(like supernumeraries on the stage) to fill the ball-room and the theatre; and thinly covered as the race-course was, it would have looked emptier still but for the handsome coach of the Misses Morris-for Miss Blackall's chariot, with her black servant in his gayest livery and her pet poodle in his whitest coat on the box, and Mrs. Colby snugly intrenched in the best corner-for Stephen Lane and dear Margaret in their huge one-horse chaise, with a pretty grand-child betwixt them-for King Harwood galloping about the ground in ten places at once-for the tradespeople and artisans of the place, (I do love a holiday for them, whatever name it bears-they have too few,) down to the poor chimney-sweepers and their donkey, taking more interest in the sport than their betters, and enjoying it full as much. Still the town ladies were little better than the figurante, the Coryphees in this grand ballet, the young county damsels were the real heroines of the scene; and it was to show them off that their mammas and their waiting-women, their milliners and their coachmakers, devoted all their cares; and amongst the fair candidates for admiration few were more indefatigably fine, more perseveringly fashionable, more constant to all sorts of provincial gaiety, whether race, con| cert, play or ball, than the Misses Elphinstone of Ashley, who had been for ten years, and perhaps a little longer, two of the reigning belles of the county. draper and haberdasher, the most approved factor of female merchandise, and the favourite minister to female caprice in the whole county of H-; and amongst the many equipages which clustered about this grand mart of provincial fashion, none were more punctual and few better appointed, than that of the Elphinstones of Ashley. Mr. Elphinstone was a gentleman of large landed property; but the estate being considerably involved and strictly entailed, and the eldest son showing no desire to assist in its extrication, he was in point of fact a much poorer man than many of his neighbours with less than half of his nominal income. His wife, a lady of good family, had been what is called a fine woman; by which is understood, a tall, showy figure, good hair, good teeth, good eyes, a tolerable complexion, and a face that comes somewhat short of what is commonly reckoned handsome. According to this definition, Mrs. Elphinstone had been, and her daughters were two fine women; and as they dressed well, were excellent dancers, had a good deal of air and style, and were at least half a head taller than the other young ladies of the county, they seldom failed to attract considerable admiration in the ballroom. That their admirers went at the most no farther than a transient flirtation, is to be accounted for, not so much from any particular defect in the young ladies, who were pretty much like other show-off girls, but by the certainty of their being altogether portionless. Very few men can afford to select wives with high notions and no fortune; and unwomanly and unmaidenly as the practice of husbandhunting is, whether in mothers or daughters, there is at least something of mitigation in the situation of young women like Gertrude and Julia Elphinstone,—accustomed to every luxury and indulgence, to all the amusements and refinement of cultivated society, and yet placed in such a position, that if not married before the death of their parents, they are thrown on the charity of their relations for the mere necessaries of life. With this prospect before their eyes, their anxiety to be settled certainly admits of some extenuation; and yet in most cases, and certainly in the present, that very anxiety is but too likely to defeat its object. Why it should be so, one does not well know, but half the ladies of H-shire used to meet every Monday between the hours of three and five in the Market-place of Belford. It was the constant female rendezvous; on Saturday, the market-day, the gentlemen came : into town to attend the Bench, some on horseback, some in gigs, the style of the equipage not unfrequently in an inverse ratio to the consequence of the owner; your country gentlemen of large fortune being often addicted to riding some scrubby pony, or driving some old shabby set-out, which a man of less certain station would be ashamed to be seen in so that their appearance harmonized perfectly well with the carts and wagons of their tenants, the market-people of Belford. Their wives and daughters, how ever, indulged in no such whims. True to the vanities of the dear sex, laudably constant to fineries of all sorts, as regular as Monday* Year after year passed away;-Mr. Elphincame were they to be seen in carriages the stone's family, consisting, besides the young most fashionable, drawn by the handsomest ladies whom I have already mentioned, of horses that coaxing or lecturing could extort four or five younger lads in the army, the from their husbands and fathers, crowded navy, at College, and at school, and of a round the shop-door of Mr. Dobson, linen- | weakly girl, who, having been sent to be Why Monday should be the chosen day, no one can tell. It is the day on which the poor country women make their little purchases, because their husbands being paid on a Saturday night, they have then a pittance to spare. But why the ladies should choose that day, is still a puzzle. nursed at a distant relation's, the wife of a gentleman farmer at some distance, still remained in that convenient but ignoble retreat, became every year more and more expensive; whilst the chances of his daughters' marriage diminished