CHAPTER XXIII.

Le bruit des paroles couvre souvent la voix de conscience.
STAEL

UNINTERRUPTED pleasure, as many have felt to their cost, and acknowledged for the benefit of others, is calculated to make time pass heavily and slowly. The demon Ennui, when he emerges from the caves of sloth, rushes to scenes of mere amusement, but soon ceases to find enjoyment. Some of Mr. Langham's guests, in despite of all that had been done, and all that was going to be done, began to feel the minutes lengthening into hours; yet these were few, and, in compensation, with others the hours seemed melted into moments:

"Those fine nets which oft we woven sec

Of scorched dew, do not in the air more lightly flee,"

than fled those bright and golden days. To Jeannette they were as visions, and in some degree entranced by them, she thought every one around her as happy as herself. Hamond's look of care and anxiety was no longer observed by her; and when he one day said, "Your good spirits, Jeannette, make me afraid of what you may say or do," she did not for one moment suspect him of being serious.

Yet she believed Matilda to be perfectly in earnest when she admonished her to avoid being so much with CaptainBathurst, because Hamond did not like him.

Jeannette reddened to the temples, and said with quickness, "Can Hamond's prejudice lead him so far?" But instantly checking herself, she added: "It is not very easy, my dear Matilda, to avoid any one who is staying in the house with us."

"No, not very, certainly, Jeannette; but there is an old adage, of a will and a way, in which I have long had some faith." Jeannette made no reply, but a sudden blush passed across her cheek, and it seemed to Matilda that she thought her not avoiding Captain Bathurst was no contradiction of the adage.

Lindsay Bathurst, in the mean time, had learned to love her. His early and unbounded admiration of her personal attractions had met with no check in the course of his close and constant observation of her manners to others or to himself. He had discovered nothing either in her heart or mind to put her beauties "to the foil," or to impair her graces. His ear and eye were ever occupied with her, or about her, and so intently, that he himself suspected not the coil he was winding round himself. The attentions he had first paid to both sisters, from a wish of pleasing Hamond, and from feeling that he had done them wrong, soon assumed towards Jeannette all the watchfulness of passion.

He established an intimacy with Miss Sherrard, without either admiring or liking her, because he could talk of Jeannette more to her than to others. Miss Sherrard soon apprized Jeannette of her conquest. She disclaimed, but

listened; denied, but always believed.

and I fully

"Well, my dear," said her friend, "I am glad you are so skeptical, for my brother will be here to-morrow, mean you to fall desperately in love with him!"

"Does Sir Willian really come to-morrow?" said Jeannette, mechanically.

"Yes, really; and if when you have seen more of him you speak in as cold and indifferent tone as you now do, Jeannette, I shall pronounce you more or less than woman. "Did I speak coldly? It was more than rude-forgive Katherine.

me,

"Worse and worse,-thinking of me instead of him— when you know he admires you, and know also that he is as handsome as Apollo."

"Without wishing to take from Sir William Sherrard's merits, my dear Katherine,-I really do not care for beauty."

"So everybody says, Jeannette, and so nobody thinkswitness the very handsome wives generally chosen by those men who profess to think beauty a doubtful good,—a perishable flower, &c."

"Ah! men perhaps ; but I, Katherine, am speaking as a woman."

"Then, my dear, as a woman, explain to me, if you please, why Mr. Grant, that bachelor, malgré lui,' should have been so repeatedly refused ?"

"Oh! I was not speaking of extreme ugliness."'

"Hush, Jeannette! I do not allow that it is extreme.Mr. Grant is now tendering his addresses to me, and I am not certain that I shall not prove myself superior to vulgar prejudice and accept them."

Jeannette started in astonishment.

"Nay, Katherine, you cannot mean it!"

Miss Sherrard sighed as she answered, "I am afraid I do;" and after a pause, she continued, as if in justification, though none was required, Jeannette being too much shocked to make any comment,- My brother will certainly marry; when he does, I shall have no home- Voilà, ma Jeannette, le mot de l'énigme.'

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And upon uttering these words, Miss Sherrard quitted her friend. To Jeannette's imagination a 'marriage de convenance' was a fearful contemplation. She had heard Mr. Langham say a thousand times that no woman could ever stand excused for exposing herself to the trials of an ill assorted union; and with the romantic hope of early youth, she believed that her exhortations, united to the offer of sharing her own home with her friend, would be influential in dissuading her from running such a hazard. She concluded a letter full of generous offers and kind expressions by saying,-" Do not for one moment think that I am thus urgent because Mr. Grant has not the gift of beauty—no, my dear Katherine, it is because you do not love him; and because that, in time, will lead to his not loving you. It seems to me that you are preparing for yourself years of unmitigated misery.”

