Mary blushed at her adoption of this opinion; and, angry with herself for the injustice which a lurking jealousy had excited in her to apply to Constantine's n.o.ble nature, she resolved, whatever might be her struggles, to promote his happiness, though even with Euphemia, to the utmost of her power.

The next morning, when Miss Beaufort saw the study door opened for her entrance, she found Mr. Constantine at his station, literally baited between Miss Dundas and her honorable lover. At such moments Mary appeared the kindest of the kind. She loved to see Constantine smile; and whenever she could produce that effect, by turning the spleen of these polite sneerers against themselves, his smiles, which ever entered her heart, afforded her a banquet for hours after his departure.

Mary drew out her netting, (which was a purse for Lady Tinemouth,) and taking a seat beside Euphemia, united with her to occupy his attention entirely, that he might not catch even one of those insolent glances which were pa.s.sing between Lascelles and a new visitant the pretty lady Hilliars.

This lady seemed to take extreme pleasure in accosting Thaddeus by the appellation of "Friend," "My good man," "Mr. What's-your-name,"

and similar squibs of insult, with which the prosperous a.s.sail the unfortunate. Such random shots they know often inflict the most galling wounds.

However, "Friend," "My good man," and "Mr. What's-your-name,"

disappointed this lady's small artillery of effect. He seemed invulnerable both to her insolence and to her affectation; for to be thought a wit, by even Miss Dundas's emigrant tutor, was not to be despised; though at the very moment in which she desired his admiration, she supposed her haughtiness had impressed him with a proper sense of his own meanness and a high conception of her dignity.

She jumped about the room, a.s.sumed infantine airs, played with Euphemia's lap-dag, fondled it, seated herself on the floor and swept the carpet with her fine flaxen tresses; but she performed the routine of captivation in vain. Thaddeus recollected having seen this pretty full-grown baby, in her peculiar character of a profligate wife, p.a.w.ning her own and her husband's property; he remembered this, and the united shafts of her charms and folly fell unnoticed to the ground.

When Thaddeus took his leave, Miss Beaufort, as was her custom, retired for an hour to read in her dressing-room, before she directed her attention to the toilet. She opened a book, and ran over a few pages of Madame de Stael's Treatise on the Pa.s.sions; but such reasoning was too abstract for her present frame of mind, and she laid the volume down.

She dipped her pen in the inkstand. Being a letter in debt to her guardian, she thought she would defray it now. She accomplished "My dear uncle," and stopped. Whilst she rested on her elbow, and, heedless of what she was doing, picked the feather of her quill to pieces, no other idea offered itself than the figure of Thaddeus sitting 'severe in youthful beauty!' and surrounded by the contumelies with which the unworthy hope to disparage the merit they can neither emulate nor overlook.

Uneasy with herself, she pushed the table away, and, leaning her cheek on her arm, gazed into the rainbow varieties of a beaupot of flowers which occupied the fireplace. Even their gay colors appeared to fade before her sight, and present to her vacant eye the form of Thaddeus, with the melancholy air which shaded his movements. She turned round, but could not disengage herself from the spirit that was within her; his half-suppressed sighs seemed yet to thrill in her ear and weigh upon her heart.

"Incomparable young man!" cried she, starting up, "why art thou so wretched? Oh! Lady Tinemouth, why have you told me of his many virtues? Why have I convinced myself that what you said is true? Oh!

why was I formed to love an excellence which I never can approach?"

The natural reply to these self-demanded questions suggesting itself, she a.s.sented with a tear to the whisperings of her heart--that when cool, calculating reason would banish the affections, it is incapable of filling their place.

She rang the bell for her maid.

"Marshall, who dines with Lady Dundas to-day?"

"I believe, ma'am," replied the girl, "Mr. Lascelles, Lady Hilliars, and the Marquis of Elesmere."

"I dislike them all three!" cried Mary, with an impatience to which she was little liable; "dress me how you like: I am indifferent to my appearance."

Marshall obeyed the commands of her lady, who, hoping to divert her thoughts, took up the poems of Egerton Brydges. But the attempt only deepened her emotion, for every line in that exquisite little volume "gives a very echo to the seat where love is throned!"

She closed the book and sighed. Marshall having fixed the last pearl comb in her mistress's beautiful hair, and observing that something was wrong that disquieted her, exclaimed, "Dear ma'am, you are so pale to-day! I wish I might put on some gayer ornaments!"

"No," returned Mary, glancing a look at her languid features; "no, Marshall: I appear as well as I desire. Any chance of pa.s.sing unnoticed in company I dislike is worth retaining. No one will be here this evening whom I care to please."

She was mistaken; other company had been invited besides those whom the maid mentioned. But Miss Beaufort continued from seven o'clock until ten, the period at which the ladies left the table, the annoyed victim of the insipid and pert compliments of Lord Elesmere.

Sick of his subjectless and dragging conversation, she gladly followed Lady Dundas to the drawing-room, where, opening her knitting case, she took her station in a remote corner.