with their increasing age and his decreasing income. The annual journey to London had been first shortened, then abandoned; visits to Brighton and Cheltenham, and other places of fashionable resort, became less frequent; and the Belford Races, where, in spite of Mr. Elphinstone's repeated embarrassments, they still flourished among the county belles, became their principal scene of exhibition. Race-ball after race-ball, however, came and departed, and brought nothing in the shape of a suitor to the expecting damsels. Partners for the dance presented themselves in plenty, but partners for life were still to seek. And Mrs. Elphinstone, in pettish despair, was beginning, on the first evening of the very last year of the Races, to rejoice at the prospect of their being given up; to discover that the balls were fatiguing, the course dreary, and the theatre dull; that the whole affair was troublesome and tiresome; that it was in the very worst taste to be running after so paltry an amusement at the rate of sixteen hours a day for three successive days; when, in the very midst of her professions of disgust and indifference, as she was walking up the assembly-room with her eldest daughter hanging on her arm (Miss Julia, a little indisposed and a little tired, not with the crowd, but with the emptiness of the race-ground, having chosen to stay at home), her hopes were suddenly revived by being told in a very significant manner by one of the stewards, that Lord Lindore had requested of him the honour of being presented to her daughter. "He had seen her in the carriage that afternoon," said the friendly master of the ceremonies, with a very intelligible smile, and an abrupt stop as the rapid advance of the young gentleman interrupted his speech and turned his intended confidence into" My Lord, allow me the pleasure of introducing you to Miss Elphinstone." Mr. Clavering's suspicions were pretty evident, and although the well-bred and selfcommanded chaperone contrived to conceal her comprehension of his hints, and preserved the most decorous appearance of indifference, she yet managed to extract from her kind neighbour, that the elegant young nobleman who was leading the fair Gertrude to the dance was just returned from a tour in Greece and Germany, and being on his way to an estate about thirty miles off in the vale of Berkshire, had been struck on accidentally visiting the Belford race-course by the beauty of a young lady in an open landau, and having ascertained that the carriage belonged to Mr. Elphinstone, and that the family would certainly attend the ball, he had stayed, as it seemed, for the sole purpose of being introduced. "So at least says report," added Mr. Clavering; and for once report said true. Lord Lindore was a young nobleman of large but embarrassed property, very good talents, and very amiable disposition; who was, in spite of his many excellent qualities, returning loiteringly and reluctantly home to one of the best and cleverest mothers in the world: and a less fair reason than the sweet and blooming face which peeped out so brightly from under the brim of her cottage-bonnet, (for cottage-bonnets were the fashion of that distant day,) would have excused him to himself for a longer delay than that of the raceball; his good mother, kind and clever as she was, having by a letter entreating his speedy return contrived to make that return as unpleasant as possible to her affectionate and dutiful son,-who, as a dutiful and affectionate son, obediently turned his face towards Glenham Abbey, whilst as a spoilt child and a peer of the realm, and in those two characters pretty much accustomed to carry matters his own way, he managed to make his obedience as dawdling and as dilatory as possible. The letter which had produced this unlucky effect was an answer to one written by himself from Vienna, announcing the dissolution of a matrimonial engagement with a pretty Austrian, who had jilted him for the purpose of marrying a Count of the Holy Roman Empire old enough to be her grandfather:-on which event Lord Lindore, whose susceptibility to female charms was so remarkable that ever since he had attained the age of sixteen he had been in love with some damsel or other, and had been twenty times saved from the most preposterous matches by the vigilance of his tutors and the care of his fond mother, gravely felicitated himself on being emancipated, then and for ever, from the dominion of beauty; and declared that if ever he could love again,-which he thought unlikely-he should seek for nothing in woman but the unfading graces of the mind. Lady Lindore's reply contained a warm congratulation on her son's release from the chains of an unprincipled coquette, and from the evils of an alliance with a foreigner; adding, that she rejoiced above all to find that his heart was again upon his hands, since on the winding up of his affairs, preparatory to his coming of age, his guardians and herself had discovered that, long as his minority had been, the accumulations consequent thereupon were entirely swallowed up by the payment of his sisters' portions; and the mortgages that encumbered his property could only be cleared away by the sale of the beautiful demesne on which she resided during his absence abroad, and which, although the estate that had been longest in the family, was the only one not strictly entailed,-or by the less painful expedient of a wealthy marriage.. "And now that your heart is free," continued Lady Lindore, "there can be but little doubt which measure you will adopt; the more especially