Miss Dorothy, who doted on her nephew, taking his hand as he seated himself between her and his cousin, said, in a congratulatory voice, "Mary, our dear boy has come to town purposely to take us down."

"Yes, indeed," rejoined he; "my father is moped to death for want of you both. You know I am a sad renegade! Lord Avon and Mr. Loftus have been gone these ten days to his lordship's aunt's in Bedfordshire; and Sir Robert is so completely weary of solitude, that he has commanded me"--bowing to the other ladies--"to run off with all the fair inhabitants of this house sooner than leave you behind."

"I shall be happy at another opportunity to visit Somerset Hall,"

returned Lady Dundas; "but I am constrained to spend this summer in Dumbartonshire. I have not yet seen the estate my poor dear Sir Hector bought of the Duke of Dunbar."

Pembroke offered no attempt to shake this resolution. In the two or three morning calls he had formerly made with Sir Robert Somerset on the rich widow, he saw sufficient to make him regard her arrogant vulgarity with disgust; and for her daughters, they were of too artificial a stamp to occupy his mind any longer than with a magic- lantern impression of a tall woman with bold eyes, and the prettiest yet most affected little fairy he had ever beheld.

After half an hour's conversation with this family group, Miss Beaufort sunk into abstraction. During the first month of Mary's acquaintance with Thaddeus, she did not neglect to mention in her correspondence with Pembroke having met with a very interesting and accomplished emigrant, in the capacity of a tutor at Lady Dundas's.

But her cousin, in his replies, beginning to banter her on pity being allied to love, she had gradually dropped all mention of Constantine's name, as she too truly found by what insensible degrees the union had taken place within her own breast. She remembered these particulars, whilst a new method of accomplishing her present project suggested itself; and determining (however extraordinary her conduct might seem) to rest on the rect.i.tude of her motives, a man being the most proper person to transact such a business with propriety, she resolved to engage Pembroke for her agent, without troubling Miss Dorothy about the affair.

So deeply was she absorbed in these reflections, that Somerset, observing her vacant eye fixed on the opposite window, took her hand with an arch smile, and exclaimed.

"Mary! What is the matter? I hope, Lady Dundas, you have not suffered any one to run away with her heart? You know I am her cousin, and it is my inalienable right."

Lady Dundas replied that young ladies best know their own secrets.

"That may be, madam," rejoined he; "but I won't allow Miss Beaufort to know anything that she does not transfer to me. Is not that true, Mary?"

"Yes," whispered she, coloring; "and the sooner you afford me an opportunity to interest you in one, the more I shall be obliged to you."

Pembroke pressed her hand in token of a.s.sent; and a desultory conversation continuing for another half-hour, Miss Beaufort, who dreaded the wasting one minute in a day so momentous to her peace, sat uneasily until her aunt proposed retiring to her dressing-room a while, and requested Pembroke to a.s.sist her up stairs.

When he returned to the drawing-room, to his extreme satisfaction he found all the party were gone to prepare for their usual drives, excepting Miss Beaufort, who was standing by one of the windows, lost in thought. He approached her, and taking her hand--

"Come, my dear cousin," said he, "how can I oblige you?"

Mary struggled with her confusion. Had she loved Thaddeus less, she found she could with greater ease have related the interest which she took in his fate. She tried to speak distinctly, and she accomplished it, although her burning cheek and downcast look told to the fixed eye of Pembroke what she vainly attempted to conceal.

"You can, indeed, oblige me! You must remember a Mr. Constantine! I once mentioned him to you in my letters."

"I do, Mary. You thought him amiable!"

"He was the intimate friend of Lady Tinemouth," returned she, striving to look up; but the piercing expression she met from the eyes of Somerset, beating hers down again, covered her face and neck with deeper blushes. She panted for breath.

"Rely on me," said Pembroke, pitying her embarra.s.sment, whilst he dreaded that her gentle heart had indeed become the victim of some accomplished and insidious foreigner--"rely on me, my beloved cousin: consider me as a brother. If you have entangled yourself--"

Miss Beaufort guessed what he would say, and interrupting him, added, with a more a.s.sured air, "No, Pembroke, I have no entanglements. I am going to ask your friendly a.s.sistance on behalf of a brave and unfortunate Polander." Pembroke reddened and she went on. "Mr.

Constantine is a gentleman. Lady Tinemouth tells me he has been a soldier, and that he lost all his possessions in the ruin of his country. Her ladyship introduced him here. I have seen him often, and I know him to be worthy the esteem of every honorable heart. He is now in prison, in Newgate, for a debt of about thirty pounds, and I ask you to go and release him. That is my request--my secret; and I confide in your discretion that you will keep it even from him."

