its effects upon the mind, the power it demands and gives of self-control, raising in us a daily, hourly sense of duty, of something that ought, that must be done, one of the best habits human creatures can have, either for their own sake or the sake of those with whom they live. And to kings and courtiers more particularly, because it gives the idea of stability--of duration; and to the aged, because it gives a sort of belief that life will last for ever. The general had often thought this, but said he had never heard it so well expressed; he afterwards acknowledged to Cecilia that he found Mr. Harley was quite a different person from what he had expected--"He has good sense, as well as genius and good breeding. I am glad, my dear Cecilia, that you asked him here."

This was a great triumph.

Towards the close of the evening, when mortals are beginning to think of bed-chamber candles, Lady Cecilia looked at the _ecarte_ table, and said to her mother, "How happy they are, and how comfortable we are!

A card-table is really a necessary of life--not even music is more universally useful." Mr. Harley said, "I doubt," and then arose between Lady Davenant and him an argument upon the comparative power in modern society of music and cards. Mr. Harley took the side of music, but Lady Davenant inclined to think that cards, in their day, and their day is not over yet, have had a wider range of influence. "Nothing like that happy board of green cloth; it brings all intellects to one level," she said. Mr. Harley pleaded the cause of music, which, he said, hushes all pa.s.sions, calms even despair. Lady Davenant urged the silent superiority of cards, which rests the weary talker, and relieves the perplexed courtier, and, in support of her opinion, she mentioned an old ingenious essay on cards and tea, by Pinto, she thought; and she begged that Helen would some time look for it in the library. Helen went that instant. She searched, but could not find; where it ought to have been, there it of course was not. While she was still on the book-ladder, the door opened, and enter Lady Bearcroft.

"Miss Hanley!" cried she, "I have a word to say to you, for, though you are a stranger to me, I see you are a dear good creature, and I think I may take the liberty of asking your advice in a little matter."