ANY THING BUT WHAT YOU EXPECT.

 

 

 

BY JANE HARVEY,

 

AUTHOR OF MONTEITH—ETHELIA—MEMOIRS OF AN

AUTHOR—RECORDS OF A NOBLE FAMILY, ETC. ETC. ETC.

 

 

 

In Three Volumes.

 

 

VOLUME III.

 

“Alle day

“It is both writ and sayde,

“That woman’s faith is, as who sayth;

“Alle utterly decayed.

“But nevertheless right good witness

“I’ this case might be layde,

“That they love trewe, and contynewe.—”

                                                Nut Browne Mayde.

 

 

 

DERBY:

 

PRINTED BY AND FOR HENRY MOZLEY.

 

1819.

 

 

ANY THING

 

BUT WHAT YOU EXPECT.

 

 

CHAPTER I.

 

IT was quite dark when the travellers reached Lyme, exhausted by fatigue and chilled with cold, for

 

“As yet the trembling year was unconfirm’d.

“And winter oft at eve resum’d the breeze.”

 

It was the great misfortune of Cordelia’s journey that it was made amongst total strangers, and in a part of the country where neither herself nor Mrs. Brooks had ever been before. She had no male friend near to make those inquiries after Lord Lochcarron, which, so censorious is the world, and so apt to judge maliciously, a female could scarcely make without exciting evil suspicions; though wishing with an ardour which nothing can describe for news of Lord Lochcarron, she would not commission Mrs. Brooks to ask a single question about him until the morning; but ordering a slight supper, and a two-bedded room to be prepared, they partook of the former, and retired very early to the latter, where Cordelia obtained some hours of repose, and rose in the morning with a frame refreshed, and spirits renovated by hope, when the mistress of the house came in to pay her morning compliments.

 

            Mrs. Brooks, in a way best calculated to avoid suspicion, inquired if a gentleman of the name of Campion was then, or had lately been there; she was told in answer that Mr. Campion slept there two nights, and left only that morning for Dorchester; whether himself returned to Lyme or not was uncertain; but at all events his servant would, as their baggage was still there.

 

            Again disappointed, poor Cordelia could scarcely bear it, but fortunately her hostess was not a person of very distinguished penetration, and neither discovered the interest Cordelia took in Mr. Campion, by her emotions, nor by the efforts she made to conceal them, which, with a very acute observer, would have been the surer method of the two to betray her.

 

            Left again by themselves they held a council of deliberation; it was Sunday, and to proceed to Dorchester on the vague uncertainty of Lord Lochcarron having gone thither, seemed a measure so replete with the risk of losing all clue by which to trace him, that it was not to be thought of; a much more prudent way was to wait at Lyme a day or two, as he must either return or send for the articles he had left there, which would, in either case, determine their future proceedings. Cordelia’s next task was to write to Lord Dunotter, to report progress, and to give a detail of all the negatives and disappointments she had encountered; but she did so with a gentleness, a sweetness, a playful patience, all her own; yet far from being the present frame of her mind, but assumed for the purpose of inducing Lord Dunotter to think that her difficulties could not be very great since they sat so lightly on her; she had scarcely finished her letter, when Mrs. Brooks, who had visited the hostess to signify that they should remain at her house that day at least, perhaps longer, returned with the intelligence that a celebrated preacher from Weymouth was to preach at the parish church, adding a hint, that as the people of the house could accommodate them with seats, she should like, if agreeable to Lady Lochcarron, to go; Cordelia could not object; her dress, as a traveller, presented no obstacle; no one at Lyme, she thought, could possibly recognise her, and as she was never in the habit of marring her compliance with any request by a hesitating ungracious way, she signified her ready acquiescence, and, as the bells had long been ringing, they set out immediately, accompanied by a genteel well-bred young woman, a relation of the mistress of the house; they had taken their seats but a short time, the bells were ringing out, and Cordelia was endeavouring to abstract her mind from every earthly care, and to fix it on the solemn duties of the occasion, when a sort of bustle amongst the congregation, accompanied with a whispering, and the words “That is his lady,” uttered by some person in the pew behind, recalled her to surrounding objects, and looking up, she beheld Sir Roger Cottingham, her Orton-Abbey acquaintance, his nephew Mr. Harrington, and the youngest daughter of Lady Hootside, now Lady Caroline Harrington, ushered up the aisle in great form to a magnificent pew, which seemed appropriated for strangers of rank; and Lady Lochcarron, in the consternation of the moment which the dread of discovery threw her into, had to felicitate herself that her rank was unknown at Lyme, and flattered herself that she might indulge the hope of escaping being seen in the obscure seat where she was placed; she knew Mr. Harrington to be in the church; she had heard him extolled as an excellent preacher; but beyond all these circumstances, she remembered him as nearly resembling Lord Lochcarron in person.

 

            The service commenced, and Cordelia quickly found her mistake; her pew, though in rather a retired part of the church, was so situate that those in the pew where Lady Caroline sat had a full view of the persons in it; Lady Caroline had always entertained a more friendly regard for Cordelia, than any of the rest of the family; and though almost doubting the evidence of her senses, yet prepared by her brother’s letters to see a striking alteration in her person, she felt convinced that she now beheld her; not contented with her own observations, she directed the eyes of both her husband and Sir Roger Cottingham to the same object, but they had neither of them ever seen Cordelia, excepting that day at Orton-Abbey, and could not determine whether this were the same lady, but Lady Caroline resolved to be satisfied before she quitted the church.

 

            Mr. Harrington chose his text from the second Epistle to Timothy: “The servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men.” From which words he preached a very fine discourse; replete with sound reasoning, and enriched with all the graces of oratory. Cordelia and Mrs. Brooks listened with both pleasure and edification; but the latter had not the remotest idea that the preacher was known to the former.

 

            When service was over, Lady Caroline fixed her eye upon Cordelia in a way which left her no longer in doubt that she was recognised; and though she felt extreme repugnance to conversing, under her present circumstances, with any one who knew her, yet she resolved not to shrink from it, as if a sense of conscious guilt directed her movements; but taking care to leave her seat at the same time with the clerical party, they encountered each other at the door, while Lady Caroline and Sir Roger lingered a few moments, until they should be joined by Mr. Harrington before they got into the carriage.

 

            Lady Lochcarron, determined to be at once herself, met the glance of Lady Caroline as that of an old acquaintance; and, resolved not to yield the point of rank, was the first to speak, which she did with mingled kindness and politeness. Lady Caroline, who was a gentle-tempered woman, and seemed to have greatly divested herself of her affected habits, since her union with Mr. Harrington, did not seem to contest the right of precedence; but carefully avoided (as her brother and sister, Lord and Lady Hootside had done on a former occasion) giving Cordelia any name or title; they asked after the health of mutual friends; Sir Roger spoke with great complaisance, as did Mr. Harrington, who now joined them. Lady Lochcarron complimented him on the discourse she had just heard, and introducing her friend Mrs. Brooks, that lady joined in the encomium; when they were about to separate, Lady Caroline taking Cordelia’s hand, with great appearance of kindness, said, “We are at Weymouth at present, my dear; if you are going to make any stay in this part of the country I hope you will favour us with a visit; Lady Hootside and Lady Cottingham will rejoice to see you.” Cordelia paid due acknowledgments for this civility, but said, “that her stay in Dorsetshire, would probably not be above a day or two longer, as she only came to Lyme to visit a friend,” thus leaving them to conjecture, if they pleased, that Mrs. Brooks was that friend. “I shall have the honour to see you to your carriage, madam,” said Sir Roger, when Cordelia had made her last courtesy, and was turning away; with a glowing cheek she was compelled to reply that she had walked to church; the countenances of Lady Caroline and Sir Roger expressed astonishment, that of Mr. Harrington something like concern; Cordelia staid to encounter none of them, but again dropping her parting courtesy, took Mrs. Brooks’ arm, and walked away with graceful dignity.

 

            As Lady Caroline journeyed homewards, great was the surprise her ladyship expressed to her companions at meeting Cordelia in Dorsetshire, at such a place as Lyme, where neither resort of company, public amusements, nor rural retirement could possibly be the motive which has attracted her thither; “Pho!” said Sir Roger, “she has merely come down for a little change of scene on a visit to that lady who is with her, Brooks—Brooke—what did she call her? what family can she be of? there is Sir Richard Brooke, and Sir Samuel Brooke, and my very good friend Colonel Brooke, and the Brookes of Northamptonshire, and—” “Dear uncle!” interrupted Lady Caroline, laughing, “you remind me of the lines of old Dryden:

 

            “Ill habits gather by unseen degrees:

            “As brooks to rivers, rivers run to seas.”

 

            Mr. Harrington smiled, and the baronet, with whom Lady Caroline was a great favourite, said, “You are very satirical, Carry; perhaps my acquaintance with almost all the best English families sometimes leads me to digress too long, but when I am introduced to any person I always wish to know their descent.” Little more was said on the subject until they reached Weymouth; but when Lady Hootside and her elder daughter were told the miracle, that Cordelia was at Lyme, both joined in pronouncing that her residence there must be connected with “some dark deed she would not name.”

 

            “I ever thought her a strange girl,” said the countess, “and the more I hear of her proceedings, the more deeply is my opinion confirmed; Lord Lochcarron must have had weighty reasons for leaving her in the way he did, immediately after the ceremony of their marriage;” “Eh?” questioned Sir Roger; Lady Cottingham, who best understood the avenue to the baronet’s ear, took the office of interpreter, and said, “Lady Hootside thinks, Sir Roger, that Lord Lochcarron must have felt himself justified in deserting his bride, by the knowledge of some impropriety in her conduct.” “Impropriety!” reiterated the baronet, “rely upon it the impropriety has been on the other side; the poor girl has had a strange set to deal with; Lady Walpole was never any great things, and Dunotter I never liked—I dare say his son is a chip of the old block.” No one pushed the subject further, but each cherished what mental opinion they preferred.

