“We were all sorry,” said Eleanor, with
dignified composure.
“I believe, Miss Harding, you understand why,
at this moment—” And Bold hesitated,
muttered, stopped, commenced his explanation again,
and again broke down.
Eleanor would not help him in the least.
“I think my sister explained to you, Miss Harding?”
“Pray don’t apologise, Mr Bold; my father
will, I am sure, always be glad to see you, if you
like to come to the house now as formerly; nothing
has occurred to alter his feelings: of your own
views you are, of course, the best judge.”
“Your father is all that is kind and generous;
he always was so; but you, Miss Harding, yourself—I
hope you will not judge me harshly, because—”
“Mr Bold,” said she, “you may be
sure of one thing; I shall always judge my father
to be right, and those who oppose him I shall judge
to be wrong. If those who do not know him oppose
him, I shall have charity enough to believe that they
are wrong, through error of judgment; but should I
see him attacked by those who ought to know him, and
to love him, and revere him, of such I shall be constrained
to form a different opinion.” And then
curtseying low she sailed on, leaving her lover in
anything but a happy state of mind.
THE JUPITER
Though Eleanor Harding rode off from John Bold on
a high horse, it must not be supposed that her heart
was so elate as her demeanour. In the first place,
she had a natural repugnance to losing her lover;
and in the next, she was not quite so sure that she
was in the right as she pretended to be. Her
father had told her, and that now repeatedly, that
Bold was doing nothing unjust or ungenerous; and why
then should she rebuke him, and throw him off, when
she felt herself so ill able to bear his loss?—but
such is human nature, and young-lady-nature especially.
As she walked off from him beneath the shady elms
of the close, her look, her tone, every motion and
gesture of her body, belied her heart; she would have
given the world to have taken him by the hand, to
have reasoned with him, persuaded him, cajoled him,
coaxed him out of his project; to have overcome him
with all her female artillery, and to have redeemed
her father at the cost of herself; but pride would
not let her do this, and she left him without a look
of love or a word of kindness.
Had Bold been judging of another lover and of another
lady, he might have understood all this as well as
we do; but in matters of love men do not see clearly
in their own affairs. They say that faint heart
never won fair lady; and it is amazing to me how fair
ladies are won, so faint are often men’s hearts!
Were it not for the kindness of their nature, that
seeing the weakness of our courage they will occasionally
descend from their impregnable fortresses, and themselves
aid us in effecting their own defeat, too often would
they escape unconquered if not unscathed, and free
of body if not of heart.