as I have a young lady in view, whose talents and attainments are of no common order, whose temper and disposition are most amiable, and who wants nothing but that outward beauty which you have at last been taught to estimate at its just value. Plain as you may possibly think her, her attractions of mind are such as to compensate most amply for the absence of more perishable charms; whilst her fortune is so large that it would clear off all mortgages, without involving the wretched necessity of parting with this venerable mansion, which you have scarcely seen since you were a child, but which is alike precious as a proud memorial of family splendour, and as one of the finest old buildings in the kingdom. The lady's friends are most desirous of the connexion, and she herself loves me as a daughter. The path is straight before you. Return, therefore, as speedily as possible, my dear Arthur; and remember, whatever perils from bright eyes and rosy cheeks may beset you on your way, that I expect from your duty and your affection that you will not commit your self either by word or deed, by open professions or silent assiduities, until you have had an opportunity, not merely of seeing, but of becoming intimately acquainted with the amiable and richly-gifted young person whom, of all the women I have ever known, I would most readily select as your bride. Come, then, my dearest Arthur, and come speedily to your affectionate mother, MARY LINDORE." How so clear-headed a woman as Lady Lindore could write a letter so likely to defeat its own obvious purpose, and to awaken the spirit of contradiction in the breast of a young man who, with all his acknowledged kindness of temper, had never been found wanting in a petulant self-will, would be difficult to explain, except upon the principle that the cleverest people often do the silliest things;-a maxim, from the promulgation of which so very many well-meaning persons derive pleasure, that to contradict it, even if one could do so conscientiously, would be to deprive a very large and estimable portion of the public of a source of enjoyment which does harm to nobody, inasmuch as the clever persons in question have an unlucky trick of caring little for what the worthy dull people aforesaid may happen to think or say. Whatever motive might have induced her ladyship to write this letter, the effect was such as the reader has seen. Her dutiful son Arthur returned slowly and reluctantly homeward; loitering wherever he could find an excuse for loitering, astounding his active courier and alert valet by the dilatoriness of his movements, meditating all the way on the odiousness of blue-stocking women, (for from Lady Lindore's account of la future, he expected an epitome of all the arts and sciences a walking and talking encyclopedia,) and feeling his taste for beauty grow stronger and stronger every step he took, until he finally surrendered his heart to the first pair of bright eyes and blooming cheeks which he had encountered since the receipt of his mother's letter-the pretty incognita of the Belford race-course. Finding on inquiry that the carriage belonged to a gentleman of some consequence in the neighbourhood-that the ladies seated in it were his wife and daughters, and that there was little doubt of their attending the ball in the evening, he proceeded to the assemblyroom, made himself known, as we have seen, to our friend Mr. Clavering, one of the stewards of the Races, and requested of him the honour of an introduction to Miss Elphinstone. When led up in due form to the fair lady, he immediately discovered that she was not the divinity of the laudau: but as he ascertained, both from Mr. Clavering and the waiter at the inn, that there was another sister, a certain Miss Julia, whom his two authorities agreed in calling the finer woman; and as he learned from his partner herself that Miss Julia had been that morning on the race-ground,-that she was slightly indisposed, but would probably be sufficiently recovered on the morrow to attend both the course and the play-he determined to remain another night at Belford for the chance of one more glimpse of his fair one, and paid Miss Elphinstone sufficient attention to conceal his disappointment and command a future introduction to her sister, although he had too much self-control, and, to do him justice, too much respect for Lady Lindore's injunctions, to avail himself of the invitation of the lady of the mansion to partake of a late breakfast, or an early dinner-call it how he chose, the next day at Ashley. He saw at a glance that she was a manoeuvring mamma, (how very, very soon young gentlemen learn to make that discovery!) and, his charmer being absent, was upon his guard. "On the course," thought he, "I shall again see the beauty, and then-why then I shall be guided by circumstances:"-that being the most approved and circumspect way of signifying to oneself that one intends following one's own devices, whatever they may happen to be. The morrow, however, proved so wet that the course was entirely deserted. Not a single carriage was present, except Miss Blackall's chariot and Stephen Lane's one-horse chaise. But in the evening, at the theatre, Lord Lindore had again the pleasure of seeing his fair enchantress, and of seeing her without her bonnet, and dressed to the greatest possible advantage in a very simply-made gown of clear muslin, without any other ornament than a nosegay of geranium and blossomed myrtle. If he had thought her pretty under the straight brim of her cottage bonnet, he thought her