"Generous, beloved Mary!" cried Pembroke, pressing her hand; "it is thus you always act. Possessed of all the softness of thy s.e.x, dearest girl," added he, still more affectionately, "nature has not alloyed it with one particle of weakness!"

Miss Beaufort smiled and sighed. If to love tenderly, to be devoted life and soul to one being, whom she considered as the most perfect work of creation, be weakness, Mary was the weakest of the weak; and with a languid despondence at her heart, she was opening her lips to give some directions to her cousin, when the attention of both was arrested by a shrill noise of speakers talking above stairs. Before the cousins had time to make an observation, the disputants descended towards the drawing-room, and bursting open the door with a violent clamor, presented the enraged figure of Lady Dundas followed by Diana, who, with a no less swollen countenance, was scolding vociferously, and dragging forward the weeping Euphemia.

"Ladies! ladies!" exclaimed Somerset, amazed at so extraordinary a scene; "what has happened?"

Lady Dundas lifted up her clenched hand in a pa.s.sion.

"A jade!--a hussy!" cried her vulgar ladyship, incapable of articulating more.

Miss Dundas, still grasping the hands of her struggling sister, broke out next, and turning furiously towards Mary, exclaimed, "You see, madam, what disgrace your ridiculous conduct to that vagabond foreigner has brought on our family! This bad girl has followed your example, and done worse-she has fallen in love with him!"

Shocked, and trembling at so rude an accusation, Miss Beaufort was unable to speak. Lost in wonder, and incensed at his cousin's goodness having been the dupe of imposition. Pembroke stood silent, whilst Lady Dundas took up the subject.

"Ay," cried she, shaking her daughter by the shoulder, "you little minx! if your sister had not picked up these abominable verses you chose to write on the absence of this beggarly fellow, I suppose you would have finished the business by running off with him! But you shall go down to Scotland, and be locked up for months. I won't have Sir Hector Dundas's family disgraced by a daughter of mine."

"For pity's sake, Lady Dundas," said Pembroke, stepping between her shrewish ladyship and the trembling Euphemia, "do compose yourself. I dare say your daughter is pardonable. In these cases, the fault in general lies with our s.e.x. We are the deluders."

Mary was obliged to reseat herself; and in pale attention she listened for the reply of the affrighted Euphemia, who, half a.s.sured that her whim of creating a mutual pa.s.sion in the breast of Thaddeus was no longer tenable, without either shame or remorse she exclaimed, "Indeed, Mr. Somerset, you are right; I never should have thought of Mr. Constantine if he had not teased me every time he came with his devoted love."

Miss Beaufort rose hastily from her chair. Though Euphemia colored at the suddenness of this motion, and the immediate flash she met from her eye, she went on: "I know Miss Beaufort will deny it, because she thinks he is in love with her; but indeed, indeed, he has sworn a thousand times on his knees that he was a Russian n.o.bleman in disguise, and adored me above every one else in the world."

"Villain!" cried Pembroke, inflamed with indignation at his double conduct. Afraid to read in the expressive countenance of Mary her shame and horror at this discovery, he turned his eyes on her with trepidation; when, to his surprise, he beheld her standing perfectly unmoved by the side of the sofa from which she had arisen. She advanced with a calm step towards Euphemia, and taking hold of the hand which concealed her face whilst uttering this last falsehood, she drew it away, and regarding her with a serene but penetrating look, she said: "Euphemia! you well know that you are slandering an innocent and unfortunate man. You know that never in his life did he give you the slightest reason to suppose that he was attached to you; for myself, I can also clear him of making professions to me. Upon the honor of my word, I declare," added she, addressing herself to the whole group, "that he never breathed a sentence to me beyond mere respect. By this last deviation of Euphemia from truth, you may form an estimate how far the rest she has alleged deserves credit."

The young lady burst into a vehement pa.s.sion of tears.

"I will not be browbeaten and insulted, Miss Beaufort!" cried she, taking refuge in noise, since right had deserted her. "You know you would fight his battles through thick and thin, else you would not have fallen into fits yesterday when I told you he was sent to jail."

This last a.s.sault struck Mary motionless; and Lady Dundas, lifting up her hands, exclaimed, "Good la! keep me from the forward misses of these times! As for you, Miss Euphemia," added she, seizing her daughter by the arm, "you shall leave town tomorrow morning. I will have no more tutoring and falling in love in my house; and for you, Miss Beaufort," turning to Mary, (who, having recovered herself, stood calmly at a little distance,) "I shall take care to warn Miss Dorothy Somerset to keep an eye over your conduct."

"Madam," replied she, indignantly, "I shall never do anything which can dishonor either my family or myself; and of that Miss Dorothy Somerset is too well a.s.sured to doubt for an instant, even should calumny be as busy with me as it has been injurious to Mr.

Constantine."