 

            Cordelia passed her hours at Lyme in a very cheerless way; after parting with Lady Caroline and her companions, seeing that Mrs. Brooks was inclined for a walk, though she did not exactly say so, she begged that she might not prevent her intention; but returning to the inn under the plea of fatigue, Mrs. Brooks and the young person walked out of town, to view the fine harbour, and whatever else it was surrounded by, worthy notice; this girl, impressed with a high idea of Cordelia’s consequence, from her evident familiarity with Lady Caroline Harrington, and unable to gather from their conversation who she were, because they had never addressed her by any name, could not help taking the opportunity of being alone with Mrs. Brooks to endeavour to find it out, though she did so in a very distant and well-bred way; but Mrs. B. was never off her guard, and was deterred, by the visible curiosity of her companion, from using the occasion as she wished and intended to do in making inquiries concerning Mr. Campion, and the way in which he conducted himself while at Lyme.

 

            During her absence, Cordelia, in the solitude of her own apartment, drew a comparison between her own situation and that of Lady Caroline Harrington; and found all the arguments drawn from hope, patience, resignation, and fortitude, inadequate to repress her tears; oh, how kindly, how gracefully attentive, how exactly the medium between neglect and uxoriousness was Mr. Harrington’s behaviour to his wife! how greatly was her consequence raised in the scale of society, and how striking was the improvement effected on her manners by her union with a man of Mr. Harrington’s dignified and excellent character; while she—but she could only weep over the sad and often-repeated catalogue of her own blighted prospects and drooping hopes; however as evil is seldom unaccompanied by some ray of good, or misfortune without some correspondent consolation, she had to felicitate herself on having escaped discovery, by the circumstance of her friends having studiously avoided addressing her by any appellation. Reflecting that it was of no avail to yield to despondence; that she must exert herself, and finish her singular and trying task; she compelled herself seriously to consider what was next to be done, and after due deliberation changed her late opinion, and thought it best not to linger at Lyme, but to proceed the next day to Dorchester, where she was taught to believe her lord then was, and to trust to fortune, or a better guide, to find out his residence when there; at all events such a mode of proceeding seemed preferable to risking the constructions which might be put on her prolonged stay at an inn, and indeed had she known all that was going forward on her subject, she would have applauded the prudence which dictated the measure she was pursuing; for more than one of the gay young men of the town had already caught a glimpse of her lively face, and the spirit of curiosity was up in arms to discover all the items that belonged to her.

 

            When Mrs. Brooks returned from her walk, Cordelia imparted the resolution she had taken, which that lady did not attempt to oppose; this seemed the longest and most comfortless Sunday Cordelia had ever known; the passing groups which she gazed at from the windows had no interest for her; every thing was insipid, books were dull and tiresome, and whatever allured for one moment ceased to please in the next; gladly did she hear the clock strike eleven, and Mrs. Brooks propose to retire; but her distance from home, anxiety of mind, and incertitude respecting the future, all conspired to banish repose; her slumbers were broken, and her wandering dreams, which had Lord Dunotter and his son for their objects, were all of a gloomy kind; glad was she when the morning-light, beaming through the shutters, called her to make preparations for quitting Lyme.

 

            When breakfast was ended, and the bill discharged, Cordelia, in contemplating the diminished contents of her purse, felt how much she owed to the provident care of Lord Dunotter, who had enriched her with a well-stored pocket-book on the morning of her departure from Holleyfield; for so little was she aware of the heavy expenses incurred by travelling in the mode she did, or indeed in any mode, that but for so seasonable a source in reserve she must soon have been bankrupt.

 

            People in a state of uncertainty respecting any event, are very prone to think the steps they have taken less eligible than those they have rejected; and thus it was with Lady Lochcarron; for by the time she had passed the first stage to Dorchester, she felt dissatisfied with herself for having quitted Lyme; true, she was taught to believe that her lord was at the former place, but to seek him there, was like the fable of seeking lost reputation in the wide world, for she had neither clue nor guide by which to discover him; by remaining at the last-named town, she must have seen either him or his servant, but it was uncertain when, and time she thought was too precious to be trifled with.

 

            On arriving at Dorchester, her first care, while dinner was preparing, was to write to Lord Dunotter, to give her reasons for the new course she had taken, and to say that she should remain where she was until she heard from his lordship, unless some very pressing reason should induce her to change her resolution. Mrs. Brooks made cautious and guarded inquiries after Mr. Campion, but with less success than ever, for the people of the house where they were, had neither seen nor heard of any such person. Poor Cordelia, thus disappointed, felt herself compelled to believe what she had before feared, that Lord Lochcarron had never come to Dorchester, though, for some reason or other, he had been induced to make the people at the George suppose that such was his intention; she knew not how to proceed, and could only resolve that if in the course of a day or two she heard no tidings of her recreant spouse, she would relinquish all pursuit, and with it all hopes of future happiness; sunk to deep dejection by these painful thoughts, she ate her meal in nearly silent sadness, yet in consideration of Mrs. Brooks she made an effort to appear composed, and even cheerful. Mrs. Brooks paid two or three visits to the mistress of the house on errands which had for their object Lady Lochcarron’s accommodation and comfort; on one of them she learned that a concert was that evening to be performed in a room adjoining to the inn, by young persons belonging to the town, amateurs, the profits, after deducting the expenses, to be appropriated to the relief of a necessitous family who had suffered by a fire. Mrs. Brooks proposed to Cordelia that they should go, if agreeable to her; situated as she was at present, she had little inclination for such an amusement; but unwilling to appear morose, gloomy, or so selfish that she regarded only her own feelings and positions, she expressed her assent, submitting it however to her friend’s better judgment, whether they could, with propriety, appear in their travelling dresses; Mrs. Brooks decided in the affirmative, and the little time which intervened between dinner and eight o’clock, the hour of commencing, was passed in rendering their costume as far as might be suitable to the occasion; Cordelia, secure that no one at Dorchester could know her, laid aside her hat, an incumbrance she was glad to part with; anxiety of mind had robbed her cheek of that transient bloom with which exercise and returning health were beginning to adorn it; and her constant, and now almost habitual, meditation on her misfortunes shed a soft and pensive languor over her beautiful features, softened the expression of her sweet blue eyes, and rendered her altogether so interestingly lovely, that when she entered the concert room, which was when the opening symphony was nearly concluded, the attention of the Dorsetian belles and beaux was fixed on her alone; while “It is Mrs. Beaumont,” for with her travelling nominative they had already become acquainted, was whispered on all sides, and the epithets of “charming, fascinating,” and every other superlative that could be made to signify admiration, were so liberally bestowed, that poor Cordelia soon wished herself anywhere but in the concert-room at Dorchester, and severely repented having entered it; however, as she could not with any propriety make an immediate retreat, she endeavoured to elude observation by not seeming to notice it, and by bending her whole attention on the performances of the evening; these were such as might be expected; no false cadence, no discordant note jarred on the ear of refinement; it was perfect science, but with all the wonted stiffness of science when native taste and genius are totally excluded from it; the first act was nearly concluded, and Cordelia was proposing in her own mind that if agreeable to Mrs. Brooks they would then retire; it was during the performance of one of Handel’s beautiful overtures, her whole soul was entranced in the harmony of sweet sounds, and even the vulture Care, which so ceaselessly gnawed her bosom, was, for a while, diverted from his prey, when, by one of those impulses for which we are totally unable to account, she happened to raise her head, and beheld—oh! language can never be modelled to convey an idea of her feelings, when she beheld that form, never seen since the evening on which she received his vows at the altar—the form of Lord Lochcarron; he was leaning against one of the pillars which supported the orchestra, his arms folded on his bosom, and his eyes fixed on the floor.

 

            Cordelia would now have given worlds for the large bonnet and veil to conceal her face; she believed the gaze of all present bent on her; trembling, agitated, and subdued at once with surprise, joy, and a feeling nearly amounting to anguish, she was only alive to the wish of pointing him out to Mrs. Brooks, that they might not again lose sight of him; she stole another glance, and finding his attention absorbed, and his eyes fixed as before, ventured to contemplate him for some seconds; he was, at least she thought he was, greatly altered in person, and the bloom of his countenance gone; she gently touched Mrs. Brooks’s arm, and making a violent effort to speak with composure and collection, softly whispered, “There he is, that is my lord in blue, leaning against the second pillar of the orchestra.” Mrs. Brooks softly pressed her hand at once, in token that she understood her, and to recommend composure, and then bent her whole attention to watch Lord Lochcarron, and to obtain by some means or other information of where he resided in Dorchester.

