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 HERALINE; 
 
 OR, 
 
 OPPOSITE PROCEEDINGS. 
 
 BY 
 
 L.ETITIA-MATILDA HAWKINS. 
 
 IN FOUR VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 Quand on ne trouve pas son repos en soi-m£me, il est inutile 
 de le cbercher ailleurs. — Rochefoucault. 
 
 THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR F. C. AND J. RIVINGTON, 
 
 WATERLOO PLACE, PALL MALL, AND ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARDS 
 
 AND T. HOOKHAM, OLD BOND STREET. 
 
 1821. 
 
S. Gosnell, Printer, Little Queen Street, Holborn. 
 
2^3 
 
 TO 
 
 HER ROYAL HIGHNESS 
 THE DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER. 
 
 MADAM, 
 
 The apprehension which a female 
 writer must feel, in submitting a work to the 
 judgment of the Public, naturally leads her to 
 court some patronage that may ensure success, 
 or some influence that may support under the 
 want of it. The most powerful patronage is 
 that of a splendid name ; the most consoling in- 
 fluence is that of exemplary virtue. Both these 
 I have felt it incumbent on me to seek at the 
 present moment ; and having found them united 
 in Your Royal Highness, I presume, by your 
 
IV DEDICATION. 
 
 permission, to request your gracious reception of 
 this very humble attempt to insinuate what may 
 be profitable on reflection, under that which may 
 be amusing in the perusal. 
 
 It is a privilege which I esteem most highly, 
 to be allowed thus publicly to profess the firm 
 attachment of myself and of my family to your 
 august House, and my unfeigned admiration of 
 the moral and religious excellence by which Your 
 Royal Highness has gained the affection of every 
 subject of the British dominions. 
 
 Your Royal Highnesses 
 
 Most devoted and 
 Most obedient bumble Servant, 
 
 LiETITIA MATILDA HAWKINS. 
 
HERALINE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Whoever has inclination and opportunity to 
 make the tour of the south-western coast of our 
 island, and can afford leisure to deviate nine miles 
 from a high road, may, with some little trouble 
 indeed, frequent jolts, some considerable inequa- 
 lity of ground, and perhaps not entirely without 
 the apprehension of a fruitless search, find, if he 
 has turned the right way, the romantic village 
 of St. Emeril, occupying the lower stage of 
 a very lofty cliff, which, sometimes abrupt and 
 precipitous, sometimes gently sloping, and wooded 
 to the water's edge, seems to shade off its verdure 
 with almost imperceptible graduation of colour, 
 into the glaucous hue of the sea with which it 
 unites. The perpetually-recurring waves, con- 
 fined by two prominent head-lands, have scooped 
 for themselves a perfect semicircle, and in making 
 a convenient little bay, appear to have compelled 
 the shore, and every thing on it, to retreat into a 
 form the most agreeable to the eye. Tranquil 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
2 HERALINE. 
 
 cheerfulness of aspect, counteracting the seclusion 
 of the spot, and sunshine, tempered by balmy 
 gales, give the place an indefinible power of 
 pleasing, on first acquaintance; while its unfa- 
 tiguing, yet, in the aggregate, grand irregularities, 
 the rich country about it, and the awful object 
 below it, might make any who could live without 
 the world, or who had lived too much in it, wish 
 himself an inhabitant of Saint Emeril. 
 
 There is no rural scenery which a church may 
 not decorate ; and that of Saint Emeril, with its 
 attendant vicarage-house and cultivated glebe, is 
 one of the most picturesque. Placed above the 
 principal cluster of the houses in the village, and 
 far below the elevated mansion and domain of its 
 patron, its local circumstance bespeaks the recep- 
 tion of good from above, and its distribution of its 
 benefits to all below it. 
 
 The noble and ancient edifice which gives the 
 character of importance to this scenery, is seated 
 nearly at the summit of the highest irregularity of 
 the cliff, admitting nothing above it but a protect- 
 ing wood, sufficiently distant to allow of the inter- 
 vention of a part of the home-park, which slopes 
 down the western side again, as if leading to the 
 sea, and forms the most beautiful verdant back- 
 ground to the landscape, while the wood itself 
 wards off the attacks of the north wind, which 
 
HERALINE. 3 
 
 might injure the character of Italian celebrity 
 challenged by this spot. Around the mansion is 
 to be found every thing that constitutes the gran- 
 deur of an English nobleman's inheritance ; and St. 
 Emeril's Court may vie with any of its compeers, 
 in all the essentials of beauty and greatness. An 
 abundant revenue is attached to it ; and he who is 
 unhappy at St. Emeril's Court must be out of 
 the reach of that happiness, which the good things 
 of this world are thought able to confer. 
 
 But mankind are ingenious to their own hurt; 
 and St. Emeril's Court has been sometimes, like 
 other persons' courts, rendered uncomfortable by 
 the want of a little judgment in the possessors. It 
 was, at the time now to be spoken of, and had for 
 centuries been, the principal seat of the Earls of 
 Lynford in succession. The earldom was entailed 
 on male-issue; but by the limitation of the pa- 
 tent, the barony might descend to a female. The 
 estates might be separated from the title, at the will 
 and pleasure of the possessor. 
 
 There were in the last century many such men, 
 noblemen and gentlemen, as the last Earl of Lyn- 
 ford. He had been, early in life, what was then 
 called a gay man, never notoriously vicious — there 
 was decorum in his transgressions : — but the natural 
 consequence of this species of early gaiety, was 
 that, in his latter years, he was a very dull man : 
 B 2 
 
4 HERALINE. 
 
 he was not, indeed, of the preposterous set of 
 disgusting veterans : he gave up pleasures as 
 pleasures gave up him; but having no substitu- 
 tions, he lost all the value, all the satisfaction, and 
 all the respectability of the most important, be- 
 cause the closing period of human life. He had 
 possessed a very fine person, which kept him an an- 
 tiquated beau, and a very strong constitution, which, 
 under his management, became the means of pro- 
 tracted suffering. 
 
 Till fifty, he lived single for the sake of li- 
 berty, and had therefore shackled himself in 
 successive situations of ineligible slavery; but it 
 was always his intention, as he told himself on 
 every return of weariness or vexation, to free him- 
 self from this liberty, and to marry in time to dis- 
 appoint his heir-at-law. When he determined to 
 begin to seek a wife, he also settled in his own 
 fancy what sort of a wife he should seek, and, 
 fortunate in all his wishes and plans! he was so 
 far blest in his pursuit, as to find the woman whom 
 his imagination had presented to his judgment, 
 and to find her disposed to accept him. 
 
 -Forming his decisions of what women ought 
 to be on the extreme contrary of what he thought 
 them, he selected as the most manageable thing, 
 a pretty sickly piece of still life, very young, very 
 harmless, whose situation in the world rendered 
 
HERA LINE. 5 
 
 her gratitude for advancement matter of course ; 
 and he had no cause to accuse his judgment of 
 misleading him : he meant her to be powerless, 
 and powerless she was : he wished for a woman 
 who should have no will of her own, and none 
 she had — at least, if she had, she did not know it 
 when she met with it ; but this ignorance not al- 
 ways leading to the adoption of the will of ano- 
 ther, his lordship was a little subject to the fluc- 
 tuations of caprice. 
 
 Having skimmed the cream of this world's rich 
 pastures, and avoided, as the alloy of satisfaction, 
 all acquaintance with less palatable though more 
 wholesome nutriment, he knew not the contrary 
 operation of things too simple, in his opinion, to 
 have any operation. In choosing such a wife as 
 comes under the denomination of ' a poor soul,' 
 he had made no calculation of the compounded 
 qualities of poor-soulism; he had not provided in 
 his mind against the cobweb-spinning of inert ty- 
 ranny, which will bind a giant to the wheel of 
 Ixion : he forgot the gentle exactions of selfish- 
 ness, which make the slaves of another's imbe- 
 cility, forego necessary recreations to perform irk- 
 some petty duties : he was not aware of the panoply 
 of presentiments, dreams, old sayings and forebod- 
 ings, with which the votaries of ' poor-soulism ' can 
 defend themselves, and annoy, without movement, 
 b 3 
 
6 HERALINE. 
 
 those who stand within their aim. He gained all 
 this useful knowledge as he proceeded in his state 
 of wedlock, and he could desire no better an instruc- 
 tor than that which he had formed for himself; for 
 Ms ' poor soul ' being newly raised to consequence, 
 and unused to attentions, was particularly tenacious 
 of her privileges, and, to do her justice, made the 
 most of them. The earl was very much in the 
 situation of a friend of his, whom he had ridi- 
 culed unmercifully for refusing to buy a fine horse, 
 of docility that seemed almost intellect, and pur- 
 chasing a poney, no bigger than a Newfoundland 
 dog, because it must be such a gentle creature ! 
 The experiment of his gentleness had ended in a 
 broken arm, which, as Lord Lynford said, any 
 one might have foreseen who had ever considered, 
 that the want of power to be a help, does not im- 
 ply want of power to be a hinderance. The theo- 
 ries of some wise men are better than their prac- 
 tice. 
 
 His movements were now directed by all the 
 quarter-masters of medicine ; and as they issued their 
 mandates, he was to be found at Bath, Brighton, 
 Cheltenham, Harrowgate, or Tunbridge, some- 
 times bearing her ladyship's muff and fur-tippet, 
 and at others carrying her parasol over her head, 
 and her shawl under his one arm, while she hung 
 upon the other, which, with all his compliance 
 
HERALINE. 7 
 
 and accommodation of posture, was hardly within 
 her reach. 
 
 But in little more than two years, and just in 
 time to save the sweets of such matrimony from 
 the disgrace of cloying, the hope of an heir recon- 
 ciled all things, and coming when his heir-at-law, 
 that lord of his destiny, had particularly offended 
 him by representing the extreme poverty in which 
 he allowed him to starve, as disgraceful to his 
 lordship's own dignity, it was doubly a delight. 
 Such an affront occurring just at the time when it 
 was the earl's intention to have a succession of 
 sons to carry down to posterity the honours, and 
 to spread far and wide the reputation of his house ; 
 when there was every prospect of • a bevy of fair 
 damsels/ whose alliance should be sought by all 
 the peerage, lost nothing of its power of offend- 
 ing ; and as, whatever was the general character 
 of blankness, if the word may be used, which 
 belonged to the earl's identity, he was nevertheless 
 of headlong inconsiderateuess of action, and bit- 
 ter perseverance in his hostilities, the measure of 
 remonstrance was as unfortunate as it was impru- 
 dent. 
 
