Shakspeares and day-labourers equally agree to call
love; which Newton never recognizes, and which Descartes
(his only rival in the realms of thought at once severe
and imaginative) reduces into links of early association,
explaining that he loved women who squinted, because,
when he was a boy, a girl with that infirmity squinted
at him from the other side of his father’s garden-wall!
Ah! be this union between man and woman what it may;
if it be really love, really the bond which embraces
the innermost and bettermost self of both,—how
daily, hourly, momently, should we bless God for having
made it so easy to be happy and to be good!”
THE dinner-party at Mr. Braefield’s was not
quite so small as Kenelm had anticipated. When
the merchant heard from his wife that Kenelm was coming,
he thought it would be but civil to the young gentleman
to invite a few other persons to meet him.
“You see, my dear,” he said to Elsie,
“Mrs. Cameron is a very good, simple sort of
woman, but not particularly amusing; and Lily, though
a pretty girl, is so exceedingly childish. We
owe much, my sweet Elsie, to this Mr. Chillingly,”—here
there was a deep tone of feeling in his voice and
look,—“and we must make it as pleasant
for him as we can. I will bring down my friend
Sir Thomas, and you ask Mr. Emlyn and his wife.
Sir Thomas is a very sensible man, and Emlyn a very
learned one. So Mr. Chillingly will find people
worth talking to. By the by, when I go to town
I will send down a haunch of venison from Groves’s.”
So when Kenelm arrived, a little before six o’clock,
he found in the drawing-room the Rev. Charles Emlyn,
vicar of Moleswich proper, with his spouse, and a
portly middle-aged man, to whom, as Sir Thomas Pratt,
Kenelm was introduced. Sir Thomas was an eminent
city banker. The ceremonies of introduction over,
Kenelm stole to Elsie’s side.
“I thought I was to meet Mrs. Cameron.
I don’t see her.”
“She will be here presently. It looks
as if it might rain, and I have sent the carriage
for her and Lily. Ah, here they are!”
Mrs. Cameron entered, clothed in black silk.
She always wore black; and behind her came Lily,
in the spotless colour that became her name; no ornament,
save a slender gold chain to which was appended a single
locket, and a single blush rose in her hair.
She looked wonderfully lovely; and with that loveliness
there was a certain nameless air of distinction, possibly
owing to delicacy of form and colouring; possibly
to a certain grace of carriage, which was not without
a something of pride.
Mr. Braefield, who was a very punctual man, made a
sign to his servant, and in another moment or so dinner
was announced. Sir Thomas, of course, took in
the hostess; Mr. Braefield, the vicar’s wife
(she was a dean’s daughter); Kenelm, Mrs. Cameron;
and the vicar, Lily.