 

            The instruments ceased, and the company rose from their seats; one of the chief personages present, both in his own estimation, and on account of the office he held, was a Mr. Tadcroft, the president of the evening, a merchant in Dorchester; this gentleman had been some time on the watch for an opportunity to commence a conversation with Cordelia and her companion, and took advantage of the present interregnum to pay them some slight compliments, and inquire how they liked the performances; Lady Lochcarron, every faculty of her soul engrossed by the object which on earth was dearest to it, replied to his question in such a vague way, that he thought her worse than ill-bred, quite stupid, and turned the whole of his attention to Mrs. Brooks, in the hope that she might be composed of more conversable materials; Mrs. Brooks readily entered into discourse, for she doubted not that from Mr. Tadcroft she might glean the requisite information concerning Lord Lochcarron’s present place of abode; when he asked what she thought of the concert, she gave it at least due praise; “Now I feel flattered, Madam,” said Tadcroft with a grin, “for if you, who no doubt hear all the first performers of the metropolis, can think us tolerable, we shall do in time with a little practice.” “I am not much in London, Sir,” returned Mrs. Brooks, “my residence is chiefly in the country.” “May I inquire, madam, what rural shade possesses attraction sufficient to induce a lady to seclude herself in it?” “A very warm and comfortable one,” said Mrs. Brooks, with an affable smile, “I come from that district which manufacturers the raw materials you furnish.” “Devonshire then?” said Tadcroft, with eager curiosity. “Not so,” said Mrs. Brooks, gaily, “I’ze be Yorkshire.” “Here on business?” said her companion, pushing his inquisitiveness beyond the verge of good-breeding; deeply indignant at his impertinence, she yet kept her own purpose in view, and veiling her resentment beneath a smile, replied, “On business of the last consequence—we are travelling for my friend’s health;” then to prevent any further effusion of prying curiosity, she looked round on the company, and after a general tribute of admiration to the smart appearance of the Dorchester ladies, she inquired particularly who several of them were; Tadcroft replied to each inquiry in such a spirit of keen satire, as gave her a much clearer insight into his mind, than into the history of those he described; for as the very essence of satire is an attempt to light the lamp of the satirist’s perfections at the expiring embers of his victim, the malevolence of his purpose is sure to injure him with every mind possessing sense, delicacy, and moral rectitude.

 

            From the ladies, Mrs. Brooks proceeded to the gentlemen, and asked the names of one or two, who fared no better with Mr. Tadcroft, than the lovelier part of the creation; “And pray who is that gentleman?” was Mrs. Brooks’s next query, directing Tadcroft’s attention towards Lord Lochcarron. “That is Mr. Campion, madam, a gentleman lately arrived from the continent; he has been at the White Hart two or three days, and has come here to-night to ascertain, I suppose, whether our music be as good a feast for the ears, as the mutton of our downs and the beer of our town are allowed throughout England to be for the palate.” Mrs. Brooks had now all the information she either expected or desired to receive from Tadcroft, but she was both too well-bred and good-tempered to neglect gratifying his vanity by a smile of applause to his home-made wit.

 

            She now joined Cordelia, who, during this whole time had been only attentive to her lord; at first she averted her face, and endeavoured to shun his recognition, dreading that it would be but the harbinger of his contempt; but when reason suggested that it was not for this she came into Dorsetshire, she tried to obey its dictates, and rather to court than avoid his observation; for some time after the music ceased he did not appear to see her, and though he moved his position, walked about the room, and once passed very near her, he neither noticed her by word nor look; at last their eyes met, and could the expression of the most melting tenderness be reduced to rule, it would be that which now animated the sweet face of Cordelia; the gaze of Lochcarron seemed to linger on it a moment, and was then averted with the cold disregard of a perfect stranger; she felt as if the warm current of life were ebbing away, when she was joined by Mrs. Brooks, who imparted the intelligence she had gained from Tadcroft; this, by giving Cordelia time, enabled her to recover composure; she was convinced, or rather she tried to convince herself, that her lord had not recognised her, and delighted that she had at length ascertained his place of residence she once more turned her beautiful eyes upon him, beaming fond affection, but

 

                                    “As one who spies a serpent in his way,

                                    “Glistening and basking in the summer ray,”

 

they were quickly averted; for Lochcarron, his face arrayed in smiles, was bending gracefully to carry on a whispering conversation with a beautiful woman, who, as Cordelia and Mrs. Brooks had learned in the early part of the evening, from the conversation of some persons in their vicinity, was a widow of large fortune, generally resident at an elegant mansion near the post road between Poole and Dorchester, and very lately returned from France.

 

            Poor Cordelia could not bear the train of ideas which rushed to her mind, and grasping Mrs. Brooks’s arm, all she could whisper was, “Go, go, let us be gone;” even Mrs. Emerson’s remembered counsel, “To demand a personal interview with Lord Lochcarron, to engage him to do her justice in point of character,” vanished before the feelings of the moment; and only anxious to escape being made the object of sarcastic scorn or contemptuous pity, she hurried from the spot.

 

CHAPTER II.

 

TO have met Lord Lochcarron—to have passed close to him in the concert room without receiving the slightest notice—to have seen his eyes averted from her face with the chilling indifference of a stranger, while in the very next moment he could bestow on another the most marked attention and kindness, were all circumstances so distressing to Cordelia’s feelings, that by the time she reached her apartment in the inn, she was ready to sink beneath her weight of anguish. Mrs. Brooks gently compelled her to take some wine, and inquired with kind affection how she did; Cordelia sighed deeply; “I have no right to complain,” said she, “I have merited my fate, and must submit to it.” “In what way, my dear Lady Lochcarron?” questioned Mrs. Brooks, with tender solicitude. “Because,” replied Cordelia, shaking her head in mournful sadness, “I now, when too late, perceive that I have departed from the delicacy of our sex; Lord Lochcarron deserted me, and, hard as my fate seemed, I ought to have submitted to it, but by coming into Dorsetshire to seek him I have forfeited my own dignity, and”—she proceeded, tears of tenderness glistening in her beautiful eyes—“the very circumstance which, had he judged me with candour, would have pleaded for me, has excited his contempt.”

 

            Mrs. Brooks, now that she had seen Lord Lochcarron, so graceful, so elegant, so exactly suited in person and in rank to be the husband of her beloved Cordelia, was more than ever desirous of seeing them re-united; and really believing that Lochcarron (who certainly could have no thought of meeting his deserted bride at a concert in Dorchester) had beheld Cordelia as a total stranger, she said “I dare say, my love, your lord did not know you—you see he was engaged with a party of friends—” “Yes,” said Cordelia, indignantly, and Mrs. Brooks plainly saw that at least a part of this ebullition of grief had for its groundwork, a jealousy excusable in every point of view under her circumstances; “I shall leave Dorchester early in the morning,” resumed Cordelia, deep resentment in this instance subduing the natural mildness of her temper.

 

            “Your spirits have been too much harassed of late, my dear,” returned Mrs. Brooks; “will you on this occasion sanction me to judge and to act for you?” “Oh yes, my dearest Mrs. Brooks, on this and on every occasion I can rely on your affectionate kindness,” replied Cordelia, in that tone of grateful sweetness with which she always acknowledged the kind offices of friendship, and which constituted one of her peculiar charms; “then promise to compose yourself, and I will go back immediately to the concert room, and have a few moments conversation with your lord.” “What! before so many witnesses?” gasped out Cordelia, “oh no, for Heaven’s sake, no!” “And can you not rely on my management?” questioned Mrs. Brooks, in a tone which appealed at once to Cordelia’s knowledge of her delicacy, good sense, and refinement; “O yes, in every thing I can; but the packet of letters—you cannot give it to him to-night?” “Nor do I intend it; I do not even know that I shall mention your being at Dorchester—that as I see occasion.”

 

            Cordelia, with all her fresh indignation against her unkind lord, could yet breathe a pious wish for the success of Mrs. Brooks’s embassy, who after seeing her wear at least the appearance of composure, went back to the concert room; she paused at the door, for the performers were then in the midst of one of Corelli’s most esteemed compositions, and she felt that nothing but the most absolute necessity could authorise that destruction of harmony which her entrance, however light she might contrive to make it, would cause; yet while she lingered there her eyes were not unemployed; she sought Lord Lochcarron in every direction, but without success, and became seriously alarmed lest he should have quitted the room; the instruments ceased, she entered, and found her apprehensions but too just—Lord Lochcarron was nowhere to be seen;—yet scarcely willing to believe even the evidence of her senses, she looked again and again until convinced he was no longer in the room; the party she had seen him with were gone too, and Mrs. Brooks, with deep sympathy, anticipated poor Cordelia’s feelings when she should return to her with this intelligence; but to return yet was impossible, for to leave the room a second time until the performances of the evening should be nearly concluded was not to be thought of; she was compelled therefore to sit it out, and to listen to all the humdrum remarks, far-fetched jokes, and sly round-about modes of sifting, which constituted the discourse of her friend Tadcroft, who again joined her; the cost of all this was not a little, for the first required her whole stock of patience, the second of comprehension, and the third of finesse to parry, and of good-breeding to endure.

 

            He noticed Cordelia’s having left the room, but expressed no wonder at it, for Mrs. Brooks having said before that she was travelling for her health had lulled suspicion on that point; and her retiring was only attributed to the annoyance she felt from the close atmosphere of a crowded room; at length the concluding piece began to sound, and Mrs. Brooks hastened to her anxious young friend, who, during her absence, had felt what she had done under similar circumstances at Pool, the extremes of hope and fear; but as to Lord Lochcarron’s having retired from the concert nearly at the same time with herself, it had never once occurred to her; and she sat in trembling expectation awaiting the return of her friend, dreading, yet endeavouring to arm herself with fortitude, to hear the fatal sentence which she doubted not Lord Lochcarron would pronounce, “I can never see or acknowledge Miss Walpole as my wife.”

 

            She thought time stood still, and that Mrs. Brooks would never return; when she at length entered, Cordelia grasped her hand with wild energy; “Tell me at once, my best friend, do not keep me in suspense—what does my lord say?” “I have not seen him.” “Not seen him!” and she dropped the hand which she held; “His lordship had quitted the room in the interval between our departure and my return.” “With the party who occupied so much of his attention!” said Cordelia, in a tone between grief and resentment. “That I cannot determine,” said Mrs. Brooks, “you know I could not risk any inquiry.” “Certainly not, but it must be some powerful attraction which induces him to remain in Dorsetshire, and traverse the country in this zigzag way, when his dear father is so very ill.”