 It is the fate of high hopes to lower their crests 
 
 if made to wait, and of ardent expectation to cool 
 
 under the discipline of enforced patience. So sad 
 
 a tedium — such solicitude — -such apprehension 
 
 b4 
 
8 HERA LINE. 
 
 preceded the arrival of the heir — his lordship was 
 so grievously made a partner in all the suffering 
 he could possibly share, that perhaps he did not 
 wish for a repetition of the trial. When therefore 
 Time, one of 
 
 ' the mighty two, 
 ' That bring our wishes nearer to our view/ 
 
 had done all in his power for him, — though death 
 broke the mould in which his expected blessing Was 
 shaped, — his grief was not fatally excessive. The 
 countess, in becoming a mother, had indeed herself 
 become a corpse ; but he could admit the convic- 
 tion that he was but in the situation from which 
 his philosophical nuptials had disturbed him, and 
 with the gain of such an heir as would at least 
 cut out his ill-advised relation. In one point he 
 behaved better than some other fathers; he was 
 not angry with his ' poor soul' for bringing him a 
 daughter, nor with the child for not having chosen 
 the superior sex. — Years must, he well knew, 
 pass, before it would be necessary for him to adapt 
 his fatherly counsels to existing circumstances : 
 whether boys or girls, children must be nursed, 
 fed, and drest, for a time, much in the same way. 
 He knew that servants were the proper ministers 
 in such politics, and to them he must confide the 
 infant, be its sex what it might; therefore, at pre- 
 sent, he could know no inconvenience. He was 
 
HERALINE. 9 
 
 not, however, destitute of interest in the little 
 lady — he intended seriously to live to see her of 
 age and married. And, on the whole, he thought, 
 whenever he did think of her, that she might 
 prove a greater comfort to him than a son could 
 be. 
 
 His lordship had, previous to this event, passed 
 nearly three years in a way, and under restrictions, 
 entirely new to him. As he had no inclination to 
 continue this plan, he declined all overtures to a 
 second marriage made to him by his neighbours, 
 told plain truths to young ladies, and gave their 
 mammas to understand that he had not, with his 
 lady, lost his sagacity. He considered himself as- 
 having so much lee-way to fetch up in life, and 
 could not be ignorant that he had no time to lose. 
 He therefore ordered his house in Grosvenor 
 Square to be got in readiness, and prepared to 
 enter again the aristocratic world, not in any new 
 character of statesman, Maecenas, or philanthro- 
 pist, but in the character he had quitted, that of a 
 facade peer, for to no other part of the venerable 
 building composed of our three well-proportion- 
 ed estates, could he be said to belong. 
 
 The name to be given to the important dam- 
 sel, was matter of serious consideration. The 
 poor deceased mother had a partiality for her own, 
 which happened to be Phoebe ; but his lordship 
 b5 
 
10 HERALINE. 
 
 could not bring his ears, as he said, to ' digest ' 
 the Lady Phcebe. His own, feminized, would have 
 been uncouth. He wished for something, he 
 said, ' impressive, and which should, at the first 
 blush, convey an idea of the rank and elevation of 
 her who bore it.' He sent for the vicar, who had 
 been his college-tutor, and complimenting him, 
 with a sigh of self-commiseration, on his learning, 
 revealed to him his plan and meaning — assisted 
 him to comprehend it, by some efforts to recol- 
 lect what he had met with in ' his small stock of 
 knowledge,' and concluded with a confidential 
 query on the probable success of his hunting in 
 Pope's Iliad or Odyssey — ' where/ he said, ' he 
 remembered there was plenty of grand names, 
 Alcibiades and Hermione and Chryso — something 
 that always, Mr. Meryon,' for so was the vicar 
 called, ' might remember — and to his shame, 
 gravelled him — or perhaps in that other old Gre- 
 cian, who wrote very much in the style of Gay, 
 as Mr. Meryon had remarked to him, he well re- 
 membered — Theocritus — or his countryman, Ca- 
 tullus.' He should like ' something that meant little 
 lady or mistress, better than any thing — he wished 
 he could recollect what mistress or lady was in 
 Greek, but his Greek went a very little way, as 
 Mr. Meryon well knew : the character always was 
 an obstacle with him, but he believed so it was 
 
HERALINE. 1 1 
 
 with many — once over that, and the Rubicon was 
 passed : he could not but think the printing Greek 
 in the common type, like newspapers and Bibles, 
 would greatly facilitate the study of it/ 
 
 The vicar did not wander after the earl's peri- 
 patetics : he stuck to the text given him to preach 
 on, and gave the Greek for mistress, but said, 
 ' Your lordship would not like Lady Despoina/ 
 
 ' Well ! what should it be in Latin? — Domina,I 
 suppose— Domina, — no, it would not do, the Lady 
 Domina Beltravers — the right honourable Lady 
 Domina Bel tra vers— it strikes my ear as tautology/ 
 
 ' What say you, my lord, to Heraline ?' 
 
 ' Does that mean what I want? I recollected 
 only Domina ; but mine is a sad treacherous me- 
 mory— I'm not so young as I was/ 
 
 * Hera is common for mistress — you have it in 
 Terence ; anci the English diminutive would make 
 it tolerable/ 
 
 It was decided — ' Heraline it should be,' and 
 Heraline it was. 
 
 Leaving, therefore, the Lady Heraline Bel- 
 travers, whom he had generally recollected to call 
 for, while settling his steward's weekly accounts, 
 to all the advantages of her native air of Devon- 
 shire, under the care of her nurses, the earl was 
 on the point of setting off on the adventure of 
 recovering suspended enjoyments, when the young 
 b6 
 
12 HERALINE. 
 
 woman, a tenant's daughter, whom the appoint- 
 ment of superintendent of the nursery had raised 
 to the style of Mrs. instead of Molly Parr, seeing 
 the post-chaise door opened, and despairing of a 
 summons, ran down stairs with the baby to ask his 
 parting blessing on it. He expressed himself not 
 at all angrily at being reminded and detained : he 
 even put on his spectacles to look at its minute 
 features, remarked that its fingers very much re- 
 sembled shrimps, patted its soft cheek, called it 
 ' poppet/ and dismissed it with an injunction, that 
 at least made him who uttered it laugh, to be very 
 good till he came back. 
 
 At what period of life, three years may be best 
 lost, is a question scarcely worth an answer ; the 
 sum -total of those he had to redeem, seemed to 
 Lord Lynford to amount to thirteen, when he be- 
 gan to ask himself, on returning to his pursuits, 
 where he left off. Had he not been interrupted 
 in his gentle course down the stream of time, he 
 might have persuaded and flattered himself into his 
 own good opinion ; but when he was to compare 
 himself with himself, on the ground which he had 
 formerly occupied, he could not be insensible to a 
 far greater degree of alteration than he had sus- 
 pected : the increased rigidity of his muscles — the 
 tremulousness of his hand — the bilious yellow that 
 suffused his eyes — and the scarlet net which over- 
 
HERALINE. 1 3 
 
 spread his cheeks, were made evident to him by 
 returning to disused flights of stairs, by every thing 
 which he attempted to move, and by every mirror 
 to which he made appeal. 
 
 But the most decisive experiment which he 
 made of his treacherous powers, was that which 
 he adventured in the ermined assembly of his dig- 
 nified equals, whose attention he had previously 
 bespoken, and to whom he now introduced a sub- 
 ject on which he conceived himself qualified to 
 speak, merely because it had come of necessity 
 under his private cognizance. — He mistook the 
 having been shut out of the world, for retirement 
 from it, and fancying, if the allusion ever sug- 
 gested itself, that his three years' silence must have 
 been equivalent to the five of Pythagoras, he 
 dubbed himself in his own conceit a legislator, 
 and with great parade of written documents, and 
 calling to his aid the good offices of the press, he 
 laid the foundation of an unanswerable argument, 
 and erected it with all the decorations of captivating 
 eloquence. That nothing might be wanting to the 
 grace of his delivery, he made himself perfectly 
 acquainted with his own intentions by rehearsals ; 
 and constituting the reflection of his own figure in 
 the mirrors of his apartments, the House of Peers, 
 he felt it, though at first a little awful, very pos- 
 sible to face those whom he was to address : he 
 
14 HERALINE. 
 
 practised all the etiquette of the veritable scene, 
 and making the sound of his own voice answer 
 every purpose for which the lion lashes his sides 
 with his tail, he found himself very comfortably 
 warmed with his subject. Another great advan- 
 tage he reaped by this exertion, the increased con- 
 viction of the strength of his reasoning — for, as the 
 auditory to whom he submitted this act of presenta- 
 tion, certainly, neither by voice, look, or gesture, 
 expressed the smallest dissatisfaction, the tendency 
 of his endeavours, like those of most soliloquists, was 
 rather upwards in his own private appreciation. 
 Sitting down after this heat, he felt the transient 
 passage through his brain, of some line or words 
 that had escaped from their original locality in his 
 memory, but not entirely from the fortress of 
 memory itself — vis and Jiere came forward on a 
 tap given to his forehead ; and though he could 
 not get their comrade-right-and-left-hand-men into 
 their proper foot-hold in the rank, he got them 
 in time sufficiently drilled to extract another cor- 
 roborative comfort, and to reason out by analogy, 
 that if a writer may weep to make a reader weep, 
 a speaker convinced must reckon on a convinced 
 auditor; and, that as numbers, be they ever so 
 large, are, after all, but a congregation of units, 
 a House of Peers can be only a sum-total of indi- 
 viduals ; aid that having convinced one, to the de- 
 
H11RAL1NE. 15 
 
 gree which he found his own conviction reached, 
 the business was done. 
 
 Every thing being prepared, he took advantage 
 of one of his good days, and in a costume from 
 which a very unwise departure has since been 
 made, and which on this occasion had called forth 
 some little addition of attention, he appeared in his 
 place and character. 
 
 There was one, and perhaps one only contin- 
 gency against which he had not provided ; — he had 
 not calculated on that which he might not know ; 
 and in this comprehensive class of things was to 
 be found the sum and substance of the very laconic 
 reply which his motion drew forth — the answer 
 was, in quickness and effect, an extinguisher ; and 
 he backed out in the dark, with all eyes upon 
 him. 
 