still prettier now that her fair open forehead was only shaded by the rich curls of her chestnut hair. It was a round, youthful face, with a bright, clear complexion; a hazel eye, with a spark in it like the Scotch agate in the British Museum; very red lips, very white teeth, and an expression about the corners of the mouth that was quite bewitching. She sat in the front row of the box between her stately sister and another young lady; her mother and two other ladies sitting behind her, and completely barring all access. Lord Lindore hardly regretted this circumstance, so completely was he absorbed in watching his charmer, whose every look and action evinced the most perfect unconsciousness of being an object of observation to him or to any one. Her attention was given entirely, exclusively to the stage; she being perhaps the one single person in the crowded house who thought of the play, and the play only. The piece was one of Mr. Coleman's laughing and crying comedies-John Bull and she laughed at Dennis Brulgruddery and cried at Job Thornberry with a heartiness and sensibility, a complete abandonment to the sentiment and the situation, that irresistibly suggested the idea of its being the first play she had ever seen. It was acted pretty much as such pieces (unless in the case of some rare exception) are acted in a country theatre; but hers was no critical pleasure: yielding entirely to the impression of the drama, the finest performance could not have gratified her more. To her, as to an artless but intelligent child, the scene was for a moment a reality. The illusion was perfect, and the sympathy evinced by her tears and her laughter was as unrestrained as it was ardent. Her mother and sister, who had the bad taste to be ashamed of this enviable freshness of feeling, tried to check her. But the attempt was vain. Absorbed in the scene, she hardly heard them; and even when the curtain dropped, she seemed so engrossed by her recollections as scarcely to attend to her mother's impatient summons to leave the house. wet and dreary than the preceding; and on going into the ball-room and walking straight to Mrs. Elphinstone, imagine to yourself, gentle reader, his dismay at finding in Miss Julia an exact fac-simile of her elder sister,— another tall, stylish, fashionable-looking damsel, not very old, but of a certainty not what a lordling of one-and-twenty is accustomed to call young. Poor dear Arthur! if Lady Lindore could but have seen how blank he looked, she would have thought him almost enough punished for his disobedient meditations of the night before. His lordship was however a thoroughly well-bred man, and after a moment of consternation recovered his politeness and his self-possession. "Was there not another young lady besides Miss Elphinstone and yourself in the carriage on Tuesday, and at the play last night?" inquired Lord Lindore in a pause of the dance. "I was not at the play," responded Miss Julia," but I suppose you mean Katy, poor dear Katy!" "And who may Katy be?" demanded his lordship. "Oh, poor little Katy!-she's a sister of mine, a younger sister." "Very young, I presume?-not come out yet?-not introduced?" "Yes!-no!" said Miss Julia, rather puzzled. "I don't know-I can't tell. The fact is, my lord, that Katy does not live with us. She was a sickly child, and sent for change of air to a distant relation of my mother's-a very good sort of person indeed, very respectable and very well off, but who made a strange mésalliance. I believe her husband is a gentleman farmer, or a miller, or a maltster, or something of that sort, so that they cannot be noticed by the family; but as they were very kind to Katy, and wished to keep her, having no children of their own, and the place agreed with her, she has stayed on with them. Mamma often talks of having her home. But she is very fond of them, and seems happy there, and has been so neglected, poor thing! that perhaps it is best that she should stay. And they are never contented without her. They sent for her home this morning. I don't wonder that they love her," added Miss Julia, "for she's a sweet natural creature, so merry and saucy, and artless and kind. Everybody is glad when she comes, and sorry when she "Charming creature!" thought Lord Lindore to himself, as he sat taking his ease in his inn,' after his return from the theatre; "Charming creature!-how delightful is this artlessness, this ignorance, this bewitching youthfulness of heart and of person! How incomparably superior is this lovely girl, full of natural feeling, of intelligence and sensibility, to an over-educated heiress, with the whole code of criticism at her finger's end-goes." too practised to be astonished, and too wise to be pleased! A young lady of high attainments! Twenty languages, I warrant me, and not an idea! Ugly too!"-thought poor Lord Lindore. And then the beauty of the Belford theatre passed before his eyes, and he made up his mind to stay another day and ascertain at least if the voice was as captivating as the countenance. Again was poor Arthur doomed to disappointment. The day was, if possible, more This was praise after Lord Lindore's own heart, and he tried to prolong the conversation. "Would she have come to the ball to-night if she had stayed?" "Oh no! She would not come on Tuesday. She never was at a dance in her life. But she wanted exceedingly to go to another play, and I dare say that papa would have taken her. She was enchanted with the play.” "That I saw. She showed great sensibility. Her education has been neglected, you say?" "She has had no education at all, except from the old rector of the parish,-a college tutor or some such oddity; and she is quite ignorant of all the things that other people know, but very quick and intelligent; so that" "Miss Julia Elphinstone," said Mr. Clavering, coming up to Lord Lindore and his partner, and interrupting a colloquy in which our friend Arthur was taking much interest, "Miss Julia Elphinstone, Lady Selby has sprained her ancle, and is obliged to sit down; so that I must call upon you to name this dance. Come, young ladies!