 

            Mrs. Brooks in reply begged her to compose herself, reminding her that morning would soon return, when she should make Lord Lochcarron a personal visit, and put Lord Dunotter’s packet into his hands. It was now getting late, and Cordelia was easily prevailed on to seek repose, but her spirits were too greatly agitated to obtain much of it; every time she awoke from her transient slumbers the dear idea recurred that she had seen Lord Lochcarron; but alas! in the next moment came the appalling drawback that she had seen him as a stranger.

 

            The weary night wore over, and the welcome beam of that day, which Cordelia felt assured must decide her fate, appeared; they rose soon after eight, and had breakfast, but neither her own efforts nor the persuasions of her friend could make it much more than a nominal meal with Cordelia.

 

            Mrs. Brooks soon finished her toilet, and once again resumed the charge of that packet of letters which, superscribed in the hand-writing of his parent, would, Cordelia fondly flattered herself, awaken some emotions of tenderness in the heart of Lochcarron; she set out soon after ten, apprehensive that any delay might be attended with some ill consequence not to be foreseen; her plan was to inquire for Mr. Campion’s valet, and in a private conference with him to desire that he would tell Lord Lochcarron a lady requested the honour of a few minutes conversation to deliver a letter, which must be given into his own hands; for she thought it extremely probable that in his assumed character he would receive no one, as he might, very likely, suppose that all who pretended to have business with Mr. Campion must be either beggars or swindlers; but she flattered herself that the knowledge of his title would be a guarantee for her admission.

 

            Such was the plan of operations with which Mrs. Brooks set out, leaving Cordelia in the utmost anxiety of suspense that human nature could support; “I will endeavour to arm myself with patience,” she thought mentally, “and not expect the return of my friend for an hour at least;” she laid her watch on the table, and taking up a newspaper, alternately read and consulted time, which seemed to move so slowly, that she more than once held the little machine to her ear, to ascertain whether it were in motion; half an hour had elapsed when Cordelia heard some one slowly ascending the stairs; she listened, the step approached, and she became convinced it was that of Mrs. Brooks; her heart died away, for she was certain that so rapid a return could only augur the total failure of her mission; the door opened, and poor Cordelia read in the fallen countenance of her friend that her fears had been prophetic: “I see how it is,” she said in a tone of deep despondence, “my lord will not see you.” “No,” said Mrs. Brooks, as she slowly seated herself, and gave a sigh to her disappointment, “no, that is not the case—Lord Lochcarron has quitted Dorchester.” A dread expression of despair passed over Cordelia’s features, and clasping her hands she exclaimed, “Then my worst fears are verified, and all is over; he knew me at the concert, and is flying from me.” Mrs. Brooks could not take upon her to say positively that such was not the case, because she did not know it; but she endeavoured to persuade Cordelia that she was alarming herself with needless fears: “I am persuaded you distress yourself without any additional reason, my love,” she said, “I dare say he did not know you; there was no change of countenance when his eye rested on you; and I think no man breathing could be so finished a dissembler as to meet you thus far from home under the peculiar circumstances in which you are both placed and betray no emotion.” “When did Lord Lochcarron go?” questioned Cordelia; “At nine o’clock.” “How unfortunate!—but an hour before you went out; I suppose it was vain to inquire what route he has taken.” “I asked,” said Mrs. Brooks, “for Mr. Campion’s servant, and was answered by a waiter in the broad western dialect, ‘Mr. Campion’s zarvant be gone to Lyme, Missus.’ I was not surprised at this, because we had reason to think he would be sent back thither; but I regretted it, because it placed me under the necessity of asking at once if I could see Mr. Campion; to which the fellow replied with a stupid stare, as if wondering I had not understood him, ‘Why, Missus, Mr. Campion be gone too.’ “What, back to Lyme?” said Cordelia, in a tone of united surprise and disappointment. “So I supposed from his manner of expressing himself,” returned Mrs. Brooks, “but not quite satisfied with such information, I asked to see the mistress of the house, and was introduced to a very respectable looking woman, who told me very civilly that Mr. Campion left Dorchester about an hour before for Blandford;” “For Blandford indeed!” reiterated Cordelia, while something like a faint ray of pleasure illumined her charming features. “Yes,” rejoined her friend, “and if I might venture to hazard an opinion, it is that his lordship is journeying towards Ravenpark, or Holleyfield.” Cordelia shook her head: “I am afraid he is only journeying to shun me,” she replied; “but does he travel alone? is Harris really gone to Lyme?” Mrs. Brooks answered in the affirmative, but evaded saying much on that point; the fact was, that though she could not push her questions very close to the mistress of the inn, she had yet gone far enough to ascertain that Harris left Dorchester for Lyme the preceding day in the coach; and that it seemed to be Mr. Campion’s intention to remain where he was until his return; but he had, it appeared, changed his mind, for when he rose that morning he ordered a postchaise, and left instructions for his servant to follow him to Blandford; this looked so like a wish to avoid his lady, that Mrs. Brooks, as much as possible, concealed the circumstance from her; she really hoped it was his intention to go to Buckinghamshire; at all events no choice was left for them but to pursue his route; but some delay took place in procuring a chaise, and before that was obtained, their baggage packed, the bill discharged, and every other arrangement made, they found themselves upwards of three hours after Lord Lochcarron. It seemed as if a malignant genius pursued poor Cordelia with evil in every shape; the morning had been fine, but the afternoon altered, a heavy mist hung in the atmosphere, accompanied with a drizzling rain, and every thing which can make travelling uncomfortable, such as bad weather, an uneasy vehicle, and indifferent horses, conspired to harass her: Mrs. Brooks greatly regretted that the fog precluded her from viewing the landscape, but Cordelia heeded it not; a gloomy day accords with gloomy spirits.

 

            When they reached Blandford, Mrs. Brooks, without hesitation, described Lord Lochcarron, and inquired whether a gentleman answering that description had arrived there; disappointment again hovered over them with sable wings; he had been there, remained only half an hour, and then went on to Cranbourn.

 

            Cordelia could not imitate her lord’s rapid mode of travelling; and though ardently desirous to reach home if possible before him, whatever might happen, she could not, either in consideration of her own health, or that of Mrs. Brooks, pursue her journey that night; the last-named lady was indeed a sufferer by this day’s exertion, for in consequence of the wind having blown on that side of the carriage where she sat, she had caught a severe cold, and rose the next morning with a violent head-ache and sore throat; but alike fearful of alarming Lady Lochcarron, and of causing any delay which might be repented of, she did not complain, but as soon as they had breakfasted, set off for Cranbourn with every appearance of cheerfulness.

 

            When they drew near the town, Cordelia, as if awaking from a deep reverie, said she thought it would be best to make no further inquiry concerning Lord Lochcarron; “I am determined to return immediately home,” she proceeded, “and to leave the issue of my fate to Providence; I find by sad experience that no effort of my own can make it better.” “It is however your duty not to relax those efforts, my dear,” said Mrs. Brooks; “at all events inquiry is my part of the business, and you must allow my continuing to make it;” this she did on reaching the inn, which was about one o’clock, and heard in answer that the gentleman she inquired for had slept there the preceding night, and started for Andover at rather an early hour that morning. Cordelia heard this with something resembling a gleam of pleasure, for it strengthened her hope that he was going to his father; as it was their previously-settled plan to pursue the same route with all expedition, they ordered another chaise, and, while it was getting ready, took some slight refreshment. Cordelia now beginning to perceive the languid looks of her friend, her difficulty of swallowing, and other symptoms of feverish cold, her tenderness took the alarm, and she strenuously urged the propriety of resting at Cranbourn that night; but to this she would by no means consent, assuring her that a night’s rest, and a little care when they should reach Andover, would entirely remove them; again Cordelia urged the length of the journey, and the propriety of deferring it until the next day, and used every argument that the most considerate kindness and friendship could suggest, putting herself, her wishes, and interest entirely out of the question; but Mrs. Brooks was not to be excelled in generosity and self-denial in this friendly contest; according to her present view of circumstances, it appeared to her to be a point of the first importance that they should have an interview with Lord Lochcarron before he saw either Lord or Lady Dunotter; but this it was doubtful whether they should now be able to obtain; the only possible chance for it seemed to be in the highest degree of promptness and expedition, and these considerations determined her not to yield to the tender fears of her affectionate young friend; but putting personal hazard and feelings out of the question, to press forwards for Andover that night; but her strength of frame did not correspond to her energy of mind; and for the last ten miles of the journey she was so ill that she could hardly bear the motion of the carriage; in this state they alighted at the Star and Garter at Andover; Mrs. Brooks, scarcely able to support herself, much less to make her wonted researches after Lord Lochcarron, and Cordelia in such deep distress on her friend’s account, that she would willingly, if that had been possible, have had her illness transferred to herself.

 

            Ill as Mrs. Brooks was, her finely constituted and regulated mind was alive to every consideration of propriety, take the term in its utmost latitude; she was sensible that she was going to have a very severe illness, which would preclude her, at least for some time, from appearing in her deputed character of the guide and guardian of Lady Lochcarron; true, her own maturity of judgment, and dignified excellence in every respect, qualified her to act on almost every occasion for herself; but the world, the rigid world, required that a young female should not be left without a directress, beyond all in a house of such general resort as that they were now in; if in the course of a day or two her illness seemed likely to continue, every consideration would demand that Lady Lochcarron should return to Holleyfield; but both in the interim and in the event of her doing so, it would be highly desirable to have private lodgings; and without alarming Cordelia by letting her see her motives in their full extent, she urged her own indisposition as a plea for wishing to be quiet; and apprehensive that if she remained at the Star all night, she might not be able to remove the next day, she requested the people of the house to procure them lodgings, which they did in a very respectable house on the opposite side of the street, inhabited by a Mrs. Fleming, who bestowed every kind attention on the invalid.

