"No, I can't say that I did."

"Why should you? n.o.body ever does trouble his head about anything that relates to my happiness! Well, I remarked it, and saw the supercilious smile he a.s.sumed when I told him that the pillow was wrong. He looked over at you, too, as though to say, 'You see how impossible it is to please her'."

"I certainly saw nothing of that."

"Even Prichard, that formerly was the most diffident of men, is now so much at his ease, so very much at home in my presence, it is quite amusing. It was but yesterday he asked me to take wine with him at dinner. The anachronism was bad enough, but only fancy the liberty!"

"And what did you do?" asked Sir Stafford, with difficulty repressing a smile.

"I affected not to hear, hoping he would not expose himself before the servants by a repet.i.tion of the request. But he went on, 'Will your Ladyship' I a.s.sure you he said that 'will your Ladyship do me the honor to drink wine with me?' I merely stared at him, but never took any notice of his speech. Would you believe it? he returned to the charge again, and with his hand on his wine-gla.s.s, began, 'I have taken the liberty' I could n't hear more; so I turned to George, and said, 'George, will you tell that man not to do that?'"

Sir Stafford could not restrain himself any longer, but broke out into a burst of hearty laughter. "Poor Prichard," said he, at last, "I almost think I see him before me!"

"You never think of saying, 'Poor Hester, these are not the a.s.sociates you have been accustomed to live with!' But I could be indifferent to all these if my own family treated me with proper deference. As for Sydney and George, however, they have actually coventried me; and although I antic.i.p.ated many sacrifices when I married, this I certainly never speculated upon. Lady Wallingcroft, indeed, warned me to a certain extent of what I should meet with; but I fondly hoped that disparity of years and certain differences, the fruits of early prejudices and habits, would be the only drawbacks on my happiness; but I have lived to see my error!"

"The event has, indeed, not fulfilled what was expected from it," said Sir Stafford, with a slow and deliberate emphasis on each word.

"Oh, I comprehend you perfectly," said she, coloring slightly, and for the first time displaying any trait of animation in her features. "You have been as much disappointed as I have. Just what my aunt Wallingcroft prophesied. 'Remember,' said she, and I 'm sure I have had good cause to remember it, 'their ideas are not our ideas; they have not the same hopes, ambitions, or objects that we have; their very morality is not our morality!'"

"Of what people or nation was her Ladyship speaking?" asked Sir Stafford, mildly.

"Of the City, generally," replied Lady Hester, proudly.

"Not in ignorance, either," rejoined Sir Stafford; "her own father was a merchant in Lombard Street."

"But the family are of the best blood in Lancashire, Sir Stafford."

"It may be so; but I remember Walter Crofts himself boasting that he had danced to warm his feet on the very steps of the door in Grosvenor Square which afterwards acknowledged him as the master; and as he owed his wealth and station to honest industry and successful enterprise, none heard the speech without thinking the better of him."

"The anecdote is new to me," said Lady Hester, superciliously; "and I have little doubt that the worthy man was merely embellishing an incident to suit the tastes of his company."

"It was the company around his table, as Lord Mayor of London!"

"I could have sworn it," said she, laughing; "but what has all this to do with what I wished to speak about if I could but remember what it was! These eternal digressions have made me forget everything."

Although the appeal was palpably directed to Sir Stafford, he sat silent and motionless, patiently awaiting the moment when recollection might enable her to resume.

"Dear me! how tiresome it is! I cannot think of what I came about, and you will not a.s.sist me in the least."

"Up to this moment you have given me no clew to it," said Sir Stafford, with a smile. "It was not to speak of Grounsell?"

"Of course not. I hate even to think of him!"

"Of Prichard, perhaps?" he said, with a half-sly twinkle of the eye.

"Just as little!"

"Possibly your friend Colonel Haggerstone was in your thoughts?"

"Pray do not call him my friend. I know very little of the gentleman; I intend even to know less. I declined to receive him this morning, when he sent up his card."

"An attention I fear he has not shown that poor creature he wounded, Grounsell tells me."

"Oh, I have it!" said she, suddenly; the allusion to Hans at once recalling the Daltons, and bringing to mind the circ.u.mstances she desired to remember. "It was exactly of these poor people I came to speak. You must know, Sir Stafford, that I have made the acquaintance of a most interesting family here, a father and two daughters named Dalton."

"Grounsell has already told me so," interrupted Sir Stafford.

"Of course, then, every step I have taken in this intimacy has been represented in the most odious light. The amiable doctor will have, doubtless, imputed to me the least worthy motives for knowing persons in their station?"