 He was startled, but he was not discomfited, 
 or sent back in dismay to Devonshire. If his con- 
 fidence in good days, for which he had hoped, was 
 abated, it was still of importance to put off the 
 evil days which he might fear; therefore he per- 
 sisted in his course of what he called, perhaps 
 hoping to hear it pronounced needless, ' re-juve- 
 nizing/ 
 
 One consolation he had ; he saw many to keep 
 him in countenance, who had not laboured under 
 the disadvantage of his three years' servitude to Hy- 
 
1 6 HERALINE. 
 
 men : he found men of his own standing, still more 
 hardly driven to keep up appearances ; and when 
 he confessed himself a craven in the lists of dissipa- 
 tion, he found himself, not by many, the only one 
 to whom flannel and digestive pills were more ap- 
 propriate. He listened patiently to men of rank 
 and education, whose memories he was astonished 
 and delighted to find a very pharmacopoeia; he ob- 
 tained regular prescriptions, and gave credit to er- 
 ratic nostrums ; and taking the advice of persons 
 whose doctrines were founded on that best basis, 
 experience, he turned his attention, more, indeed, 
 than he had intended, or foreseen as necessary, to 
 keeping the battered fabric of an ill-used constitu- 
 tion in tenantable repair. He made a long season 
 in London, but remained there in a nicely-adjusted 
 state of regulated quietude. He dressed with 
 scrupulous precision, was made up carefully, took 
 his chocolate and eggs in the intervals of his toi- 
 lette, read the papers, aired regularly in his car- 
 riage, left his tickets or made his visits personally in 
 all the forms of the time when he flourished, avoided 
 all temptations to indulgence of the palate, and all 
 occasions of excitation, took his name out of the 
 club which had been one of his principal attrac- 
 tions to London, and generally got a friend or two 
 to partake a table, which, whatever covered it, uni- 
 formly afforded a morsel of boiled mutton, a 
 
HERALINE. 1 7 
 
 roast chicken, and a light pudding for himself. 
 Two glasses of Madeira were his stint of wine : 
 he shunned tea as nervous, and supper as oppres- 
 sive : he had his afternoon-nap, for which he apo- 
 logized to his visitors in terms never varied, by 
 quoting Sir Matthew Hale's advice to ' educate 
 the old man betimes/ He detained some one 
 friend till slipper-time, took some balsamic pre- 
 paration, as he said ' by way of nightcap/ and 
 then, with the reminiscent sentence, ' It is high 
 time for such as me to think of departing/ con- 
 signed himself, at a very wholesome hour, to his valet 
 and his dressing-apparatus, to be, in his own phrase, 
 ' made decent ' again for the morrow. It was pity 
 that any thing so regular should be so useless. His 
 emblem was a watch without a dial. 
 
 A pattern of life so well cut out, required few 
 alterations to fit its wearer, and, perhaps, ad- 
 mitted of few improvements that would not have 
 endangered its whole constitution. But in adopting 
 or submitting to it, Lord Lynford was hardly jus- 
 tified in comparing himself to those great men, 
 with whose biography he now amused a damp 
 day, parried an east wind, or soothed the nausea 
 of medicine. He talked, indeed, of ' Otium 
 cum dignitate/ and he had picked up some 
 truisms in the course of his novel recreations, 
 which struck him as ' amazingly fine' — and for 
 
18 HERA LINE. 
 
 this sole reason, that they came down to his com- 
 prehension. He complimented his own sagacity, 
 when he met with these ' amazingly fine' senti- 
 ments, by challenging them as having often oc- 
 curred to his mind. He might not have said the 
 thiug quite so well, he acknowledged, but it was 
 what he had thought fifty times. One great ad- 
 vantage attended this well-arranged system— it 
 served equally for all the days of the week, and 
 pretty nearly, by shifting his quarters and running 
 after London, for all times of the year. In the 
 general distribution of his time, his diet, his me- 
 dicines, his airings, visits, and looks engrossed 
 his most serious thoughts ; and when he settled his 
 accounts or took up a book, it was, as he himself 
 was sensible, relaxation : — he called it, and very 
 justly, * getting out of himself.' As churches 
 were all dangerous places, and chapels little less 
 so, he was precluded from this Sunday-variety. 
 The Bible he left to the clergy, as their sole in- 
 defeasible inheritance ; and of a future state he 
 thought just so much as to hint occasionally, that 
 he supposed he stood the same chance as most 
 other people ; 'he knew not/ he said/ why he should 
 not ;' and indeed he was very right. With these 
 deductions, therefore, from the power of alter- 
 ing, Sunday was thrown into the week, and gave 
 him no trouble in marking its return or fulfilling its 
 purposes. 
 
HERALINE. 19 
 
 The resorts of the sick and the idle took their 
 stated turns as places of his habitation ; but he 
 lingered in London as long as he could with any 
 decency, and returned to it with the first men of 
 his rank. One month in the year was as long as 
 he could give to Devonshire and Lady Heraline : 
 the air he thought relaxing ; and the child, he fa- 
 cetiously observed, grew quite as much while he 
 was away as when he sat by to watch it. 
 
20 HERALINE. 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 1 he five first years of the little ' baroness in po- 
 tential as her father tickled his own fancy in calling 
 her, passed in a way convenient to these move- 
 ments of the earl, that is to say, she remained sta- 
 tionary. Mrs. Parr clearly seeing, and very ex- 
 cusably consulting, her own interest in her situation, 
 employed her abundant leisure in fitting herself for 
 a continuance in her post. She improved her hand- 
 writing, and extended her arithmetic under the 
 tuition of the new village-schoolmaster : she also 
 obtained a notion of parts of speech, and the di- 
 visions of the globe. With the kind assistance of 
 the vicar of the parish, who knew her good quali- 
 ties, and wished well to her endeavour, she gradu- 
 ally obtained as much of general knowledge and 
 popular science, as might last the pupil and satisfy 
 his lordship for some years; but a basis of good 
 sense, not even Lord Bacon could have given 
 her : her capacity was limited, her ideas were sor- 
 did ; to escape blame was her care, and to keep 
 her station her utmost ambition. She had as much 
 of religious principle and information as had been 
 given her by her parents; and being very ignorant of 
 the world, she seemed hardly to know that it was 
 3 
 
HERA LINE. 2 1 
 
 necessary, that the young heiress of St. Emeril's 
 should be wiser than herself. A neat appearance, 
 old-fashioned civility, and respect almost amount- 
 ing to awe, were her shining virtues in the eyes of 
 the earl. 
 
 At the end of these five years, a necessity 
 occurred to the recollection of Lord Lynford, 
 which seldom escapes that of any parent whose 
 child is to occupy any station in the world —this 
 was the necessity of an early familiarity with the 
 French language: the want was soon supplied; 
 and as it was a point on which there could be no 
 appeal from his lordship's perfect information, it 
 was supplied in the very best way. A young girl 
 who had had opportunities of acquiring a good 
 style of speaking, by having been the protegee of 
 a French family of rank, was imported from Paris 
 itself: that she was iguorant of ev«ry thing besides, 
 was no objection ; and that she was utterly desti- 
 tute of all moral principle, was perhaps not ex- 
 actly specified in the description of her qualities. 
 Mrs. Parr was not pleased with the association, 
 nor long ignorant of the reduction it occasioned in 
 Lady Heraline's respect for her first teacher ; but 
 she had no option, except that ineligible one of 
 retreating — the pacific result may therefore be 
 guessed. 
 
 Another two years, the suggestion of the earl's 
 
22 HERALINE. 
 
 own k n o\vledge of the fit and the requisite, and 
 the hints of lady-friends in the ten-mile distance 
 of Devonshire-neighbourhood, induced other ne- 
 cessities ; and masters were now paid high to come 
 from Exeter to St. EmeriPs, to give lessons in 
 music, dancing, and whatever could be ornamental 
 to a lady of fashion and polite accomplishment. It 
 was matter of pride and emulation to be engaged 
 for this purpose ; and the fame of Lady Heraline 
 Beltravers was, without any impulse but that of 
 individual interest, or any effort but that which 
 well repaid the bearer, carried far and near to the 
 houses of the great, and the places of education of 
 the little. 
 
 Character did not long lie dormant in the bosom 
 of Lady Heraline, and under even the involuntary 
 tuition of Mademoiselle Annette, it developed itself 
 with ease. Mrs. Parr still retained her supreme 
 authority, and Annette was only fille de chambre; 
 but her lessons went infinitely faster and farther than 
 all Mrs. Parr's. Three words in a language which 
 the poor Englishwoman could not understand, 
 would decide a question against her : the shrewd- 
 ness of Annette detected Mrs. Parr's shallow pre- 
 tensions to knowledge ; and under the communica- 
 tion subsisting between the little lady and her maid, 
 she must have experienced a degree of contempt, 
 that might have made even her situation intole- 
 
HERALINE, 23 
 
 rable ; but there was, most happily for her, im- 
 planted in Lady Heraline's nature, a strong recoil 
 to what was right, whenever warped to what was 
 wrong ; and when she had suffered herself to treat 
 Mrs. Parr very unpardonably, through Annette's 
 influence, she would quit her base corrupter, and 
 take the side of the sufferer with tenderness and 
 pity. 
 
 That in this insulated situation the young lady 
 should not have assumed high notions of herself, 
 her importance, and her power, was impossible. 
 She saw a house and establishment kept for her — 
 she had her carriage and her servants ; her health 
 was matter of inquiry in the immediate neighbour- 
 hood, and her improvements seemed to set the 
 country in motion : she was the idol of the villa- 
 gers, she was flattered by her teachers, and every 
 thing gave her to understand, that some great con- 
 clusion awaited these preparatory premises. She was 
 not urged to do right on the motives or in the terms 
 that her books of instruction, or what she heard 
 accidentally, informed her were the usual means 
 of obtaining the obedience of children : there 
 seemed a moral code made on purpose for her ; 
 and the injudicious contrast occasionally drawn be- 
 tween her ladyship and those beneath her, com- 
 pleted the error of natural pride. 
 
 On the then newly-divulged principle of press- 
 
24 HERALINE. 
 
 ing the passions into the service of virtue, in un- 
 tamed children, instead of checking them, which 
 Mrs. Parr had first caught as a favourite doctrine 
 very well suiting her purpose, she set herself to 
 turn this natural pride in her young charge, ere 
 yet it had received its due correction, to a profit- 
 able purpose. In vain did the vicar argue against 
 the doctrine, as soon as she brought it to him ; in 
 vain did he tell her, that it was, even at best, offering 
 to the Deity that which had been polluted by sa- 
 crifice to idols : in vain did he, from the pulpit, 
 declare that our headlong passions ought not to be 
 confounded with our reasonable affections — that 
 the former were to be curbed, the latter directed, 
 and that our Christian virtues must stand on their 
 own simple basis, the sense of duty, not on any 
 pedestals from which the instigators to evil had 
 been dismounted. It was all to no purpose ; Mrs. 
 Parr had got the melodious axiom into her head, 
 and it was never out of it ; she therefore desisted 
 from all opposition to Lady Heraline's pride of 
 heart, and contented herself with the persuasion 
 that she could direct it at pleasure. The conse- 
 quence was, the stamping on the character of Lady 
 Heraline Beltravers for life, if it did not meet its 
 due corrective, a most erroneous moral sense, 
 which depriving her of much of the pleasure of 
 doing well, made her rectitude of opinion ant) con- 
 
HERALINE. 25 
 
 duct, except as far as instinctive feeling went, de- 
 pend entirely on the disdain of doing ill, and left 
 her perceptions of good and evil too much to her 
 own judgment. 
 