 

            Cordelia insisted on having medical advice summoned; Mrs. Brooks made an ineffectual opposition, saying, she was certain she should recover well enough without it—her young friend was inflexible, and all she would concede was to have one doctor instead of two, which was her own wish and intention; nor would she give up even that point except to the whispered remonstrance of Mrs. Brooks, “Recollect, my dear, that to avoid suspicions of all sorts, the proceedings of Mrs. Beaumont must be very different from those of Lady Lochcarron or Miss Walpole—we are here without attendants, and must keep up a uniform appearance of mediocrity and retired habits.” Cordelia felt the full force and wisdom of her reasoning: with regard to being without an attendant, she had from her earliest years been accustomed to self-exertion; and on the present journey herself and Mrs. Brooks had given each other such mutual aid, that they had never felt the want of one; but as a female servant was now absolutely necessary, she requested Mrs. Fleming to inquire the next day for a respectable young woman, to be with her while she remained in Hampshire, which she hinted would probably not be longer than until Mrs. Brooks’s recovery.

 

            When Dr. S arrived, Cordelia was pleased with his address and manners, and, as far as she could trust her own judgment, satisfied with his skill; he did not, like their family doctor in Buckinghamshire, Mr. Herbert, magnify the danger of his patient to enhance his own merit; but treated her case like what it really was, a very bad cold attended with fever, which might be removed by due care in a very short time; his prescriptions were judicious, and most strictly enforced by Cordelia, who insisted on passing the night in the same chamber with her friend, and nursing her with the affectionate regard of a daughter, much against Mrs. Brooks’s earnest wish and request; for she felt it the highest possible augmentation of her own sufferings, that Lady Lochcarron should thus deprive herself of rest after so long and fatiguing a journey; she had indeed less sleep than the invalid, and neither of them were refreshed with the little they enjoyed.

 

            The next morning Mrs. Brooks was in no respect better than the preceding day, and Cordelia was beginning to feel the effects of fatigue and want of repose.

 

            Mrs. Fleming fulfilled her promise, and introduced to Cordelia, as an attendant, a young person of pleasing appearance and manners, and satisfactory character; the course of this day brought Lady Lochcarron a letter, which had been forwarded from Dorchester, according to the instructions she left on quitting that place; it was directed for Mrs. Beaumont in the hand-writing of Lord Dunotter. The heart of Cordelia beat with joy; she opened it, and the delight she felt on seeing Lord Lochcarron in the concert room at Dorchester, was scarcely greater than that with which she recognised the writing of the earl. It contained every expression that affection could dictate, and respect inspire; his lordship replied at length to the two letters she had written from Lyme and Dorchester; every line breathed the most unequivocal, yet delicately turned, assurances how truly he sympathized with her sufferings, how highly estimated the rectitude of her judgment, and how perfectly acquiesced in the wisdom of its decisions: so far all was pleasing and satisfactory, but much remained on which the letter was far otherwise: on the subject of his own health, his lordship was very reserved, and Cordelia too well understood that he had nothing pleasing to impart on that point; he adverted to the party at Holleyfield the preceding Saturday, but it was in a way as if the evident want of feeling and decency in Lady Dunotter, in having company at such a time, had wrung from him this notice of a subject, which he almost scorned to mention: of his son he said very little, thus leaving Cordelia to the certain conclusion that he had not heard from him by either letter or message; he exhorted his daughter to be strictly careful of her health; said every thing, to be repeated to Mrs. Brooks, that politeness and friendship could dictate, and concluded with earnestly requesting her to write at every possible opportunity. To do this was a heavy task to poor Cordelia, but it was one which she now hastened to perform, that she might save the post; all she could do was to dwell on the bright side of the prospect, and to enliven as much as possible that which was dark; that she had seen Lord Lochcarron would, she doubted not, prove a consolation to his father; and that she had seen him in vain, she extenuated on the broad ground of truth, that her agitation would not permit her to point him out to Mrs. Brooks time enough to allow of her speaking to him; and that when she afterwards returned for that purpose he was gone.

 

            On the subject of his having passed by her as a perfect stranger, her own private opinion inclined her but too much to believe that he did not do so as not in reality knowing her; but as she was not certain that such was the fact, neither her scrupulous regard for truth, nor for the peace of Lord Dunotter, would allow her to say more than that Mrs. Brooks supposed, as he could not have the remotest idea of meeting her in the west of England, he really did not know her; she thought it right in every point of view to mention the party he was with at the concert; to subjoin, through a softened medium, all that had since occurred; to own that she knew not whither he had gone; to say that Mrs. Brooks was confined by a cold; and to add in conclusion of the whole, that she waited at Andover for Lord Dunotter’s sanction to her returning home.

 

            Such were the chief contents of the letter which Cordelia, after having finished, perused and re-perused, and scarcely able to find in it one ray of consolation for her suffering father-in-law, she mollified and softened it until compelled to write it over again.

 

            After having despatched it to the post-office, she seated herself at the window of her sitting-room, in the lingering hope that if Lord Lochcarron had not quitted Andover, he would be staying at the principal inn, which was immediately opposite; and that she might possibly see either him or his respectable servant Harris, who was known to her; but minute succeeded to minute, and hour rolled on after hour without any person appearing who bore the slightest resemblance to either of them.

 

            Thus lonely and desolate, away from home, surrounded by strangers, with only one friend near her, and that friend sick, all her meditations were of the gloomy kind; and if it be indeed any part of wisdom to prepare the mind for the worst by hoping nothing, Cordelia was acting wisely; the longer she reflected on every circumstance, the more deeply she felt persuaded that her Lord fled from Dorchester purposely to avoid her; and she firmly renewed the resolution she had made with herself neither to inquire nor suffer any further inquiry to be made about him, but to return to Holleyfield the very first day that Mrs. Brooks should be able to travel. When the next morning arrived she thought this as distant as ever; little change which could be termed amendment had taken place in the invalid, and another gloomy cheerless day wore over: towards evening, however, the prospect rather brightened; Mrs. Brooks thought her symptoms much relieved, and her own feelings were sanctioned by the fiat of her physician.

 

CHAPTER III.

 

MRS. Brooks passed a tranquil night, and was much better in the morning; her physician would not, however, sanction her quitting her apartment that day, but said that if she caught no fresh cold, she might expect to find every vestige of her complaint removed by Monday.

 

            The morning was rather gloomy, but about three o’clock the day cleared out, and the sun shone with a warmth and brilliancy beyond what might have been expected at the season of the year. Mrs. Brooks, seriously apprehensive that Lady Lochcarron’s health would suffer by confinement and anxiety, earnestly requested her to take a walk until five o’clock, their hour of dining at Andover, saying she should employ herself in the meantime in writing to Mrs. Emerson: but for the last plea Cordelia would not, probably, have consented to leave her; but taking that for a hint that she wished to be alone, she put on her bonnet and shawl, and saying she should soon be back, set out on a ramble in the pleasant environs of Andover. From the garden of the house where she lodged, she passed out into the fields, and wandered a considerable way, delighted with the novel and beautiful views which the downs of Dorsetshire and the woods of Hampshire presented, now wearing their most attractive form, clothed in the green livery of spring; whatever misfortunes may assail, whatever disappointments depress a feeling and tender heart, still if that heart is not the abode of guilt, and its followers, remorse and despair, it will never be dead to the charms of nature, to

 

“Prospect, grove, or song,

“Dim grottos, gleaming lakes, and fountains clear.”

 

            Even the balmy air of the spring has a softening influence on the bosom, and disposes the elastic spirits of youth to receive impressions of delight: it was market-day at Andover, and Cordelia encountered so many objects both animate and inanimate to amuse her mind, and withdraw it from the contemplation of its own inquietudes, that when she consulted her watch, she was surprised to find she had wandered nearly an hour; not that she had walked in a direct line all that time, that was a peril she would not venture upon in a strange place; she had retraced her steps twice, and now stood still a few seconds considering whether she should endeavour to find a nearer way home; but did not deem it quite safe to venture on unknown ground without a guide, for she would not bring her attendant out, lest Mrs. Brooks should want any thing in the interim; she therefore thought it most prudent to return by the road she came, and had scarcely passed ten yards of it, when a weasel, pursued by a terrier dog, darted through the hedge on the left, and flew across the road immediately before her; scarcely had time allowed her to form a distinct idea of the objects she beheld, when the owner of the dog sprung over a stile, which she had not before perceived; and where shall the language be found which shall declare her feelings—for that owner was—Lord Lochcarron. In the very same instant that his lordship appeared, the little animal, finding no egress on the other side, which was bounded by a wall, turned to seek its old quarters; the dog followed, and in the ardour of pursuit came so close to Cordelia as to brush her gown; had no other cause existed, terriers and weasels would never have called forth a scream from the bosom of Cordelia; but that other cause, the unexpected appearance of him in whom her every hope of happiness on earth was centred, and who she loved with a tenderness which survived not only neglect, but seeming contempt, did call it forth; she screamed wildly, became pale as death, for her veil thrown back exhibited her lovely countenance, and was nearly sinking to the earth; Lord Lochcarron advanced, and with that elegance and grace which so peculiarly distinguished him, apologized for the alarm his dog had caused, to which he attributed, or seemed to attribute, her agitation; but neither by voice, look, nor gesture did he betray the slightest recognition, or appear to think it possible that he could be conversing with the woman he had made his wife; either the change in her person, which was indeed very great, and the improbability of her being at Andover, had effectually concealed her from his knowledge, or he was acting with a duplicity unparalleled; for when he saw the increasing perturbation of Cordelia, which this striking proof that what he had done at Dorchester he now persisted in, did not fail to augment, he with great politeness, but with the perfectly cool and unembarrassed air of a stranger, presented his arm, and begged her to accept it.

