“When I require it, Lady de Clare, I will accept
it. Do not, pray, vex me by the proposition.
I have not much happiness as it is, although I am
rejoiced at yours and that of your daughter.”
“Come, Lady de Clare, I must not allow you to
tease my protege, you do not know how sensitive he
is. We will now take our leave.”
“You will come soon,” said Cecilia, looking
anxiously at me.
“You have your mother, Cecilia,” replied
I; “what can you wish for more? I am a—nobody—without
a parent.”
Cecilia burst into tears; I embraced her, and Mr Masterton
and I left the room.
I return to the gay
world, but am not well received; I am quite
disgusted with it and
honesty, and everything else.
How strange, now that I had succeeded in the next
dearest object of my wishes, after ascertaining my
own parentage, that I should have felt so miserable;
but it was the fact, and I cannot deny it. I could
hardly answer Mr Masterton during our journey to town;
and when I threw myself on the sofa in my own room,
I felt as if I was desolate and deserted. I did
not repine at Cecilia’s happiness; so far from
it, I would have sacrificed my life for her; but she
was a creature of my own—one of the objects
in this world to which I was endeared—one
that had been dependent on me and loved me. Now
that she was restored to her parent, she rose above
me, and I was left still more desolate. I do not
know that I ever passed a week of such misery as the
one which followed a denouement productive
of so much happiness to others, and which had been
sought with so much eagerness, and at so much risk,
by myself. It was no feeling of envy, God knows;
but it appeared to me as if everyone in the world
was to be made happy except myself. But I had
more to bear up against.
When I had quitted for Ireland, it was still supposed
that I was a young man of large fortune—the
truth had not been told. I had acceded to Mr
Masterton’s suggestions, that I was no longer
to appear under false colours, and had requested Harcourt,
to whom I made known my real condition, that he would
everywhere state the truth. News like this flies
like wildfire; there were too many whom, perhaps, when
under the patronage of Major Carbonnell, and the universal
rapture from my supposed wealth, I had treated with
hauteur, glad to receive the intelligence, and spread
it far and wide. My imposition, as they
pleased to term it, was the theme of every party, and
many were the indignant remarks of the dowagers who
had so often indirectly proposed to me their daughters;
and if there was anyone more virulent than the rest,
I hardly need say that it was Lady Maelstrom, who nearly
killed her job horses in driving about from one acquaintance
to another, to represent my unheard-of atrocity in
presuming to deceive my betters. Harcourt, who
had agreed to live with me—Harcourt, who
