preferring her to Miss Leyburn, the daughter of the
county member, although Lucy was only the daughter
of his father’s subordinate partner; besides,
he had had to defy and overcome a slight unwillingness
and disappointment in his father and sisters,—a
circumstance which gives a young man an agreeable consciousness
of his own dignity. Stephen was aware that he
had sense and independence enough to choose the wife
who was likely to make him happy, unbiassed by any
indirect considerations. He meant to choose Lucy;
she was a little darling, and exactly the sort of
woman he had always admired.
First Impressions
“He is very clever, Maggie,” said Lucy.
She was kneeling on a footstool at Maggie’s
feet, after placing that dark lady in the large crimson-velvet
chair. “I feel sure you will like him.
I hope you will.”
“I shall be very difficult to please,”
said Maggie, smiling, and holding up one of Lucy’s
long curls, that the sunlight might shine through
it. “A gentleman who thinks he is good enough
for Lucy must expect to be sharply criticised.”
“Indeed, he’s a great deal too good for
me. And sometimes, when he is away, I almost
think it can’t really be that he loves me.
But I can never doubt it when he is with me, though
I couldn’t bear any one but you to know that
I feel in that way, Maggie.”
“Oh, then, if I disapprove of him you can give
him up, since you are not engaged,” said Maggie,
with playful gravity.
“I would rather not be engaged. When people
are engaged, they begin to think of being married
soon,” said Lucy, too thoroughly preoccupied
to notice Maggie’s joke; “and I should
like everything to go on for a long while just as
it is. Sometimes I am quite frightened lest Stephen
should say that he has spoken to papa; and from something
that fell from papa the other day, I feel sure he
and Mr. Guest are expecting that. And Stephen’s
sisters are very civil to me now. At first, I
think they didn’t like his paying me attention;
and that was natural. It does seem out
of keeping that I should ever live in a great place
like the Park House, such a little insignificant thing
as I am.”
“But people are not expected to be large in
proportion to the houses they live in, like snails,”
said Maggie, laughing. “Pray, are Mr. Guest’s
sisters giantesses?”
“Oh no; and not handsome,—that is,
not very,” said Lucy, half-penitent at this
uncharitable remark. “But he is—at
least he is generally considered very handsome.”
“Though you are unable to share that opinion?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Lucy, blushing
pink over brow and neck. “It is a bad plan
to raise expectation; you will perhaps be disappointed.
But I have prepared a charming surprise for him;
I shall have a glorious laugh against him. I
shall not tell you what it is, though.”
Lucy rose from her knees and went to a little distance,
holding her pretty head on one side, as if she had
been arranging Maggie for a portrait, and wished to
judge of the general effect.