 

            Had any other object been there to rest upon, it is probable that Cordelia would not, in the moment of anguish, have taken that arm which ought, while nerve or sinew remained to it, to be her prop and stay. Lochcarron felt her trembling frame as she leaned on him for that support she was unable to afford herself, and regarded her with a look of what appeared to be real surprise that so trifling a matter should have caused such emotion; more and more did the tide of grief swell at poor Cordelia’s heart; was this the look she ought to receive from him who was the lord of her vows and the husband of her choice; to whom she was yet a bride, and whose duty it was to be the guide, the consoler, the protector of her youth? yet though suffering as acutely as human nature could do under such circumstances, the singularity of which rendered them doubly afflictive, every consideration of a wounded tenderness, feminine timidity, and virgin reserve, conspired to prevent her from saying what her indignant heart prompted: “Do we meet thus as strangers, my lord?” No; she felt that if Lord Lochcarron did not recognise, or would not acknowledge his wife, her own lips must not be those which forced the recognition, or the acknowledgment from him; but all these united could not restrain her from giving her ungenerous lord a glance, in which dignity, conscious innocence, meek resignation, and all of resentment that her gentle nature could feel, were so powerfully blended, and altogether produced such a strongly depicted expression of countenance, that if Lochcarron had not felt its influence, he must have been divested of all those attributes of soul and faculties of mind, which class their possessor as man.

 

            Was it that he understood that speaking look, and determined to parry it? or that it found its way to his heart by a new and unexpected channel? or that it called up suppositions which he resolved to realise? at all events he chose to have some conversation, which he commenced in the mode prescribed in this country from time immemorial, by an observation concerning the weather.

 

            Cordelia had now, by every aid that her pious, well-regulated, reasoning mind could suggest, argued herself into a much greater degree of composure than under such circumstances she could have thought possible; but we are very rarely, perhaps never, acquainted with the extent of our own energies till called upon to exert them. She reflected that if Lochcarron was indeed acting with that dissimulation she too much feared, it was due to her own dignity to conceal the anguish she felt; and if he really did not know her, it must appear the very highest degree of either idiotism or affectation, to continue disturbed because a dog had chased a weasel: calmed by these considerations, she replied to what Lord Lochcarron said, with her wonted graceful sweetness; and when he subjoined some remarks on the scenery around them, accorded with his opinions, and joined in admiring it. Lochcarron next pointed out to Cordelia’s notice a very handsome house on the right, observing that it was a delightful residence, and expressing some curiosity to know who it belonged to; Cordelia professed her ignorance, adding, though not without considerable emotion, “I am quite a stranger here, detained by the sudden illness of a friend who travels with me;” for she thought with herself that whether Lord Lochcarron did or did not know her, she had an unquestionable right to assume the same show of ignorance with regard to him.

 

            There was, at least Cordelia thought there was, peculiar meaning in the glance of her lord as he replied, “Then we are here under somewhat similar circumstances, for I also am a stranger at Andover, waiting the return of my servant, who I have sent to town on particular business.” “That business,” said Cordelia, mentally, “is to ascertain either the state of his father’s health, or, oh! dreadful thought! the progress of that suit which is to separate us for ever;” and as the idea crossed her mind, the tremor of her frame, which had nearly subsided, came on again; yet a quick instinctive feeling prompted her at the same moment to withdraw her arm from that which supported it; and, while it was only by the strongest effort that she repressed her tears, to say, with all her wonted grace, “I fear I am taking you out of your way, Sir;” but she pronounced the last word faintly, and could scarcely forbear using the title for which it was substituted.

 

            Lord Lochcarron, who saw clearly that her composure was assumed, not genuine, said in a respectful way, that he was apprehensive she had not yet recovered from her fright, and begged permission to see her home: this was a permission which, had Cordelia been Miss Walpole, and the escort of a mere stranger been offered under such circumstances, she would not perhaps have granted; especially as she saw her attendant advancing at a distance, sent by the considerate kindness of Mrs. Brooks, who was uneasy at her staying so long; but she knew that when an explanation took place, which it must do sooner or later, no stigma could rest on any part of her conduct.

 

            They had nearly reached the house when they met the servant; Lady Lochcarron not choosing to go in by the back way, turned the corner and came up the street to the front door. “We are quite near neighbours,” observed Lord Lochcarron, as Cordelia withdrew her arm, “my lodgings are not more than three or four houses higher up;” he then respectfully asked Cordelia’s permission to inquire after her health the next day; at the same time presenting a card, on which was written, “Mr. Campion.” Cordelia took it with a hand which she vainly tried to render steady, and said “that she hoped her friend and monitress would then be well enough to leave her apartment, and would be happy to unite her acknowledgments to those she now begged leave to offer for Mr. Campion’s politeness.” A bow and courtesy of good morning were then exchanged; Cordelia entered the door which Gardiner held open, and Lochcarron turned away; but in the same moment all her forced composure vanished. The termination of her last two meetings with her lord, the fatal evening of her marriage, and the concert at Dorchester, rushed to her mind; and, unable to repress a sad presentiment that this would be their third and last interview, her tears imperiously refused to be longer restrained. Now that Lochcarron was gone, all the arguments which had withheld her from making herself known to him appeared futile and trivial; she wished to recall time, she wished impossibilities, and when she reached the apartment where Mrs. Brooks was sitting, she had just self-command enough to say, “I have seen my lord,” that she might not too much alarm her, and throwing herself upon a sofa, she drew out her handkerchief, and sobbed aloud.

 

            Mrs. Brooks, in dreadful apprehension that all was over, and that Lord and Lady Lochcarron had parted to meet no more, hastened to sooth her, and to entreat that she would disclose what had passed; considering, perhaps justly, that to unbosom her grief was the most likely means of assuaging it; but when she heard the full particulars, she exclaimed, “Be assured, my dear, Lord Lochcarron does not know you! it is not in human nature, much less in one so young, to evince at once such deep duplicity and such entire mastery of feeling.” “I cannot think as you do,” said Cordelia, mournfully, “I fear he knows me but too well, and is artfully disguising his knowledge until he gets from Andover.” “I shall be enabled to judge to-morrow,” said Mrs. Brooks. “I doubt no to-morrow will arrive to bring him here,” sighed Cordelia, in a tone of despondence; “too fatally do I know that he holds neither promise nor vow sacred;” the bitterness of her spirit breaking from all the restraints of patience, meekness, and even hope.

 

            Dinner coming in, no more was said; but the two ladies had now theme enough for conversation during the evening.

 

            Though Cordelia had declared her doubts, amounting to disbelief, whether Lord Lochcarron would make his morning call, yet Mrs. Brooks could not but observe, that her dress was arranged with a degree of attention much beyond what she had bestowed on it in any of the temporary residences they had occupied on their journey; that whenever the door opened, she started with emotion; that as time wore away, long fits of abstraction came over her; and that as the day advanced, a pensiveness, nearly approaching to melancholy, became the characteristic of her countenance; when the chime of the clock announced half after one, Mrs. Brooks, though her own hopes were nearly extinct, was unwilling to altogether crush those of Cordelia, but she could not prevent her looks from betraying her fears; “I told you so,” said Lady Lochcarron, with that bitter smile which, igniting from despair, may be termed the lurid lightning of the soul, as gay and genuine smiles are frequently denominated its sunshine, “I told you he would not come.” Mrs. Brooks, with little real expectation, now scarcely dared to maintain the appearance of it; two o’clock struck, and Cordelia, at once, as if the sound conveyed a certainty that all was over, and as resigning herself to that certainty, moved her seat nearer the window, and took up a book to lose her own reflections in those of the author; “Surely I shall hear from Holleyfield to-day,” said Cordelia; at that moment a loud knocking was heard; Lady Lochcarron’s heart beat with tumultuous emotion, and in the next minute her lord entered the room; a beam of pleasure seemed to illumine his countenance when he approached Cordelia; his hopes that she had recovered the effects of her fright, were expressed with easy grace, but no word, no look betrayed the slightest reminiscence of an acquaintance bearing date prior to the preceding evening. Cordelia’s every pulse beat with accelerated motion, her cheek was flushed, and her quivering lips could ill perform their office, yet she exerted herself to introduce Mrs. Brooks by name; but when she pronounced that of Campion, her faint articulation was scarcely audible; Lord Lochcarron neither seemed to notice her emotion, nor to have either flutterings or hesitation; he was respectful, polite, collected, attentive; he soon caught the name of Beaumont from Mrs. Brooks, and appropriated it to Cordelia, who could not avoid feeling a painful pang when addressed thus by him.