 The tenth birthday now arrived, and the earl 
 was beginning to perceive a necessity of further 
 exertion, when an accident, not so agreeable in it 
 self, as in its first consequences, opened a new 
 vista in his speculations. 
 
 His comfort in his town-house had been, on a 
 sudden, diminished by improvements made in that 
 to which it adjoined, and the room in which he 
 passed his mornings, became untenantable from 
 smoke. A smoky chimney calls forth as much 
 quackery as any disease incident to the human 
 frame ; and a friend recommending as a physician 
 of peculiar ability in such a case, a very adroit 
 swivel-headed Frenchman, the evil was presently 
 removed, if not cured, by the manoeuvre which 
 has saved many an army and fleet — a diversion : 
 the earl's breakfast-room was restored to its na- 
 tural atmosphere, only at the expense of a good 
 collection of pictures in the next; but into this 
 room he never ventured till summer, and he did 
 not then observe the increased mellowness of tints 
 or the ripening redness of his gilt frames. 
 
 Encouraged by success and applause, Monsieur 
 de Quinte, the chimney-genius, extended hi* re- 
 vol. i. c 
 
26 HERALINE. 
 
 spectful assiduities to other improvements of his 
 lordship's comfort; and flying gouts having now 
 embodied themselves into decided fits, every thing 
 was acceptable that could stand in the stead of 
 hands and feet. At the time too, when Monsieur's 
 lively talents and insinuating manners presented 
 themselves for acceptance, the earl was thinking of 
 a chaplain in his house, as the break-water against 
 the evils of solitude, when he should happen to 
 outstay in town the whole rota of his table. 
 
 There were inconveniences attached to this 
 proposed appendage, which of course presented 
 De Quinte to recollection as a l better thing; ' but 
 Pride made a momentary halt, and bade the peer 
 pause on such an association. Expediency, in re- 
 ply suggested, that patronage was not an equaliza- 
 tion, and that where the distance was so great, 
 there was not so much danger of compromising 
 rank as in a nearer affinity. Contending principles 
 of action were reconciled by a middle course, 
 which held the inferior party in subjection; and 
 De Quinte, at first ordered to dine at distant times, 
 and then sent for occasionally, at last fell into the 
 convenient form of calling every morning to know 
 how he could be useful. 
 
 Whatever the earl's expediencies and admissibi- 
 lities, he had sometimes a chance-guest to whom 
 such a personage was not produceable; therefore 
 
HERALINE. 27 
 
 the matter was at first precarious, and De Quinte 
 was sent to the restaurateur occasionally, when 
 he had flattered himself with better things, or at 
 least things on better terms ; but, by degrees, that 
 tendency to supineness for which the necessities 
 of life are not an adequate counteraction, and 
 the superior ease of ordering Monsieur to be ad- 
 mitted, when compared with the trouble of ma- 
 noeuvring for company or being agreeable, settled 
 into daily habit that which had heretofore left the 
 veto with his lordship : by degrees other friends 
 were dropt; and De Quinte's anecdotes and at- 
 tentions, his unshackled principles and subser- 
 viency, backgammon and piquet, answered all 
 the purposes of diurnal variety. 
 
 What is handy is always acceptable, and relin- 
 quished with reluctance. Autumn came, and the 
 month's residence in Devonshire. — De Quinte was 
 quite at leisure to attend ' milord ' to his chateau, 
 and thither he accompanied him in his travelling 
 carriage. It mattered not, that the valet whom 
 this intrusion had jostled out, gave warning, or 
 that the butler protested against a French spy: 
 their resignations were accepted : their places 
 were soon filled without a movement on the 
 part of their employer, and novelties were struck 
 out from the igniting brain of the Frenchman, 
 c 2 
 
28 HERALINE. 
 
 some of which not a little resembled the cure of 
 the smoky chimney. 
 
 So great was the improvement of Lord Lyn- 
 ford's means of enjoying life produced by this new 
 connexion — so much was his mind relieved from 
 its most oppressive cares by the aid of this ' clever 
 fellow/ — nay, so much was his health benefited by 
 this said clever fellow's nice administration of pa- 
 latable medicine, which, if it did not cure, assua- 
 ged, and if it did harm, did it agreeably, that 
 it was impossible for gratitude to be silent ; but the 
 earl, perhaps, carried his expressions of obliga- 
 tions rather too far, when he made them in the 
 hearing of his people, and disadvantageous^ com- 
 pared every thing done for him by them, with the 
 performances of Monsieur — it was a measure not 
 calculated to make the situation of his favourite 
 easier — but who can set bounds to the extrava- 
 gance of the needy, or to the lavish generosity of 
 the selfish ? 
 
 The appellations, of ' factotum, right hand,' 
 and ' my every thing/ used in speaking the praises 
 of the Frenchman, having a little touched the sen- 
 sitive point in the old steward's perceptions, De 
 Quinte had only to give the least possible jog to 
 his employer's pride, to see a good servant fairly 
 out; and by offering to supply the vacancy till 
 
HERALINE. 29 
 
 some one fitter could be found, he secured to him- 
 self power, patronage, and emolument. 
 
 Still, however, there was one department in 
 which he did not dare even to lament his inca- 
 pability to be useful. — But he had seen enough 
 to teach him the non-necessity of his own exer- 
 tions, and that he had only to wait patiently. 
 — A. very short trial was given to his patience, 
 when, on the departure from Devonshire, and 
 some little question arising about the establishment 
 of the Lady Heraline, whether it were more fit to 
 leave her another year at St. EmeriPs, or to give 
 her now the advantages of London, the earl, to 
 whom all trouble was by disuse becoming every 
 day more troublesome, expressed a hearty un- 
 qualified wish to De Quinte, that he would find 
 a wife just as clever as himself; that he and 
 she might take the superintendence of the young 
 * baroness in potentia/ 
 
 The hint sufficed: the lady was found, pre- 
 sented for acceptance, and accepted. That a 
 rude thing might not be done to Mrs. Parr, she 
 was summoned to town with her eleve, and hav- 
 ing been given to understand that she had her 
 option of resigning her charge, or of contenting 
 herself with the custody of the person only, from 
 which the new ministry very wisely had degraded 
 c 3 
 
30 HERALINE. 
 
 Mademoiselle Annette down to the rank of mere 
 dresser, she begged a few hours to consider, and 
 then with the traces of conflict in her counte- 
 nance, and the colouring of tears in her eyes, 
 she professed herself disposed to prefer the terms 
 of toleration to the unprofitable liberty offered 
 her. 
 
HEKALINE. 31 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A scheme must have been very imperfectly laid, 
 if it had failed its contrivers, when the party prac- 
 tised on so kindly lent his own assistance : this, 
 which was now maturing, was far too ably manu- 
 factured to be liable to common accidents. The 
 ease even of Mrs. Parr, contemned as were her 
 powers, was consulted or connived at, for the 
 present : nothing went amiss ; and just -when the 
 young lady's mind became most capable of im- 
 pressions that were to form it to virtuous excel- 
 lence or vicious error, Monsieur De Quinte stood 
 ready to stamp it with a cold selfishness, and his 
 wife to varnish it with artificial cunning. But it 
 was the high-day of novel interest excited in Lord 
 Lynford's mind ; aud with the relish of an infant 
 for a new toy, he now set his heart on having a 
 daughter from whom he might derive green 
 honours. The idea brought youth and spirits 
 with it, and instruction poured daily on his own 
 mind by the developements of his daughter's tutor. 
 His lordship had not been ignorantly educated : 
 he had only possessed no power of application, 
 and had taken up a consoling contempt for those 
 c 4 
 
32 HERALINE. 
 
 who had it, and for the subjects on which it 
 might be exerted. — Something indeed might be 
 said in excuse for him, of the change in modes of 
 thinking and speaking, which have sent the modern 
 learned again to school. In advancing with, or 
 perhaps following, the footsteps of the pupil, he 
 felt himself much further behind the fashion than 
 in his personal costume ; and alarmed at this con- 
 viction, he took the readiest way to keep up in his 
 pace, by resort to such summaries as his Mentor 
 recommended ; till, either finding cause to doubt 
 his own powers of tenacity, or distracted with the 
 instability of systems perpetually giving way to 
 successors as mutable as themselves, he con- 
 ducted himself with the discretion of an old- 
 fashioned dancer, and sate down, content with 
 surveying the intricacies of a figure that defied 
 his comprehension. 
 
 The situation in which the new tutors found 
 their pupil, was not at all discouraging to their en- 
 deavours : that pride and haughtiness of spirit had 
 been nourished by the perception of superiority in 
 every point, was not appalling to persons who 
 never questioned their own abilities, nor had been 
 taught, by want of success, to doubt their power 
 to ensure it; and that injunctions to independence, 
 very ill understood even by the teacher, had been 
 received as encouragements to dispute all autho- 
 
RERALINE. 33 
 
 rity, could not disconcert those who had other ma- 
 nacles than precepts ready to put on their captive. 
 De Quinte himself, well gifted by nature, had risen 
 by his address from a very low class of the emulous ; 
 and his wife, an Italian by birth, had been reared 
 in all departments of the French opera, in which 
 a natural genius for music, dancing, and paint- 
 ing, with great liveliness of talents, and the most 
 finished graces of a plain person, could be made 
 useful — she was a prize and a fortune to a 
 schemer : she saw her interest in the matrimonial 
 overture made to her : she had no heart to offer-^ 
 none to break — she risqued nothing by the attempt 
 to quarter herself on that to which continental emi- 
 grants seem to have little repugnance, the com- 
 forts of an English home. The talents of her 
 husband were the indenture to her own : to shorten 
 his own labour in acquiring, he had learned or 
 formed the shortest methods of communicating 
 knowledge : he had extended his pursuits not by 
 the feeling of his taste, but by that of his neces- 
 sities ; and if it might with greater truth be said of 
 him, that he almost understood every thing, than 
 that he understood almost every thing, still his im- 
 perfection was so much less imperfect, than that 
 of many teachers possessing far less range of ac- 
 quirement, that it would have been very fastidiout 
 to have found fault, even if fault was to be found. 
 c5 
 
34 HERALINE. 
 
 From the new patron, it was soon evident there 
 was nothing connected with discernment to fear. 
 