After half an hour had elapsed, the gentlemen from below, recruited by fresh company, thronged in fast; and, notwithstanding it was styled a family party, Miss Beaufort saw many new faces, amongst whom she observed an elderly clergyman, who was looking about for a chair.

The yawning Lascelles threw himself along the only vacant sofa, just as the reverend gentleman approached it.

Miss Beaufort immediately rose, and was moving on to another room, when the c.o.xcomb, springing up, begged permission to admire her work; and, without permission, taking it from her, pursued her, twisting the purse around his fingers and talking all the while.

Mary walked forward, smiling with contempt, until they reached the saloon, where the Misses Dundas were closely engaged in conversation with the Marquis of Elesmere.

Lascelles, who trembled for his Golconda at this sight, stepped briskly up. Miss Beaufort, who did not wish to lose sight of her purse whilst in the power of such a Lothario, followed him, and placed herself against the arm of the sofa on which Euphemia sat.

Lascelles now bowed his scented locks to Diana in vain; Lord Elesmere was describing the last heat at Newmarket, and the attention of neither lady could be withdrawn.

The beau became so irritated by the neglect of Euphemia, and so nettled at her sister's overlooking him, that a.s.suming a gay air, he struck Miss Dundas's arm a smart stroke with Miss Beaufort's purse; and laughing, to show the strong opposition between his broad white teeth and the miserable mouth of his lordly rival, hoped to alarm him by his familiarity, and to obtain a triumph over the ladies by degrading them in the eyes of the peer.

"Miss Dundas," demanded he, "who was that quiz of a man in black your sister walked with the other day in Portland Place?"

"Me!" cried Euphemia, surprised.

"Ay!" returned he; "I was crossing from Weymouth Street, when I perceived you accost a strange-looking person--a courier from the moon, perhaps! You may remember you sauntered with him as far as Sir William Miller's. I would have joined you, but seeing the family standing in the balcony, I did not wish them to suppose that I knew anything of such queer company."

"Who was it, Euphemia?" inquired Miss Dundas, in a severe tone.

"I wonder he affects to be ignorant," answered her sister, angrily; "he knows very well it was only Mr. Constantine."

"And who is Mr. Constantine?" demanded the marquis. Mr. Lascelles shrugged his shoulders.

"E'faith, my lord! a fellow whom n.o.body knows--a teacher of languages, giving himself the airs of a prince--a writer of poetry, and a man who will draw you, your house or dogs, if you will pay him for it."

Mary's heart swelled.

"What, a French emigrant?" drawled his lordship, dropping his lip; "and the lovely Euphemia wishes to soothe his sorrows."

"No, my lord," stammered Euphemia, "he is--he is----"

"What!" interrupted Lascelles, with a malicious grin. "A wandering beggar, who thrusts himself into society which may some day repay his insolence with chastis.e.m.e.nt! And for the people who encourage him, they had better beware of being themselves driven from all good company. Such confounders of degrees ought to be degraded from the rank they disgrace. I understand his chief protectress is Lady Tinemouth; his second, Lady Sara Ross, who, by way of _pa.s.sant le temps,_ shows she is not quite inconsolable at the absence of her husband."

Mary, pale and trembling at the scandal his last words insinuated, opened her lips to speak, when Miss Dundas (whose angry eyes darted from her sister to her lover) exclaimed, "Mr. Lascelles, I know not what you mean. The subject you have taken up is below my discussion; yet I must confess, if Euphemia has ever disgraced herself so far as to be seen walking with a schoolmaster, she deserves all you have said."

"And why might I not walk with him, sister?" asked the poor culprit, suddenly recovering from her confusion, and looking pertly up; "who knew that he was not a gentleman?"

"Everybody, ma'am," interrupted Lascelles; "and when a young woman of fashion condescends to be seen equalizing herself with a creature depending on his wits for support, she is very likely to incur the contempt of her acquaintance and the censure of her friends."

"She is, sir," said Mary, holding down her indignant heart and forcing her countenance to appear serene; "for she ought to know that if those men of fashion, who have no wit to be either their support or ornament, did not proscribe talents from their circle, they must soon find 'the greater glory dim the less.'"

"True, madam," cried Lord Berrington, who, having entered during the contest, had stood un.o.bserved until this moment; "and their gold and tinsel would prove but dross and bubble, if struck by the Ithuriel touch of Merit when so advocated."

Mary turned at the sound of his philanthropic voice, and gave him one of those glances which go immediately to the soul.

"Come, Miss Beaufort," cried he, taking her hand; "I see the young musician yonder who has so recently astonished the public. I believe he is going to sing. Let us leave this discordant corner, and seek harmony by his side."

Mary gladly acceded to his request, and seating herself a few paces from the musical party, Berrington took his station behind her chair.

When the last melting notes of "From shades of night" died upon her ear, Mary's eyes, full of admiration and transport, which the power of a.s.sociation rendered more intense, remained fixed on the singer.

Lord Berrington smiled at the vivid expression of her countenance, and as the young Orpheus moved from the instrument, exclaimed, "Come, Miss Beaufort, I won't allow you quite to fancy Braham the G.o.d on whom

Enamored c.l.i.tie turned and gazed!