 

            Mrs. Brooks was, what may with truth be termed, a highly-gifted woman: her’s was the very perfection of the female character; uniting the utmost exactitude of decorum, with the playful, easy, chit-chat way which fascinates in the young, and charms in those of more advanced life; she saw that her present business was to draw the attention of Lochcarron as much as possible from Cordelia, to prevent his observing her confusion, and to crush, by the most apparent openness and frankness, those suspicions and surmises which he was very likely to form, concerning two females travelling thus unprotected and unattended; the first she effected, by leading him at once into an animated conversation on local topics; and the last, by digressing from those subjects to Yorkshire, her native county, speaking of it as her home, mentioning many of the first families there, and occasionally addressing herself to Cordelia, thus at once drawing her gradually into the conversation, and meeting with every show of candour, the well-masked, but to her obvious, endeavours of Lord Lochcarron to find out their station in life and connexions: or else, if he indeed knew who they were, to see what colour they would put upon these matters; for as yet Mrs. Brooks could not clearly ascertain whether he did or did not know Cordelia, though she was still inclined to think the latter; if such was the case, the present discourse was well calculated to remove him from all possibility of finding her out: he knew nothing of the Walpole family history, origin, and connexions but what he had heard from his father; and Lord Dunotter’s former inquiries concerning the relatives of Cordelia, had stopped short, very well satisfied on ascertaining that she had a maternal great aunt immensely rich, very old, and highly capricious, to whose great property she was likely eventually to be heiress; as he knew this lady resided in Cumberland, he never doubted that Cordelia had been educated, and lived there during her early years; and though he afterwards became much better informed on all these points, it was at a period when all intercourse with his son had ceased; and, if Lochcarron did not already know it, it was not likely now to rush into his mind that Cordelia Walpole, brought up, as he supposed, in Cumberland, and Mrs. Beaumont, so well acquainted with many parts of Yorkshire and the principal families there, were one and the same person. But there remained a still more strong and powerful reason for doubting the fact of Cordelia’s identity; that is, if ever such an idea occurred to Lord Lochcarron, which Mrs. Brooks could not admit it did: he had early taken up a notion that the woman he married was weak and imbecile in understanding, gifted with no great share of natural talents, and having those she possessed but imperfectly cultivated; whereas the lady he was now conversing with, not only possessed every faculty of mind in transcendant vigour, order, and arrangement, but had so large a portion of general knowledge, and was distinguished by such brilliancy of genius, and refinement of taste, that the young nobleman readily admitted to himself the fact of his never hitherto having conversed with a female so highly gifted, and so accomplished: indeed since her constant intercourse with Lord Dunotter, the progress she had made in every solid and elegant acquirement was great almost beyond either description or belief; this (as one topic of discourse led to another, and Cordelia’s agitation subsiding, left her spirits more free) Mrs. Brooks saw, and saw with delight, held Lord Lochcarron in a charm of surprise and pleasure.

 

            They had chatted about three quarters of an hour, when an elegant equipage, drawn by six foaming horses, and preceded by two out-riders, drove up to the opposite inn.

 

            Mrs. Brooks, who happened to be near a window, threw up the sash. Cordelia instinctively looked across the way, and almost in the same moment that she recognised on the servants, the livery of the Hootside family, beheld the young earl and his countess seated in the carriage: as it drew up, Lady Hootside looked towards the window where Cordelia sat; she knew her, and a stare of vacant wonder was succeeded by as strong a sneer of contempt as the place she was in, and Cordelia’s situation in life, would allow her to express; and then slightly touching the elbow of her lord, she directed his eyes to the object of her sarcastic notice. Poor Cordelia felt the insult, and it sent the blood first to her cheek, and then back to her beating heart: in the moment when Lord Hootside, in obedience to his Lady’s intimation, fixed his gaze on Cordelia, her look was turned to Lord Lochcarron, as if to supplicate that support which was her unalienable right.

 

            Lochcarron, who had been examining a print which was hung on the other side of the room, was called to the window by the sound of the carriage; the moment his glance had informed him to whom it belonged, and that its owners were in it, he evidently shrunk back, and sought concealment; but he was seen by both Lord and Lady Hootside, of which Cordelia was well aware, and she felt her situation so singular, and the combination of feelings consequent on it so powerful, that she could scarcely preserve herself from falling from her seat: her first idea was that naturally suggested by the weakness and vanity of human nature—triumph over the Hootsides; they could not possibly know on what terms, and by what chance, Lord Lochcarron and herself were thus together in a lodging-house at Andover: their accidental meeting the preceding day was a secret to themselves, and even if it should transpire, who would believe that they were thus keeping up the formal intercourse of perfect strangers, when connected by the nearest, and what ought to be the dearest, of all ties?

 

            The reflection of a moment, showed still more plainly the reverse of the picture; this very day she expected, and hoped, while she dreaded, would tear aside the veil, and tell Lochcarron, that her fair fame demanded a final adjustment of the affair between them.

 

            Sad with these reflections, Cordelia, with instinctive consciousness, looked at her lord; it seemed as if a correspondent feeling directed his eyes to her; their glances met, and were hastily averted, as if each ought to have said, and neither did say, How well the equipage over the way, and its noble owners, were known to them both.

 

            When female dignity required exertion, Cordelia was not long wanting to herself; she rallied her drooping spirits, and said, addressing Mrs. Brooks, “That is Lord Hootside’s carriage, and that is Lady Hootside in the purple pelisse; they are going down to Weymouth—you know Lady Caroline Harrington said they were expected.” Mrs. Brooks said “Yes,” adding with a smile, that she thought her ladyship a very ungraceful figure. “Pray who did Lord Hootside marry?” questioned Lochcarron, “I am scarcely acquainted with any change that has taken place in England, since I was on the continent.” Cordelia explained: “Oh! true;” he rejoined, when she named Sir Roger Cottingham, “and his nephew, young Harrington, married Caroline Mannark.” “He is an excellent preacher,” said Mrs. Brooks, “we heard him last Sunday at Lyme,” watching as she spoke, to see what effect the mention of that place would have on her auditor: his countenance betrayed emotion, but it was of a sort which all her penetration could not assist her to decipher, whether it were that he knew Cordelia, and thought that Mrs. Brooks was approaching a point, which would compel him to avow his intentions; or whether he was only apprehensive of his own secret being discovered, and that Mr. Campion should be known as Lord Lochcarron; but she was inclined to think the latter, and to believe that seated as he now was by the side of Cordelia, and listening to her with an interest which not even his highly polished manners could entirely prevent from assuming the tone sometimes of surprise, and sometimes of admiration, it had never once occurred to him that he was paying the homage of all these feelings to the woman he had married, contemned, and deserted.

 

            Meanwhile he replied to what Mrs. Brooks had said, not by continuing the discourse about Harrington and his connexions, but, as perhaps was natural, by taking it up at the point which more immediately concerned his own pilgrimage in the west of England; “I only left Lyme that very day,” he said; but there was a slowness, a hesitation in his manner, as if while saying he had been at Lyme, he was dubious whether he ought to make the avowal.

 

            The famous and frequently used simile, of being placed between Scylla and Charybdis, will now do nothing at typifying the situation of poor Cordelia: if an illustration must be sought for in maritime affairs, she was literally transfixed on the trident of Neptune; she thought it the likeliest thing in the world that Lord Hootside, who always acted from the impulse of the moment, and who never stood upon points of ceremony, would take it into his head to cross the street and inquire for Lord and Lady Lochcarron, nothing doubting that they were there in propria personæ, confessed and avowed; and now as at every second minute she stole an anxious glance towards their windows, and saw Lord and Lady Hootside conversing, apart from the lady and gentleman who accompanied them (whom she did not know) apparently as sedulously watching her abode, as she was doing theirs, she wrought herself up to a belief that they were canvassing the propriety of making such a visit as she dreaded; and it seemed, in imagination, comparatively easier to die upon the spot, than to have her identity explained to Lord Lochcarron in such a way, with the Hootsides for witnesses of the consequences which would ensue.

 

            In the next place, the stay of Lord Lochcarron had now reached the utmost bounds, to which any prescribed forms of visiting could allow a stranger to extend a morning call; she might hope, though she scarcely dared to do it, that he had not found her society beyond endurance; he would now go, but when, or how should they meet again: would Mrs. Brooks, to whom, when at Dorchester, she had delegated the power of acting in the affair as she should judge best, permit him to depart once more, after all they had suffered by having missed an opportunity of speaking to him? surely not; every moment she changed her position, moved her head, or opened her lips, Cordelia expected that the awful truth was coming out, either in some form of words, or by the presentation of Lord Dunotter’s packet; and every time the least noise was heard on the stairs, she believed that Lord Hootside was coming up; so that between these two sources of apprehension, her fears and trepidation became so great, that she was scarcely able to support herself by the aid of salts, held within her handkerchief, and applied by stealth when the attention of her companions happened to be directed another way; anticipations and events are, however, found to differ widely; matters take unlooked for courses, and ends are brought about by means neither foreseen nor expected. Cordelia was perfectly right in conjecturing what were the intentions of Lord Hootside; he did indeed express a wish to step over, and pay his respects to Lord and Lady Lochcarron; but it so happened that his lordship, though he had never in his life been amenable to the control of either his lady, mother, or any other authority, natural or delegated, was completely held in thraldom by the young countess his wife; the ways and means by which her ladyship had already obtained this ascendency over her spouse were manifold, and some of them the certain consequences of causes which might be explained, were it at all relevant to this history; but it is sufficient to observe simply, that the mortification her eyes endured when she raised them a second time to Cordelia’s window and beheld the handsome face of Lord Lochcarron peeping over his lady’s shoulder, called up all the spleen of a disposition, from childhood rendered perverse and wilful, by injudicious parental indulgence; and when Lord Hootside, with frank good-nature, expressed the purpose which Cordelia dreaded (lest it should bring about discoveries of the first magnitude, and that in all the wrong points of time, place, and company) his lady decidedly negatived his proceedings, by saying in her wonted tone of pettish command, “No, indeed, Hootside, you shall not go.”

 

CHAPTER IV.