With the words of Mrs. Robson suddenly reverberating on her heart, "He has no father, no mother, no kindred in this wide world!" she walked towards the door. When she pa.s.sed Mr. Somerset, who stood bewildered and frowning near Miss Dundas, she turned her eyes on her cousin, full of the effulgent pity in her soul, and said, in a collected and decisive voice, "Pembroke, I shall leave the room; but, remember, I do not release you from your engagement."

Staggered by the open firmness of her manner, he looked after her as she withdrew, and was almost inclined to believe that she possessed the right side of the argument. Malice did not allow him to think so long. The moment the door closed on her, both the sisters fell on him pell-mell; and the prejudiced illiberality of the one, supported by the ready falsehoods of the other, soon dislodged all favorable impressions from the mind of Somerset, and filled him anew with displeasure.

In the midst of Diana's third harangue, Lady Dundas having ordered Euphemia to be taken to her chamber, Mr. Somerset was left alone, more incensed than ever against the object of their invectives, whom he now considered in the light of an adventurer, concealing his poverty, and perhaps his crimes beneath a garb of lies. That such a character, by means of a fine person and a few meretricious talents, could work himself into the confidence of Mary Beaufort, pierced her cousin to the soul; and as he mounted the stairs with an intent to seek her in her dressing-room, he almost resolved to refuse obeying her commands.

When he opened the room-door, he found Miss Beaufort and his aunt.

The instant he appeared, the ever-benevolent face of Miss Dorothy contracted into a frown.

"Nephew," cried she, "I shall not take it well of you if you give stronger credence to the pa.s.sionate and vulgar a.s.sertions of Lady Dundas and her daughters than you choose to bestow on the tried veracity of your cousin Mary."

Pembroke was conscious that if his countenance had been a faithful transcript of his mind, Miss Beaufort did not err in supposing he believed the foreigner to be a villain. Knowing that it would be impossible for him to relinquish his reason into what he now denominated the partial hands of his aunt and cousin, he persisted in his opinion to both the ladies, that their unsuspicious natures had been rendered subservient to knavery and artifice.

"I would not, my dear madam," said he, addressing Miss Dorothy, "think so meanly of your s.e.x as to imagine that such atrocity can exist in the female heart as could give birth to ruinous and unprovoked calumnies against an innocent man. I cannot suspect the Misses Dundas of such needless guilt, particularly poor Euphemia, whom I truly pity. Lady Dundas forced me to read her verses, and they were too full of love and regret for this adventurer to come from the same breast which could wantonly blacken his character. Such wicked inconsistencies in so young a woman are not half so probable as that you, my clear aunt and cousin, have been deceived.

"Nephew," returned the old lady, "you are very peremptory. Methinks a little more lenity of opinion would better become your youth! I knew nothing of this unhappy young man's present distress until Miss Beaufort mentioned it to me; but before she breathed a word in his favor, I had conceived a very high respect for his merits. From the first hour in which I saw him, I gathered by his deportment that he must be a gentleman, besides a previous act of benevolent bravery, in rescuing at the hazard of his own life two poor children from a house in flames--in all this I saw he must have been born far above his fortunes. I thought so; I still think so; and, notwithstanding all that the Dunda.s.ses may choose to fabricate, I am determined to believe the a.s.sertions of an honest countenance."

Pembroke smiled, whilst he forced his aunt's reluctant hand into his, and said, "I see, my dear madam, you are bigoted to the idol of your own fancy! I do not presume to doubt this Mr. Constantine's lucky exploits, nor his enchantments: but you must pardon me if I keep my senses at liberty. I shall think of him as I could almost swear he deserves, although I am aware that I hazard your affection by my firmness." He then turned to Mary, who, with a swelling and distressed heart, was standing by the chimney. "Forgive me, my dearest cousin," continued he, addressing her in a softened voice, "that I am forced to appear harsh. It is the first time I ever dissented from you; it is the first time I ever thought you prejudiced!"

Miss Beaufort drew the back of her hand over her glistening eyes. All the tender affections of Pembroke's bosom smote him at once, and throwing his arms around his cousin's waist, he strained her to his breast, and added, "Ah! why, dear girl, must I love you better for thus giving me pain? Every way my darling Mary is more estimable.

Even now, whilst I oppose you, I am sure, though your goodness is abused, it was cheated into error by the affectation of honorable impulses and disasters!"

Miss Beaufort thought that if the prudence of reserve and decorum dictated silence in some circ.u.mstances, in others a prudence of a higher order would justify her in declaring her sentiments.

Accordingly she withdrew from the clasping arms of Mr. Somerset, and whilst her beautiful figure seemed to dilate into more than its usual dignity, she mildly replied:

"Think what you please, Pembroke; I shall not contend with you. Mr.