"On the contrary, Hester. If he expressed any qualification to the circ.u.mstance, it was in the form of a fear lest the charms of your society and the graces of your manner might indispose them to return with patience to the dull round of their daily privations."

"Indeed!" said she, superciliously. "A weak dose of his own acquaintance would be, then, the best antidote he could advise them! But, really, I must not speak of this man; any allusion to him is certain to jar my nerves, and irritate my feelings for the whole day after. I want to interest you about these Daltons."

"Nothing more easy, my dear, since I already know something about them."

"The doctor being your informant," said she, snappishly.

"No, no, Hester; many, many years ago, certain relations existed between us, and I grieve to say that Mr. Dalton has reason to regard me in no favorable light; and it was but the very moment I received your message I was learning from Prichard the failure of an effort I had made to repair a wrong. I will not weary you with a long and a sad story, but briefly mention that Mr. Dalton's late wife was a distant relative of my own."

"Yes, yes; I see it all. There was a little love in the business, an old flame revived in after life; nothing serious, of course but jealousies and misconstructions to any extent. Dear me, and that was the reason she died of a broken heart!" It was hard to say if Sir Stafford was more amused at the absurdity of this imputation, or stung by the cool indifference with which she uttered it; nor was it easy to know how the struggle, within him would terminate, when she went on: "It does appear so silly to see a pair of elderly gentlemen raking up a difference out of an amourette of the past century. You are very fortunate to have so quiet a spot to exhibit in!"

"I am sorry to destroy an illusion so very full of amus.e.m.e.nt, Lady Hester; but I owe it to all parties to say that your pleasant fancy has not even the shadow of a color. I never even saw Mrs. Dalton; never have yet met her husband. The event to which I was about to allude, when you interrupted me, related to a bequest--"

"Oh, I know the whole business, now! It was at your suit that dreadful mortgage was foreclosed, and these dear people were driven away from their ancient seat of Mount Dalton. I 'm sure I 've heard the story at least ten times over, but never suspected that your name was mixed up with it. I do a.s.sure you, Sir Stafford, that they have never dropped the most distant hint of you in connection with that sad episode."

"They have been but just, Lady Hester," said he, gravely. "I never did hold a mortgage over this property; still less exercised the severe right you speak of. But it is quite needless to pursue a narrative that taxes your patience so severely; enough to say, that through Prichard's mediation I have endeavored to persuade Mr. Dalton that I was the trustee, under a will, of a small annuity on his life. He has peremptorily refused to accept it, although, as I am informed, living in circ.u.mstances of great poverty."

"Poor they must be, certainly. The house is wretchedly furnished, and the girls wear such clothes as I never saw before; not that they are even the worn and faded finery of better days, but actually the coa.r.s.e stuffs such as the peasants wear!"

"So I have heard."

"Not even an edging of cheap lace round their collars; not a bow of ribbon; not an ornament of the humblest kind about them."

"And both handsome, I am told?"

"The younger, beautiful! the deepest blue eyes in the world, with long fringed lashes, and the most perfect mouth you can imagine. The elder very pretty, too, but sad-looking, for she has a fearful lameness, poor thing! They say it came from a fall off a horse, but I suspect it must have begun in infancy; one of those dreadful things they call 'spine.'

Like all persons in her condition, she is monstrously clever; carves the most beautiful little groups in boxwood, and models in clay and plaster.

She is a dear, mild, gentle thing; but I suspect with all that infirmity of temper that comes of long illness at least, she is seldom in high spirits like her sister. Kate, the younger girl, is my favorite; a fine, generous, warm-hearted creature, full of life and animation, and so fond of me already."

If Sir Stafford did not smile at the undue emphasis laid upon the last few words, it was not that he had not read their full significance.

"And Mr. Dalton himself, what is he like?"

"Like nothing I ever met before; the oddest mixture of right sentiments and wrong inferences; of benevolence, cruelty, roughness, gentleness; the most refined consideration, and the most utter disregard for other people and their feelings, that ever existed. You never can guess what will be his sentiments at any moment, or on any subject, except on the question of family, when his pride almost savors of insanity. I believe, in his own country, he would be nothing strange nor singular; but out of it, he is a figure unsuited to any landscape."

"It is hard to say how much of this peculiarity may have come of adverse fortune," said Sir Stafford, thoughtfully.

"I 'm certain he was always the same; at least, it would be impossible to imagine him anything different. But I have not come to speak of him, but of his daughter Kate, in whom I am deeply interested. You must know, Sir Stafford, that I have formed a little plan, for which I want your aid and concurrence. It is to take this dear girl along with us to Italy."