Miss Sherrard's answer quickly came, and written in the gayest spirits. "Oh, you novice! Unmitigated misery!No such thing!-Love soon wears out, hatred or indifference lasts for ever! Rely upon it, Jeannette, there is but one infallible prescription for happiness in the conjugal state,-marry the man you hate ;--or, if you cannot be quite so fortunate, one you care as little for as possible. I will however exempt you from following it, provided you will be Lady Sherrard."

"I would rather," said Jeannette, "be a kitten, and cry mew." And with her opinion of her friend lowered fifty fathom, she closed a day that had begun in mirth and hap piness, in depression and disgust.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Il est si beau d'aimer et d'être aimé que cet hymne de la vie peut se moduler à l'infini sans que le cœur en éprouve de lassitude.

DE STAEL.

It is not intended to follow Jeannette through the whole course of her love, or even to attempt to ascertain the precise moment of its commencement. She herself, had she been asked, would in all probability have replied, "From the hour I felt I was beloved."

It may be, that the doubts and fears which preceded this conviction would be regarded as more irrefragable proofs of the passion she was indulging, than the delightful certainty by which they were followed. Suspicion after suspicion, fear after fear, harassed her mind in turn, and kept her in continual alarm. But then, whenever Lindsay Bathurst could be near her, there she found him. He gave place to no one but Sir William Sherrard, and him he always watched with a vigilance that was more gratifying to Jeannette than any other part of his conduct.

But

Under similar circumstances most men would have endeavoured to keep a rival candidate for favour aloof. Bathurst's pride influenced him even here; and his every ac tion in connexion with Sir William Sherrard said plainly to Jeannette, "If you can, if you do prefer another, it shall not be by my own fault that I am kept in ignorance of it."Before he submitted to so fierce an ordeal, he possibly felt some internal persuasion that the baronet, though young, handsome, and rich, was not a person greatly to be feared. To Jeannette he had no attractions, as he had no force of character, no decision of opinion or strength of sentiment to which she could have looked up for guidance or correction -no fervour of mind to share in her enthusiasm on all she had yet acquired, or extend her views to what lay hidden. She liked him, it is true, for it would have been difficult to do otherwise. His goodness to his sister, an amiable and

gentlemanly deportment, and an extreme delicacy of feeling, that made him particularly considerate of others, were not qualities to create distaste or excite displeasure. She talked to him at all times with an ease and gentleness of manner that enchanted him; her replies were never brusques or tranchantes, never made him feel, as those of many young ladies had done, a wish to recall his words. To a sensitive person there is nothing so endearing as that repose of manner, which begets the security that your feelings will not be wounded.

In the mean time, Lindsay Bathurst looked on, at first anxiously, but at length peacefully. "He will love her faithfully," he said, " and to distraction;—but she will never love him."

Jeannette did not feel so happily confident when she saw Captain Bathurst talking frequently and dancing repeatedly with Miss Manvers, a niece of Lady Everard's. Miss Manvers was very lovely and very poor, and Jeannette unfortunately heard Lady Everard say, she really believed Captain Bathurst would at last marry Emily.

“Has he then known her long?"

"Oh! yes; they were playfellows together."

Jeannette breathed with difficulty, and her eyes involuntarily turned towards the subjects of her anxiety. They were in earnest conversation.

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May she love him as he deserves!" she said mentally. But she instantly sighed, with a sensation of deep abasement, -for she knew that she did not, could not wish it—and felt conscious that any endeavour to deceive herself would be vain. Her mind at that moment became to her "an awful world." Yet, such was the strange fluctuation of her spirits on that evening, that shortly after, when she saw Lindsay Bathurst standing alone, and apparently in deep meditation, she said, "He looks all thought. Could an assured lover look as he does?"-and hope again took shelter in her bosom, and became for a while its fondly cherished guest. She heard Colonel Hawkins say,

“Miss Manvers was a great beauty of yours once, I think, Bathurst ?"

To which inquiry, with amusing gravity, Captain Bathurst replied,

"Was she?"

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