“Ah,” said he, elevating his eyebrows,
“Lady Westborough told me she had had some people
to dinner whom she had been obliged to ask. Bobus,
is that the ‘Public Advertiser’?
See whether that d—d fellow Junius has
been writing any more of his venomous letters.”
Clarence was not a man apt to take offence, but he
felt his bile rise. “It will not do to
show it,” thought he; so he made some further
remark in a jesting vein; and, after a very ill-sustained
conversation of some minutes longer, rose, apparently
in the best humour possible, and departed, with a
solemn intention never again to enter the house.
Thence he went to Lady Westborough’s.
The marchioness was in her boudoir: Clarence
was as usual admitted; for Lady Westborough loved
amusement above all things in the world, and Clarence
had the art of affording it better than any young man
of her acquaintance. On entering, he saw Lady
Flora hastily retreating through an opposite door.
She turned her face towards him for one moment:
that moment was sufficient to freeze his blood:
the large tears were rolling down her cheeks, which
were as white as death, and the expression of those
features, usually so laughing and joyous, was that
of utter and ineffable despair.
Lady Westborough was as lively, as bland, and as agreeable
as ever: but Clarence thought he detected something
restrained and embarrassed lurking beneath all the
graces of her exterior manner; and the single glance
he had caught of the pale and altered face of Lady
Flora was not calculated to reassure his mind or animate
his spirits. His visit was short; when he left
the room, he lingered for a few moments in the ante-chamber
in the hope of again seeing Lady Flora. While
thus loitering, his ear caught the sound of Lady Westborough’s
voice: “When Mr. Linden calls again, you
have my orders never to admit him into this room;
he will be shown into the drawing-room.”
With a hasty step and a burning cheek Clarence quitted
the house, and hurried, first to his solitary apartments,
and thence, impatient of loneliness, to the peaceful
retreat of his benefactor.
A maiden’s thoughts
do check my trembling hand.—Drayton.
There is something very delightful in turning from
the unquietness and agitation, the fever, the ambition,
the harsh and worldly realities of man’s character
to the gentle and deep recesses of woman’s more
secret heart. Within her musings is a realm
of haunted and fairy thought, to which the things
of this turbid and troubled life have no entrance.
What to her are the changes of state, the rivalries
and contentions which form the staple of our existence?
For her there is an intense and fond philosophy,
before whose eye substances flit and fade like shadows,
and shadows grow glowingly into truth. Her soul’s
creations are not as the moving and mortal images
seen in the common day: they are things, like
spirits steeped in the dim moonlight, heard when all
else are still, and busy when earth’s labourers
are at rest! They are