 A necessary preamble to the first act of im- 
 provement, was to convince the Lady Heraline, 
 that under her previous teacher she had learned 
 nothing; but to do this so as not to incense a spirit 
 of fiery zeal, equally ardent, whether exerted for or 
 against, and which on every trial showed alarming 
 symptoms of just discrimination, required ma- 
 nagement. Injustice towards Mrs. Parr, unless 
 inflicted by the young lady herself, would have 
 made Lady Heraline her strenuous defender. — 
 Credit given to her, might have lengthened the en- 
 durance of her. There was a safe and middle 
 way; ' she had done her best, but she was English 
 
 — and therefore ' the remainder of the speech 
 
 cannot be represented by the pen or the pencil — 
 it was a snap with Monsieur de Quinte's finger and 
 thumb, such as none but French or Italian joints 
 can give — and which, in its gesture and sound, 
 serves to set at the very lowest, whatever it hap- 
 pens to treat of. 
 
 At the first interview, the person of Lady He- 
 raline had been surveyed by Madame, with the eye 
 of an improver of ill laid-out grounds, or an ar- 
 chitect set to give lightness and grace to a building 
 of Vanbrugh's — but there was no room for de- 
 spair or contempt. She was a very fine, handsome, 
 
HERALINE. 35 
 
 tall, slender, promising girl of nearly eleven years 
 of age, with a fine complexion, dark eyes and 
 hair ; and though the varying expression of her 
 countenance could speak languages the most op- 
 posite, yet there was no reason to conclude that 
 the least agreeable was that most natural to it. 
 Madame's report to her husband said all that 
 could be said : ' Ma foi ! on peut faire de cette de- 
 moiselle ; tout ce qu'on voudroit faire, mais, men 
 ami, on peut entrevoir dans son caractere quelque 
 chose de si epineux, qu'il faut bien prendre garde 
 a ses propres doigts en le touchant.' — It was very 
 true that any thing might be made of her ; but 
 that there was great danger of pricked fingers in 
 attempting to touch her. 
 
 The improvement in Lady Heraline's juvenile 
 pleasures, would of itself have reconciled her to 
 some unpleasant changes ; but she had none to 
 endure: she was treated with the same distinction 
 as at St. Emeril's. In London, amusements were 
 sought for her, and associations formed, which 
 rendered the attainment of some of her accom- 
 plishments an affair of relaxation. Her tutors 
 made her work hard, and exacted much from her 
 powers of exertion ; but they had their facilitating 
 plans which might have made the quantity of ac- 
 quirement superior to the quality of it, if her lofty 
 spirit had not set itself sometimes to pose her in- 
 c6 
 
36 HERALINE. 
 
 structors, and insisted on their diving to the bottom 
 of the well, from which they were pumping up 
 knowledge for her by mechanical combinations. 
 The 'how?' the ' why?' the incredulous accept- 
 ation of a dogma, sometimes carried inquiry to a 
 point that irritated De Quinte's feelings, and made 
 the angularity of his features still sharper than 
 nature's chisel had left them : but resistance on his 
 part only increased stiffness on that of his pupil, 
 and exposed him to increased persecution. There 
 was no authority to which Lady Heraline had been 
 accustomed to bend ; and on the present plan, the 
 instinctive feeling of compassion, which would 
 make her stop oiiort of worrying Mrs. Parr be- 
 yond all endurance, was not to be called into ac- 
 tion : she was therefore unmercifully just to her- 
 self, and not unfrequently sent De Quinte to bed 
 with vapours and a violent head-ach. Mrs. Parr 
 was not to be interested in the abatement of this 
 nuisance : she rather enjoyed any annoyance to the 
 new ministry, who every day revenged themselves 
 on her unconciliating looks and side-speeches, by 
 removing a stone from the foundation of her credit 
 M'ith the earl. 
 
 At length, not merely the non-necessity of Mrs. 
 Parr's lieutenancy, but the impediment it formed 
 to the pupil's progress, was made evident to Lord 
 Lynford's observation, without a word of opposi- 
 
HERAL1NE. 37 
 
 tion uttered, or her name being used ; and on the 
 return to St. Emeril's, Lady Heraline was al- 
 lowed to hear accidentally of the plan for her first 
 preceptor's dismission. The course of events was 
 well foreseen : it was known that at the next dis- 
 pleasure against Mrs. Parr, Lady Heraline would 
 vent her wrath by reporting the offensive intelli- 
 gence. No restriction had been put on her tongue ; 
 and, calculating on previous occurrences, opportu- 
 nity could not long be wanting. 
 
 The tone and manner in which this revenge was 
 taken, showed the childish hope that it would give 
 pain; but Mrs. Parr's pride had been already 
 brought nearer to the surface by repeated indig- 
 nities, which she had not dared to resent ; and it 
 stood in the place of good sense, when it prompt- 
 ed her to disappoint the unworthy project. She 
 replied by acknowledging, though not submissively, 
 ' that it was high time her ladyship should be 
 taken out of her hands/ and * that she should 
 feel very much relieved when she was dismissed 
 from a situation which she believed had been 
 made purposely uncomfortable to her, in the hope 
 of inducing her to resign.' Lady Heraline was 
 dismayed — the last sentence made her suspect 
 Mrs. Parr might have over-reached her, by as- 
 suming a character below that of the sagacity 
 which belonged to her; and the former one in- 
 
38 HEKALINE. 
 
 flicted on her the mortification of seeing herself 
 * lightly esteemed/ — She approached Mrs. Parr 
 with a crest much lowered, and seemed to hope 
 that contact would subdue this extraordinary de- 
 parture from her usual habit of endurance. The 
 tears stood on her long eyelashes, as if waiting to 
 be allowed to fall — but Mrs. Parr's feeling of in- 
 jurious treatment held good. — There was still the 
 resource of speech ; and to this Lady Heraline had 
 seldom condescended in vain : her lips quivered, and 
 she said, l And are you not sorry to give me up V 
 — ' Not at all/ said Mrs. Parr firmly — but at the 
 next moment, the thought of that alternative 
 which was now imposed on her, occurring, her 
 self-pity did what her pupil's solicitation might not 
 have done : — she burst into tears, bewailed herself, 
 clasped Lady Heraline in her arms, and gave 
 her a most profitable insight into her own power. 
 The young lady did not join in weeping — she stiff- 
 ened her spirit — recanted her weakness — and 
 contemning more than ever, the mind that ought 
 to have formed hers, she departed no more from 
 her supporting haughtiness. 
 
 It was becoming necessary to prove to the earl, 
 by redoubled assiduity, that, in dismissing Goody 
 Parr, as she now affected to call her ejected gou- 
 vernante, an obstacle to improvement had been 
 removed; and consequently new attainments were 
 
HERALINE. 39 
 
 proposed, and new facilitations invented, for pro- 
 ducing a striking effect, against the time of vi- 
 siting St. Emerirs, whither Mrs. Parr had return- 
 ed. To sweeten and requite these dancing-dog 
 and learned-pig inflictions, indulgences were al- 
 lowed by the teachers, and means resorted to, 
 which, while they showed her the price at which 
 she was bribed, tended to sap the foundation of a 
 dignified morality, and to introduce a wild incon- 
 sistency into her character. She was taught to 
 enjoy the secrecy of gratifications — she was put in 
 the way to act clandestinely by her father, and, like 
 the Spartan boys, was blamed when she marred 
 her deceptions by simplicity. Made now the 
 companion of Lord Lynford, to all the various 
 points from which he fought old age and sickness, 
 every place held out new attractions. Wherever a 
 raffle was announced, in spite of her well-implant- 
 ed abhorrence of mean covetousness, the name of 
 Lady Heraline Beltravers was to be found ; and, 
 though hitherto little solicitous for the decoration 
 of her person, she was seen decked in foreign 
 finery. — The earl's experience, probably, in the 
 female world, had given him an abhorrence of 
 the resort to a circulating library for amusement ; 
 consequently, though not without apology for 
 interference, he strictly forbade his daughter's in- 
 dulging any taste for such lore. It was, therefore, 
 
40 HERALINE. 
 
 one of the basest acts of her instructors, secretly 
 to ridicule his formality — to extol certain French 
 writers, whose works were easily to be found in 
 these repositories, and to connive at the inter- 
 course. They had no view to corrupt the prin- 
 ciples of Lady Heraline, in making her unmanage- 
 able : of this they were innocent, and they well 
 knew, that, to guide her, they must use a bit and a 
 rein, to the coercion of which she must remain 
 sensible — their highest aim was to render them- 
 selves necessary to her, and her subservient to 
 them; and for both these purposes, nothing was 
 more requisite than a mutual confidence, which 
 they never could wish, and she never must dare to 
 betray. 
 
 Devonshire and St. Emeril's had now lost 
 their influence over the movements of Lord Lyn- 
 ford : he had always with him that which alone 
 had attracted him so far from London, and he 
 suffered two years to elapse before he visited his 
 estates there. In the mean time, the Lady Hera- 
 line was making all possible improvement under 
 her teachers, and forming juvenile connexions 
 which, except that she was always attended by 
 Madame De Quinte, amounted almost to an in- 
 troduction to the world, of which she was to prove 
 so capital a luminary. All that reserve which is 
 so commendable in prudent mothers, who feel it 
 
HERALINE. 41 
 
 injustice to bring forward their daughters till they 
 are in some degree exempt from the danger of 
 doing themselves harm, was no part of the train- 
 ing of a young female circumstanced as was Lady 
 Heraline. — Before other girls had been shown 
 the opera-house, she had her box there : the earl 
 could not venture to accompany her ; nor could 
 he often spare De Quinte for longer time than to 
 hand her into her box ; but there were ladies in 
 abundance, who under such circumstances would 
 offer themselves as chaperons ; and of Lady 
 Drumcannon his next-door neighbour, who loved 
 every thing that she could not afford, he was al- 
 ways sure, when he wanted Lady Heraline attend- 
 ed. Madame De Quinte was never excluded : 
 she held her station as lady of honour; and in 
 order to obtain for herself a reflex credit by mag- 
 nifying the idol she served, her eye waited a signal 
 from her pupil, before she presumed to sit in her 
 presence when in public. One remark this profun- 
 dity of obeisance drew forth from by-standers — 
 ' that if Lady Heraline Beltravers ever by chance 
 should become royal, she certainly would have 
 little to learn of what was due to herself .' 
 
 At the expiration however of these two years, 
 it was necessary for Lord Lynford to visit St. 
 Emerii's, and Lady Heraline, ' nothing loth/ pre- 
 pared to attend him. That love of the country, 
 
42 HERALINE. 
 
 which it is so delightful to see in young minds, 
 more than counterbalancing the artificial pleasures 
 of the metropolis, still possessed her; and instead 
 of shrinking from a meeting with f Goody Parr,' 
 under the recollection of things better forgotten, 
 she felt pride and exultation in exhibiting her im- 
 proved self, and showing her first instructor how 
 much had been done, which she had been found 
 unable to do. 
 