 

MRS. Brooks was well aware that Cordelia expected her either to contrive some pretence of sending her out of the room, until she had placed in the hands of Lord Lochcarron the letters of his father, or else when she attended him to the door to appoint a future meeting for that purpose; but it was not her present intention to do either: she knew that delays of indolence always prove prejudicial, and frequently ruinous; but those that are dictated by prudence are usually the paths of safety and success; her penetration very readily enabled her to see, that if Lochcarron did know Cordelia, he was surprised and delighted; if he did not, he was astonished and charmed by her uncommon endowments of mind, and (Mrs. Brooks could not help thinking) by her graces of person also; to prematurely say, “Behold your wife!” to seem bent on insisting that he should acknowledge her by that title, would, she thought, be the certain means of ruining their cause. “The progress of pure settled affection in the heart of man,” (so she argued with herself) “is slow, but sure; those intense passions which are the growth of a day—perhaps of a few hours—are consumed by their own fervency, and usually decay as fast as they sprung up; he cannot now leave Andover without first seeing us—politeness, and I think I may venture to add, inclination forbid that, so that it will always be in my power to make the discovery, without risking every thing by precipitate and indelicate haste;” thus she reasoned with herself, and, acting upon these principles, when Lochcarron rose to take leave, she said with a smile, “We are all solitary sojourners here, and bound in duty to assist in amusing each other; may we hope, Sir, to be favoured with your company to tea?—eight o’clock is our hour.” Lord Lochcarron gracefully bowed his thanks for the invitation, while the bright sparkle of his eye, and its involuntary, yet scarcely perceptible, glance towards Cordelia, seemed to say that Mrs. Brooks’s politeness really conferred on him the pleasure, which in signifying his acceptance, he said it did. “I have no hesitation, my dear,” said Mrs. Brooks, so soon as Lochcarron had taken his departure, “I have no hesitation in saying that your lord is, in person and talents, one of the finest young men I have ever seen; and I sincerely hope his heart will hereafter justify all the eulogiums which his father, in his letter to Mrs. Emerson, bestowed on it.”

 

            “I know not what to hope, or to conclude,” said Cordelia, with mournful frankness; “surely never person was placed in so singular a situation as I am; I have been in agonies all this while, lest Lord Hootside should take it into his head to come over and inquire for Lord and Lady Lochcarron.” “I was greatly apprehensive of it,” returned Mrs. Brooks, “and had hastily settled in my mind how to act if it should happen so.” “Oh! what would you have done?” questioned Cordelia, in much trepidation. “I should have left the room the moment I saw Lord Hootside making for the house, and, receiving his message myself, I should have returned, and, addressing you, have said: ‘My dear, there is a young nobleman below inquiring for Lord and Lady Lochcarron;—as they are both here to return their own answer, I have not ventured to give orders, either for his admission or denial.’ then taking your right hand in mine, I should have placed it in that of your lord, and giving him his father’s letters, which I had ready in my pocket, I should have said, without allowing him time even to think of the surprise, ‘My lord, I have the honour, as the delegate of your excellent father, to present to you your inestimable, and, I must add, injured wife, together with these letters of explanation from my Lord Dunotter:—I will now go to Lord Hootside, and tell him that your lordship will wait upon him in two minutes;’—I should then have quitted the room, and—” “Oh! my dear Mrs. Brooks!” interrupted Cordelia, “and would you really have done all this?” “Indeed I should!” she replied; “reflect a moment, and you will be convinced I could not have acted otherwise.” “And how will you act now?” questioned Cordelia, averting her face; “That is quite another matter,” answered Mrs. Brooks, smiling; “when we are threatened with sudden invasion, we hastily throw up such outworks as time will allow us to construct; but when we prepare for a distant attack we take more deliberate measures, and call in the skill and assistance of experienced engineers.” “But do you not think, my dear madam,” said Cordelia, diffidently, “do you not think it might have been better to have been more explicit before my lord left us?” Mrs. Brooks replied in the negative, adding, very affectionately, “seeing as I do, my dearest Cordelia, how certainly your merits are making their way to the heart of your lord, I think it best not to be too precipitate; his turn of mind, allow me to say, is singularly romantic, and must be managed with extreme caution.”

 

            “But, my dear friend,” interposed Cordelia, “consider the situation of my father—of Lord Dunotter; think of the weak state he is in, and the anxiety he is enduring every day of my protracted absence, uncertain whether I have yet seen Lord Lochcarron; oh! if he knew that I have now seen him thrice, and yet—” she paused, and her cheek was tinged with a faint blush.

 

            “These,” said Mrs. Brooks, “are amongst my chief reasons for delaying the explanation; should Lord Lochcarron be confirmed in his unreasonable prejudices, by any mismanagement on our part—” she hesitated, but Cordelia felt her argument in full, even greater force than it was intended. “Oh!” she exclaimed, “say no more; that brings back to me all that I felt and thought at Dorchester;—I must for ever remain degraded in my own eyes, for having been prevailed on to come in search of my lord.”

 

            “No! no!” interposed her friend, “that is not my meaning; you must permit me to recur to what I said before: your lord has a peculiarly romantic way of thinking; and it requires the utmost caution and delicacy to deal with minds of that class; I dare say the singularity of your meeting yesterday would be quite an adventure suited to his taste.”

 

            “I think,” said Cordelia, faintly smiling, while the sigh which she could not repress proclaimed that her smile was not genuine, “I think that if ever we should be established in life, my happiness would rest on a slender foundation if my husband’s feelings were thus powerfully excited by every trifling incident that came in his way.”

 

            “My dear girl,” said Mrs. Brooks, very seriously, “allow me once for all to give you this solemn caution: should you, which I trust in Heaven you will, be soon indissolubly united to Lord Lochcarron, study his temper, accommodate yourself to his way of thinking, and become the sharer of his pursuits; whatever plans or alterations he proposes, be ever ready to promote, if any way within the pale of moderation, even though your taste or judgment may not entirely approve them; be the cheerful partner of all his little excursions; see, or at least say you see, female beauty and merit with the same eyes that he does; and, beyond all, never seem to remember that his heart has rested any where but with you; and if ever circumstances should unavoidably call up the remembrance, let it only be with a sigh to the memory of her who will then repose in the grave. I have observed through life,” she added, with peculiar emphasis, “that a considerable portion of domestic infelicity—I do not mean matrimonial infelicity alone, but that which we too frequently see in families, by whatever ties they are connected—arises from undue appreciation of, or indifference to, the characters of those we are thus united with; thousands of feeling hearts are chilled into apathy, numbers of ardent, generous minds raised into passion, highly brilliant talents sunk to despondence, and virtues of the first order of sublimity withered and blasted, and all because those with whom the ties of nature, or the bonds of society have linked their possessors, have neither discrimination enough to find out their excellencies, temper to sustain their defects, nor sense to impel or restrain them with gentleness, address, and delicacy, as reason or prudence may direct.”

 

            It is probable that Mrs. Brooks was induced to this long lecture by observing certain little ebullitions resembling jealousy, which, whenever any thing occurred to call up the idea of Miss Borham, seemed to overcome the native meekness of Cordelia’s character; be that as it may, and however she might appropriate the friendly hints, her good sense and grateful sweetness received them as intended kindnesses.

 

            “And are you still, my dear Madam,” questioned Cordelia, “of opinion that my lord does not know me?” “Decidedly I am,” was the reply; “I thought,” she resumed with some hesitation, “that after he saw the Hootsides there was something in his look which I could not altogether translate, but which seemed to betray that he did know me.”

 

            “That,” said Mrs. Brooks, “I am persuaded was only emotion originating in the fear that Lord Hootside would detect Lord Lochcarron beneath the assumed character of Mr. Campion; however,” she pursued, first with a smile, and then rather seriously, “I shall be enabled to judge with greater certainty this evening, and to take my measures with more decision.”

 

            “I think he won’t come this evening,” responded Cordelia; “so you said this morning, my dear; but on that score I have no apprehension; I have seen the first dawnings of love before now, and I have no hesitation in saying that what Lord Lochcarron now feels for you, whether he does or does not know you, will, if nothing intervenes to crush it, expand to the truest and tenderest affection.”

 

            Great was the agitation of Cordelia’s heart when Mrs. Brooks uttered these words; for one moment the dear idea of being the object of Lochcarron’s love, seemed worth all that could be risked, hazarded, or sacrificed; but in the next her innate rectitude of judgment, and delicacy of principle, recoiled from the slightest shadow of deception in a matter so sacred; “No!” she exclaimed in a tone where the firmness of virtue struggled with female tenderness, “had I the wealth of the Indies, oh! how cheerfully would I give it all to be blest with the affection of my husband; but he must love me as myself, or—oh! what must I think of Lord Lochcarron, were he capable of cherishing such a sentiment, while the holy tie which unites us remains uncancelled: my dearest Mrs. Brooks, in pity mention it no more, I cannot bear to think of it; I cannot do evil and expect good to result from it.”

 

            Mrs. Brooks, with great strength of mind, and all that clearness of judgment which is the result of experience, had none of that exquisite refinement, that keen and quick perception of the gradations of right and wrong which distinguished Cordelia. “You are truly a fastidious simpleton,” she exclaimed, laughing, “you would barter your chance of happiness for a shadow.” “Oh! no! no!” was the reply; “the path of duty is that of true happiness, and may no temptation ever induce me to swerve from it; if Lord Lochcarron, as you would have me believe, knows me only by the name of Beaumont, he must suppose me the wife of another, and to think that he feels any thing like admiration for a woman so situated—oh! gracious heaven! I cannot support the idea!”

 

            Cordelia, in saying this, spoke the genuine dictates of her mind; its gentleness and goodness, combined with her affection for the man she had married, and her sense of the solemn duties of veneration and obedience incumbent on a wife, were such, that she could readily have said with Eve,

 

                                    “Witness, heav’n,

      “What love sincere, and reverence in my heart,

      “I bear thee, and unweeting have offended,

      ——————Thy suppliant

      “I beg, and clasp thy knees: bereave me not

      “Whereon I live, thy gentle looks, thy aid,

      “My only strength and stay: forlorn of thee,

      “Whither shall I betake me?

      “Between us two let there be peace.”

 

            Yet her gentle nature recoiled from the slightest shadow of crime or profligacy, and her discriminating judgment required that he to whom she could thus bend, for whose sake she was willing to make such concessions, should at least be distinguished by

 

            “Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure.”

 

            Mrs. Brooks was beginning to rally her young friend