-to your places! What dance do you call, Miss Julia ?" noble oaks of his ancestral demesne rose before him in the splendid foliage of autumn. The little village of Glenham was one of those oases of verdure and cultivation which are sometimes to be met with in the brown desert of the Berkshire Downs. It formed a pretty picture to look down upon from the top of one of the turfy hills by which it was surrounded the cottages and cottage gardens; the church rising amongst lime-trees and yews; the parsonage close by; the winding road; the great farm-house, with its suburb of ricks and barns, and stables and farm-buildings, surrounded by richly-timbered meadows, extensive coppices, and large tracts of arable land; and the abbey, with its beautiful park, its lake, and its woods, stretching far into the distance, degrees-an island of fertility and comfort in the midst of desolation. Lord Lindore felt, as he gazed, that to be the owner of Glenham was almost worth the sacrifice of a young man's fancy. And in balancing between the merits of "The Dusty Miller" and "Money Musk" (for this true story occurred in the merry day of-formed an epitome of civilized life in all its country dances), and then in mastering the pleasant difficulties of going down an intricate figure remarking on the mistakes of the other couples, the subject dropped so effectually that it was past the gentleman's skill to recall. Nor could he extort a word on the topic from his next partner, Miss Elphinstone, who, somewhat cleverer than her sister-colder, prouder, and more guarded, took especial pains to conceal what she esteemed a blot on the family escutcheon from one whose rank would, she thought, make him still more disdainful than herself of any connexion with the yeomanry, or, as she called them, the farmer and miller people of the country. He could not even learn the place of his fair one's residence, or the name of the relations with whom she lived, and returned to his inn in a most unhappy frame of mind, dissatisfied with himself and with all about him. A sleepless night had, however, the not uncommon effect of producing a wise and proper resolution. He determined to proceed immediately to Glenham, and open his mind to his fond mother, the friend, after all, most interested in his happiness, and most likely to enter into his feelings, however opposed they might be to her own views. "She has a right to my confidence, kind and indulgent as she has always been-I will lay my whole heart before her," thought Arthur. He had even magnanimity enough to determine, if she insisted upon the measure, that he would take a look at the heiress. "Seeing is not marrying," thought Lord Lindore; "and if she be really as ugly and as pedantic as I anticipate, I shall have a very good excuse for getting off -to say nothing of the chance of her disliking me. I'll see her at all events,-that can do no harm; and then-why then-alors comme alors! as my friend the baron says. At all events, I'll see her." In meditations such as these passed the brief and rapid journey between Belford and Glenham. The morning was brilliantly beautiful, the distance little more than thirty miles, and it was still early in the day when the Still more strongly did this feeling press upon him, mixed with all the tenderest associations of boyhood, as, in passing between the low Gothic lodges, the richly-wrought iron gate was thrown open to admit him by the well-remembered portress, a favourite pensioner of his mother's, her head slightly shaking with palsy, her neatly-attired person bent with age, and her hand trembling partly from infirmity but more for joy at the sight of her young master; and as he drove through the noble park, with its majestic avenues, its clear waters and magnificent woods, to the venerable mansion which still retained, in its antique portal, its deep bay windows, its turrets, towers and pinacles, its cloisters and its terraces, so many vestiges of the incongruous but picturesque architecture of the age of the Tudors: and by the time that he was ushered by the delighted old butler into the presence of Lady Lindore-a dignified and still handsome woman, full of grace and intellect, who, seated in the stately old library, looked like the very spirit of the place, he was so entirely absorbed in the early recollections and domestic affections-had so completely forgotten his affairs of the heart, the beauty with whom he was so reasonably in love, and the heiress whom with equal wisdom he hated, that, when his mother mentioned the subject, it came upon him with a startling painfulness like the awaking from a pleasant dream. He had, however, sufficient resolution to tell her the truth, and the whole truth, although the almost smiling surprise with which she heard the story was not a little mortifying to his vanity. A young man of one-and-twenty cares little for a lecture; but to suppose himself an object of ridicule to a person of admitted talent is insupportable. Such was unfortunately poor Arthur's case at the present moment. |