 There was no such hostility against the poor 
 woman as to make it a subject of resentment, to 
 see her comfortably housed in the family of the 
 vicar of St. EmeriFs, and at the head of his small 
 establishment. Her having found a home might 
 give pleasure to those sensible to her humble pre- 
 tensions, but could excite envy in no one so ex- 
 alted as Madame De Quinte, whose expressions 
 and accompanying gestures, though restrained 
 while her empire was in any degree shared, were 
 significant enough, at least to keep the door shut 
 against any one whom she disliked. 
 
 Lady Heraline's joy at returning to St. Eme- 
 riPs did her credit : the liberty to which it restored 
 her, was natural to her, and had lost none of its 
 charms when compared with the incessant town- 
 life her father contrived to lead, wherever he went. 
 Under the eye of the multitude, however gratified 
 by gaze and admiration, she had lived in shackles. 
 
HERALINE. 43 
 
 — What it was fit for her to do — what would be 
 expected from her — and what the style of her 
 education required, were the obligations to which 
 she was uniformly compelled to submit. — She had 
 lived, at best, in bad imitations of rural scenery ; 
 for that of a villa with a field and a shrubbery- 
 walk, was too much abstracted from his habitual 
 demand of population, to please the earl : the 
 spacious end-house of some new-named sea-row — 
 the centre-house of some new deputy-London 
 square, different numbers of doors in Places, Cres- 
 cents, and Circuses, were as great contrasts as he 
 could admit into his monotonous life, of which 
 every passing year struck off some space of vi- 
 bration. 
 
 In returning to St. EmeriTs, therefore, his 
 lordship seemed to lose all that his daughter gained 
 in liberty. She was eager to make the most of her 
 enjoyments ; and as the extent of ground which 
 she had to revisit, was considerable, every mo- 
 ment of relaxation from tuition, was fully em- 
 ployed in the innocent and almost laudable indul- 
 gence of sweet recollection and infant inter- 
 course. 
 
 To render her education, while in the country, 
 amusing as well as instructive, nothing was spared. 
 She was consulted and indulged, as few other 
 children can be, and fewer still ought to be. She 
 
44 HERALINE. 
 
 was furnished with all the means of acquiring know- 
 ledge that French writers had offered, or a French 
 head could contrive. She had her heroic series — 
 her philosophical series — her historical and poetic 
 series of transmitted resemblances and imputed 
 names. — She had a superb library of quartos and 
 royal octavos, when misses have only juvenile pub- 
 lications in eighteens and twenty-fours. — She had 
 her botanic garden, when other children were 
 setting peas round rose-bushes, and were watching 
 anxiously the coming up of mustard and cresses. 
 As she proceeded, she had her mineralogical ca- 
 binet, to which additions were presented by those 
 who had similar tastes, and perhaps not just the 
 same views — she had her fossils and shells of high 
 beauty and great rarity, all arranged systemati- 
 cally.— She had her little laboratory of chemical 
 surprises, and her pneumatic apparatus of small 
 effects. Nothing came in fashion, or was foreseen 
 as probably becoming so, to which her mind was 
 not twitched rather than directed; and she was 
 learning with some success to read that ne plus 
 ultra of Gallic lore ( Salluste/ and getting by 
 heart the tender sentiments of Ovid's Epistlea. 
 — She wrote billets of French phrase in Latin ; 
 and having acquired the knowledge of the Greek 
 character, was proceeding much in the same way 
 with that. 
 
HERALIN^. 45 
 
 Little of this plan of proceeding was to be 
 decried. As far as the system went, it was all 
 good. The highway is the same to every one ; 
 and she was made well acquainted with that which 
 she was treading. Years probably must elapse 
 before the question occurs, * Have I proceeded no 
 farther?' 
 
 Mrs. Parr had called, with her humble inqui- 
 ries, which were received in a way that said, ' You 
 need not trouble yourself again/ The vicar had paid 
 his respectful visit of congratulation, and had shaken 
 his head in quitting the house, as if he had seen 
 his patron's daughter far gone in some threatening 
 disease. The young lady including in the number 
 of agreeable associations, the church, had made 
 her debut there in a style that did not indicate 
 improvement in the knowledge of her duty. The 
 neighbouring and not-neighbouring families had 
 paid attentions — the middle class had worshipped 
 at due distance — the poor had found her rather 
 generous than charitable — the young women had 
 watched her fashions, and the old had abused 
 them ; and Lady Heraline, now settled again in 
 her native home, and not insensible to the prospect 
 of one day, and perhaps a day not far off, calling 
 it her own, and admitting some one to share it, 
 was not appalled by the warning that she must 
 spend three autumn-months there. 
 
46 HEIIALINE. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 13ut into even this seclusion did evil intrude ; and 
 the earl found that, however closely his increasing 
 infirmities had made him furl his sails, they would 
 catch some stormy blasts to disturb him. He had 
 many years before, bestowed the vicarage of St. 
 Emeril's, as has been said, on his college-tutor, 
 who by chance happened to be eminently a good 
 man. Mr. Meryon, now advancing in years, could 
 feel little respect for his patron ; but gratitude sup- 
 plied its place, and there remained in his mind a 
 feeling of interest, and, in some degree, of com- 
 passion, which he had imbibed in the time of his 
 original connexion with the earl, interest which his 
 ill requital of his cares as a scholar could not 
 extinguish, and compassion which his progress in 
 real wisdom had never enabled him to dismiss. 
 
 During the childhood of the Lady Heraline, 
 Mr. Meryon's assistance had been, as far as her 
 limited powers and proportionate obstinacy would 
 permit, useful to Mrs. Parr ; but even she would 
 not suffer any intrusion that could tend to divide 
 her identity : she would learn to teach ; but un- 
 less under the earl's precise election, would 
 allow no one to take the chair which she filled ; 
 
HERALINE. 47 
 
 and Lord Lynford's attachment to the church 
 was not great enough to make him refer any 
 concern of his daughter's to a spiritual guid- 
 ance. Mr. Meryon had therefore kept his due 
 distance, and had been content to see the little 
 lady take her seat in her family-gallery once 
 a week. In his deportment he was studiously re- 
 spectful and conciliating ; and under the influence 
 of that best charity which makes hope patient and 
 anxiety forbearing, he waited the event of in- 
 creasing years and increasing knowledge, wishing 
 and praying that a lovely girl, so richly endowed 
 with all Heaven's best blessings, might become the 
 wise dispenser of the riches intrusted to her, and 
 herself a blessing to those whom he taught to in- 
 clude her in their prayers for good to themselves. 
 
 In Lord Lynford's return at this time to his 
 possessions, there were, however, circumstances 
 which, in Mr. Meryon's conscientious judgment, 
 called on him to risque something of his own 
 comfort, in preference to a supine acquiescence 
 in a plan productive of evil to others. The Lady 
 Heraline came to church every Sunday morning; 
 aud had he been admitted to intimacy, he must 
 have been gratified in witnessing the resolution she 
 showed in persisting in this habit. The religious 
 profession of those who guided her, if they had 
 any, not admitting of their willingly accompanying 
 
48 HERALINE. 
 
 her, and the earl making no point of their over- 
 coming their scruples, she came alone ; and no- 
 thing in her behaviour indicated interest in what 
 she came for. In short, she set an example, ra- 
 ther bad than edifying; and Mr.Meryon could not 
 but refer this to the utter ignorance in which she 
 must be rearing, under her present tutors. He 
 had baptized her: he wished to see her in due 
 time confirmed ; and on this point he ventured to 
 speak to Lord Lynford, at the same time offering 
 his professional services, and excusing his intrusion 
 by the fear that, educated under persons not Pro- 
 testants, a very essential part of education might 
 not be well attended to. Mr. Meryon might have 
 foreseen the consequences of such an interference 
 — he did see them, and braved them — he had not, 
 by intemperate language or any failure in respect, 
 risqued his own situation in his patron's favour, 
 but he thought there was something more loudly 
 claiming his exertions : — the yearly buck he knew 
 might be forfeited — dues might be less munifi- 
 cently paid — the earl had great powers of re- 
 duction and annoyance, but Lady Heraline was of 
 more consequence than ease or emolument. 
 
 One conference on this business decided the 
 point. After it, there was no more communication 
 between St. Emeril's Court and the vicarage- 
 house. The earl considered himself as attacked 
 
HEliALINE. 49 
 
 in his rank, his understanding, his parental care, 
 and his private opinion. Monsieur and Madame 
 turned to ridicule the cause of this estrangement, 
 and declared their appropriate feeling of the justice 
 of the vicar's punishment; and the Lady Heraline, 
 though but half satisfied, not very sorry to have 
 a strong reason for being shy towards Mrs. Parr, 
 whom she dared not love, and could not hate, ac- 
 quiesced in her father's decision. Mr. Meryon, 
 to satisfy his sense of right, persisted in calling at 
 the great house, till the denial of the earl carried 
 with it something little short of a desire to for- 
 bear : he then wrote, but received no answer. It 
 was easy for Lord Lynford to loll a little back- 
 warder in his carriage, if he encountered the vicar 
 on the highway ; and the young lady, if she crossed 
 in her equestrian airings on his path, reined in her 
 horse, and pulled up her pretty head with a very 
 good representation of defiance. ' Never mind,' 
 said Mr. Meryon to Mrs. Parr, when on some new 
 testifications of pointed ill-humour, she was ready 
 to cry; — l never mind, Mrs. Parr — do your duty ; I 
 will do mine, and depend on it, things will come 
 right at last — I know nothing so pitiable as the 
 blind obstinacy of people who insist on their 
 right of doing wrong, to their own detriment. If 
 revenge were admissible into the mind of a re- 
 sponsible being, we need only turn our coats, and 
 vol. i. D 
 
50 HERA LINE. 
 
 say " All's well ;" but were 1 capable of this in 
 any instance, I could not admit it where this fa- 
 mily are concerned. — This poor intoxicated child 
 will have many a painful feeling to endure at some 
 period or other of her life, if she is to be educated 
 entirely by these people. From what I know of 
 her, there is too much intellectual light in her 
 mind, to admit of her erring without being sen- 
 sible of it, or of her persisting in it to the end, 
 without the conviction of her reason, and all the 
 consequent bitterness of repentance. The natural 
 good in her, will not always suffer her to be un- 
 feeling and haughty, without calling her to ac- 
 count for it. All this L would endeavour to prevent, 
 but I know 1 shall not be suffered to attempt it. She 
 has had the first principles of religion imprinted 
 on her memory : they will not always permit her, 
 with the hardened indifference of an untaught 
 mind, to affront her Maker as she does now, in 
 her treatment of me his minister. While she is 
 under the tutelage of these people, I can have no 
 hope, and she claims all my pity; but I cannot 
 forbear saying, the sooner they are dismissed, the 
 better for her.' 
 
