“I suppose,” said Kenelm to himself, and
with that candour which characterized him whenever
he talked to himself, “that Travers has taken
the right road to the Temple, not of Honour, but of
honours, in every country, ancient or modern, which
has adopted the system of popular suffrage.”
THE next day Mrs. Campion and Cecilia were seated
under the veranda. They were both ostensibly
employed on two several pieces of embroidery, one
intended for a screen, the other for a sofa-cushion;
but the mind of neither was on her work.
MRS. CAMPION.—“Has Mr. Chillingly
said when he means to take leave?”
CECILIA.—“Not to me. How much
my dear father enjoys his conversation!”
MRS. CAMPION.—“Cynicism and mockery
were not so much the fashion among young men in your
father’s day as I suppose they are now, and
therefore they seem new to Mr. Travers. To me
they are not new, because I saw more of the old than
the young when I lived in London, and cynicism and
mockery are more natural to men who are leaving the
world than to those who are entering it.”
CECILIA.—“Dear Mrs. Campion, how
bitter you are, and how unjust! You take much
too literally the jesting way in which Mr. Chillingly
expresses himself. There can be no cynicism in
one who goes out of his way to make others happy.”
MRS. CAMPION.—“You mean in the whim
of making an ill-assorted marriage between a pretty
village flirt and a sickly cripple, and settling a
couple of peasants in a business for which they are
wholly unfitted.”
CECILIA.—“Jessie Wiles is not a flirt,
and I am convinced that she will make Will Somers
a very good wife, and that the shop will be a great
success.”
MRS. CAMPION.—“We shall see.
Still, if Mr. Chillingly’s talk belies his
actions, he may be a good man, but he is a very affected
one.”
CECILIA.—“Have I not heard you say
that there are persons so natural that they seem affected
to those who do not understand them?”
Mrs. Campion raised her eyes to Cecilia’s face,
dropped them again over her work, and said, in grave
undertones,—“Take care, Cecilia.”
“Take care of what?”
“My dearest child, forgive me; but I do not
like the warmth with which you defend Mr. Chillingly.”
“Would not my father defend him still more warmly
if he had heard you?”
“Men judge of men in their relations to men.
I am a woman, and judge of men in their relations
to women. I should tremble for the happiness
of any woman who joined her fate with that of Kenelm
Chillingly.”
“My dear friend, I do not understand you to-day.”
“Nay; I did not mean to be so solemn, my love.
After all, it is nothing to us whom Mr. Chillingly
may or may not marry. He is but a passing visitor,
and, once gone, the chances are that we may not see
him again for years.”