 There were, of necessity, some occasional 
 transactions of business between the offended peer 
 and the forbearing parson, which required inter- 
 course, though they did not meet; and of these 
 
HERALINE. 51 
 
 opportunities, the De Quintes never failed to avail 
 themselves, to fan the flame of waning resentment, 
 if they saw cause to fear that Lord Lynford's 
 consultation of his own ease, made it troublesome 
 to him to be angry, or suspected that his daughter 
 was growing weary of acting ill without sufficient 
 provocation. She would sometimes presume to 
 think, that Mr. Meryon looked very good-natured 
 when she passed him; — some good deed — some 
 testimonial to his disinterested regard for his flock 
 — some praise from those whom he had relieved 
 — some proof of his sagacity — or some powerful 
 exertion of his authority and influence, would find 
 its way occasionally to her; and Mademoiselle 
 Annette having a few intimacies in the neighbour- 
 hood, through the medium of a sea-faring young 
 man who spoke her own language, and whose 
 sister took pains to improve her broken English, 
 could annoy those who controlled her, by occa- 
 sionally reporting well of him whom they re- 
 garded as their enemy. Annette therefore not 
 only served to moderate this foolish, and worse 
 than foolish, hostility ; but, without intending any 
 thing half so good, she kept alive in her youn^ 
 lady a sort of clandestine affection for the vicar. 
 
 Could the De Quintes have prevailed on Lord 
 Lynford to forbid his daughter's weekly attendance 
 at church, they would have gained a great advan- 
 1)2 
 
 LIBRARY ^-w^ 
 " "'VERS,™ OF umos 
 
52 HEKALINE. 
 
 tage; but his lordship had picked up the opinion of 
 some others equally wise, that Christianity, fable 
 as it all was, and below the attention of men, was 
 an excellent mean for the government of the 
 weaker sex. He used an unanswerable argument 
 in speaking on the subject ; he said, ' For instance, 
 I should be exceedingly sorry, very sorry indeed, 
 to have a bit and a curb-rein pulling at my chaps, 
 but I have not the least objection to giving one to 
 my horse — ha, ha, ha! ha, ha, ha! ha, ha, ha!' 
 — Who could answer this ? — It was the unanswer- 
 able question, and the happy figure which decided 
 the query, whether his daughter should have any 
 religion or none ? — Her attendance at church 
 therefore proceeded as matter of course ; and, if 
 the habit added to this mechanical regularity, had 
 not been sufficient impulse, it would have been 
 found in the pleasure of being the principal object 
 and the gazing-stock of a little west-country vil- 
 lage. 
 
 In these attendances, there would occur some- 
 times a sentence that would touch some feeling: 
 had it borne the smallest appearance of intentional 
 reproof, it would have been resented and useless ; 
 but, for what was merely read, Mr. Meryon was 
 not responsible, and no such zeal could be im- 
 puted to the temperate and cordial persuasion to 
 righteousness, which he delivered from the pulpit. 
 
HER ALINE. 53 
 
 Still there was an appeal from his opinion ; and 
 no pains were spared, as opportunity was offered, 
 to depreciate his authority: but when what he 
 said was corroborated by the Bible, which Mrs. 
 Parr with pride and confidence had taught her to 
 respect, nothing that Monsieur or Madame had 
 to say, could effect the smallest change in her 
 straight-forward conclusions; and she was ready, 
 when provoked, to repeat the stigmatizing terms 
 under which she heard their ignorance, as it was 
 called, blamed. 
 
 Fortunately for the Lady Heraline, neither of 
 the De Quintes had any religion. They were 
 nominally Catholics, but without any characteristic 
 of opinion or practice that could entitle them to 
 the appellation, or even to that of Christians. 
 The man professed nothing beyond the religion of 
 nature, and talked of the fields as his temple, and 
 animals as his preachers ; — while his wife, though 
 perpetually apostrophizing the Deity, referred all 
 things to her heart, with a distortion of grimace 
 which the young lady would sometimes imitate 
 and ridicule when alone with Annette. 
 
 Systems, such as these, could not easily super- 
 sede in an intelligent forward girl's mind, the satis- 
 fying truths of revelation. A law laid down — a law 
 broken — terms of forgiveness — promises of reward 
 and threats of punishment, especially when supported 
 D 3 
 
54 HERALINE. 
 
 by interesting narrative, much more easily gained 
 admission into an unprejudiced belief, than the cir- 
 cuitous inconsistencies of the substitutions of the 
 one, or the stage-trick of the other. Her present 
 instructors might have obtained credit for the doc- 
 trine of transubstantiation, and induced her to pay 
 her adorations to a Madonna of Carlo Dolce; but 
 for what they had to bring forward, they obtained 
 no toleration. Limited as had been her religious 
 instruction, and unrecommended as it came from 
 the lips of Goody Parr, the simple facts on which 
 our belief is founded, had made their way to 
 Lady Heraline'shead and heart, however imperfectly 
 she was taught to apply its precepts ; and it would 
 have been a less difficult task to persuade her that 
 two and two do not make four, than that the daily 
 chapter which she had, for five years of her life, 
 read aloud to Goody Parr, and heard occasionally 
 at church, contained any thing that was not true. 
 The inference of moral obligation remained still 
 to be drawn ; and that it had not been already 
 drawn, was much to be deplored. Such a belief 
 might be denominated prejudice, by those not con- 
 versant with " the power even an infant-intellect 
 has of appreciating truth : — if it be prejudice, and 
 not rather the provision laid up by wisdom and 
 mercy for future use, it is, and ever will be found, 
 
HERALINE. 55 
 
 a prejudice of inestimable value, when it remains 
 the only resource of late conviction. 
 
 In the life of distinguished personages, the 
 season of childhood is very short : the manners 
 are brought forward ; and the mind does not al- 
 ways choose to remain behind. Lady Heraline's 
 ideas were not those of a girl of her age in com- 
 mon life : nor were her estimations of good aud 
 evil, right and wrong, those of the vulgar. Pride, 
 under both the administrations that had served her, 
 and no less under the earl's fostering care, furnished 
 the major part of her feelings : to be exalted, rich, 
 and greatly married, were her natural intentions ; 
 and these not allowing any great range of choice, 
 were points soon settled, though not dismissed. 
 What should be the good uses made of these in- 
 tentions, when converted into performances, had 
 not yet entered her thoughts. 
 
 From Monsieur De Quinte's process in some 
 branches of her education, she had acquired a dis- 
 position to question and to doubt, which, but for 
 the effect of habit on her mind, might have led to 
 bad consequences ; but fortunately the pride and 
 haughtiness inculcated on her, inclined her to exer- 
 cise this scepticism on those by whom it would be 
 most felt ; and she often put her tutor's patience 
 to a trial, and drove him to sad subterfuges, by her 
 staits from the subject before her, and by scarcely- 
 d4 
 
56 HERALINE. 
 
 connected questions. When not satisfied with the 
 answers she obtained, she would resort to her 
 father, who, recollecting his own plan of the bit 
 and the curb for females, gave her the solution of 
 any difficulty, in the way best according with his 
 scheme, which scheme having a far better founda- 
 tion in itself than that he assigned it, answered 
 the best purposes, and rendered Lady Heraline 
 Beltravers a much better theologian than her tutor. 
 Two simple questions which she had asked the 
 earl, on returning one Sunday from church, had 
 brought out answers that rooted her in her preju- 
 dices. — The one was, in sum and substance, whether 
 there had not been persons who had repented their 
 having no sense of religion. — ' Certainly/ the earl 
 replied ; adding, that ' it was very necessary for all 
 young ladies who wished to conduct themselves 
 properly, to read their Bible/ — The other was, 
 whether any body, when going to die, ever repented 
 having given credit to the Scriptures. — It was as 
 convenient as it was true, to give a hearty negative 
 to this question ; and the querist was satisfied. 
 
HERALINE. 57 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Lady Heraline might have remained content- 
 edly at St. Emeril's, even longer than it suited her 
 father to continue there ; but De Quinte and his 
 wife sighed for a return to London ; and to obtain 
 their wish, the shortest method was to prompt her 
 ladyship to think herself weary ; and at the expi- 
 ration of the time vaguely mentioned as that of the 
 residence in Devonshire, to hint to her ihe neces- 
 sity of doing something to terminate it. The 
 earl's well-known pride of indulgence to his 
 daughter, was encouraging, and there was little he- 
 sitation in her manifesting her wishes. They would 
 have been laws to him, had not a more strenuous 
 coercion stept in between her power and his sub- 
 mission, in the shape of a paralytic seizure, while 
 he was giving his orders for a removal to Bath 
 in the way to London. 
 
 It was the first violent check the impatience of 
 the Lady Heraline had experienced, though de- 
 mands were daily made on her acquiescence, and 
 her life perhaps, studiously spoiled as she was, 
 had not been productive of half the real plea- 
 sure enjoyed by one of a large family of children, 
 V Q 
 
58 HERALINE. 
 
 in a less important rank of society. Unacquainted 
 with the nature of any disease, and not greatly 
 alarmed by an enemy that approached with a foot- 
 step so silent, she, by chance or through peevish- 
 ness, hit upon a true conclusion when she con- 
 sidered herself as now doomed to a tedious wait- 
 ing. 
 
 On the earl's first attack, he had called for 
 her ; and his life was at the time considered as in 
 danger ; but he rallied ; and now came a season 
 of protracted trial, for which nothing had prepared 
 her : he would not suffer her to be out of his sight, 
 and she was a prisoner in a darkened room, com- 
 pelled to listen to the unintelligible waitings and 
 imperfect self-commiserations of a surprised cap- 
 tive. She was not permitted to employ herself : 
 every rustling of paper, every motion of her hand, 
 disturbed his irritated nerves. — ' What's o'clock?' 
 — ' When will my dinner come ?' ' Where's De 
 Quinte ?' ' Is my jelly made V ' When am I to 
 take my draught?' were the questions she had to 
 construe and to answer ; and the orders issued cor- 
 responded with them. Her replies and obediences 
 were to be as little disquieting as possible ; and 
 had it not been for the vent allowed her feelings 
 when she could escape for a few minutes, she 
 might have suspected that the earl's life and hers 
 were twined into one thread, and that she was to die 
 
HKRALINE. 59 
 
 with him. Hints in that language best calculated 
 to hint, had been thrown out, that as the father's 
 lamp burnt more and more dim, the daughter's 
 would burn more bright ; but she was dejected 
 and impatient beyond the power of catching at this 
 comfort. 
 
 The worst, the really pitiable part of her en- 
 durance, did not, however, last to extremity. The 
 earl rose from his bed ; and from his couch in 
 his chamber, was moved to that in his dressing- 
 room. De Quinte was admitted to supply the 
 place of the Lady Heraline while she took exer- 
 cise ; and by degrees, save and except the reading 
 the newspaper, which the foreign accent of Mon- 
 sieur and Madame would not admit of their under- 
 taking, they judiciously contrived to exonerate 
 their noble charge from most of the irksome duties 
 imposed on her. — Still she could not be insensible 
 to the yoke and the bridle. 
 
 And even when restored in some measure to 
 the usual routine of her life at St. Emeril's Court, 
 the recollection of recent suffering was too strong, 
 and the fear of repetition too just, to allow her to 
 be herself again. That she had wished herself 
 away from the place where she was, rendered that 
 place extremely unpleasant when she could not get 
 away. — Every thing had lost its power of being 
 d6 
 
60 HERALINE. 
 
 agreeable ; and she was offended, if reminded that 
 she once had been fond of St. Emeril's. 
 
 Not caring to ask what chance she stood of 
 emancipation in one way, she made use of the con- 
 verse proposition to satisfy herself, and expressed 
 anxiety to know the probable time of her fathers 
 convalescence. The answers given her by his medi- 
 cal council, were not very well calculated to en- 
 courage her : they told her that the earl was in 
 that state of medium-existence, equally removed 
 from hope of amendment or prospect of termina- 
 tion : ' his lordship, though yet unable to use the 
 hand or foot of one side, might recover this lost 
 power, or, even without their services, reach a still 
 farther advanced period of old age — there was no 
 existing reason why he should not live to ninety — 
 longevity ran much in families ; and his ancestry 
 had been conspicuous in that particular privilege — 
 at the same time, nothing could/ they confessed, 
 * be more precarious than a life so wounded — he 
 might have another, and a fatal, seizure at any mo- 
 ment : his ease, quiet, and inclination, must be 
 uniformly consulted : all vicissitudes must be 
 avoided. Bath might be of service to him ; but he 
 seemed to have too great a reluctance to be seen 
 in his crippled state, to admit of urging it on his 
 adoption/ — His daughter burst into tears of de- 
 spondence and vexation ; and, without intending to 
 
HERALINE. 6 1 
 
 mislead, got great credit for her affectionate feel- 
 ings. 
 
 With the De Quintes she had no scruples. 
 They whispered, and she echoed expressions of 
 dismay. — His lordship was not the easier to please 
 or serve, for his late shake of nerves ; and the com- 
 plaints of these his proximate ministers, went little 
 short of predicting that he would live to plague and 
 bury his daughter and half his household. 
 
 Words such as these found their way to the 
 Lady Heraline's most apprehensive feelings ; and 
 her tutors soon saw that the petulance of their 
 tongues had converted her ladyship into a refrac- 
 tory idol, requiring no less direction and observance 
 in her way, than the earl did in his. They must 
 now seek to please her whom they had hitherto 
 only sought to govern, or some violent proceeding, 
 on her part, might betray their methods, introduce 
 a new administration, and turn them out, unrequit- 
 ed for their labours. Her ladyship had, under the 
 secret prompting of Annette, clandestinely sounded 
 her father on the probable benefit of Bath, but had 
 been forbidden to mention the subject again. She 
 had cast about, with a subtil ty superinduced by dis- 
 content, for association and volunteered accom- 
 paniment ; and a resolution i to endure all this no 
 longer,' had escaped her lips. — For the time, she 
 was again pacified by the vehement undertaking! 
 
6 ( 1 HERALINE. 
 
 of De Quinte for some undefined alteration : he 
 gave her to understand that he knew more and saw 
 more than he revealed ; and another half-year was 
 passed without entitling the period of its conclusion 
 to pronounce either her situation, or that on which 
 hers depended, materially better. Lord Lyuford 
 could take his airings, was dressed as heretofore, 
 could read his newspapers himself, and audit his 
 accounts; therefore his privations were not great: 
 he could not indeed bear to be seen by visitors ; 
 and the mention of them consequently made him 
 peevish ; but the renunciation this demanded from 
 Lady Heraline was not very grievous to her, as she 
 had little intimacy of disposition about her, and this 
 was a season when the country was very much de- 
 serted. She said and she felt, that if she was to 
 be immured, she would rather not see or hear those 
 who had it in their power to remind her of her 
 misery. 
 
 The habit of going to church still adhered to 
 her ; and whatever attempts she had made to 
 reason herself out of this formality, for which she 
 was very much at a loss to find an excuse, did not 
 quite avail. Mr. Meryon continued to do the 
 duty, and the absence of novelty made his sermon 
 an occasional amusement. He had never preach- 
 ed a Petit Careme for her : she could take to her- 
 self nothing but what any villager might have dis- 
 
HERALINE. 63 
 
 puted with her ; and in the pettish vexation of her 
 mind, she would now and then affect to feel af- 
 fronted that she was so entirely passed over, as 
 never to hear any thing addressed to her rank of per- 
 sonages. This growing jealousy, perverse as it was, 
 made her, as she listened for entertainment, catch 
 at any sentiment suited to herself: — she discussed it 
 rapidly, and nodded or shook her head, as her pro- 
 found judgment and sage experience dictated. She 
 was on this quest of regard, when the good old man 
 preached on the relative duties of life, as becoming 
 to us, according to our method of performing 
 them, either pleasant or painful, either hinderances 
 or accelerations to us in our path to a better state 
 of existence. He told his flock — and he told them 
 true — that the cares of this life, fairly met and sup- 
 ported, brought their own reward ; but that to 
 whoever shrunk from them, or sought selfish com- 
 fort in the disregard of them, they would be thorns 
 and briers, even when they ceased. He might 
 have said, ' Would yon lovely heiress subdue her 
 mind to the trial now appointed her patience — 
 would she say with the anxious alacrity of Samuel 
 at an old man's bedside, " Here I am, for thou 
 calledst me;" — in short, would she set her heart on 
 her duty now, how would she not be repaid in 
 future r — and without the necessity of correction — 
 without the agonies of self-reproach — without the 
 
64 HERA LINE. 
 
 degradation of repentance ! * — But of all suspicions 
 of such application, Mr. Meryon, too well versed 
 in human chances to play against great odds, 
 kept clear ; and the Lady Heraline's good sense 
 and smelling-salts, enabled her to decide anew, as 
 she had often before done, that there was le grand 
 morale for the noblesse, and le petit morale for the 
 bourgeoisie. — The De Quintes had said so, and she 
 was, just now, more than usually inclined to believe 
 them infallible. 
 
 But it was not by such half-lent attention that 
 the Lady Heraline could learn the importance of 
 her duties, or by her subsequent casuistry disen- 
 cumber herself of them. Her sins of ignorance 
 were few — it was not under want of light, how- 
 ever sparingly diffused over her pampered mind, 
 that she erred — but the light that should have 
 guided her, she contemned and refused, without 
 being able to extinguish it, or to endure it. Un- 
 der this vexation of spirit, she was every day more 
 vexatious to those under her control ; and though 
 her tutors would have spurned the being suppos- 
 ed thus influenced, it was nevertheless true that 
 they looked with anxiety to her smiles, and with 
 fear to her frowns. She had, and they felt it, their 
 destiny in her hands ; and it was their interest to 
 be cautious. 
 
 A better daughter has sometimes gained less 
 
HEttALINE. 6\5 
 
 credit in attendance on an infirm parent than did 
 the heartless Lady Heraline. Under Mademoi- 
 selle Annette's comforting, she had given herself a 
 perverse habit of indifference, which made all she 
 did monotonous ; therefore her conduct appeared 
 equable ; and perhaps it was not known distinctly 
 to herself, that she stood completely in awe of the 
 earl ; therefore she had the praise of duty. No- 
 thing was too strong an expression of her harassed 
 feelings out of his hearing ; but in it, she felt sub- 
 dued by his irritability and suspended on his ca- 
 prices; therefore she had self-command. He was 
 perfectly — under De Quinte — master of his own 
 house, and — with not even the intervention of Ma- 
 dame De Quinte — lord over his own daughter. 
 
66 1:1 EKA LINE. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 There was too much now imposed upon the 
 suffering patience of the De Quintes, for even their 
 prudence to endure. The earl, in all his vagaries, 
 which left his prime-minister no certainty of repose 
 by night nor rest by day, must be tolerated ; but 
 some expedient must be found to prevent the Lady 
 Heraline's prosecuting a plan of at least tempo- 
 rary emancipation by an absence from home, un- 
 der the pretence of invitation from her London 
 chaperon, Lady Drumcannon, who corresponding 
 with her at all times, and now, under inclosure to 
 the soubrette, speaking her commiserating senti- 
 ments of her sad confinement, stood ready to se- 
 cond any thing that the sufferer could devise. 
 Lord Drumcannon not being a peer of England, 
 was abroad to avoid his creditors : her ladyship 
 was quite at leisure to be franked to any populous 
 quarter of the globe : she hated Madame De Quinte 
 as an obtruded spy, when Lady Heraline was in 
 London : and though she saw the necessity of out- 
 complimenting the foreigners, would have been 
 happy to supplant them, and accept, what she 
 doubted not in that case would have been offered 
 
HERALINE. 6? 
 
 to her, the feminine half of the guardianship of the 
 Lady Heraline. Enough of this was seen to ex- 
 cite the jealousy of the foreign pair, and to call up 
 their best endeavours to thwart the plan, and keep 
 their charge out of the old lady's hands. 
 
 The situation of the De Quintes as man and 
 wife, afforded them facilities which no other could 
 have admitted. They could, in private, arrange 
 their proceedings ; and therefore were not tardy 
 in their self-defence. It was agreed, on a minute 
 discussion, that their only chance for out-bidding 
 the old dowager, lay in the resource of interesting 
 the heart of Lady Heraline — an undertaking, in her 
 present situation, not very likely to be accomplish- 
 ed by them. 
 
 She was indeed advanced in womanhood ; — 
 and, in her former juvenile parties for improve- 
 ment or amusement, had not been wanting in 
 her distinction of the lads who best pleased her 
 eye — the army, as a profession, had her favour — 
 and good style of manners, well-chosen fashions, 
 and even fine eyes and well-set teeth, had not been 
 lost upon her observation; but at present there 
 was not a youth of pretension within reach — and 
 below her rank, all who knew Lady Heraline, were 
 convinced, she would never look. Mr. Meryon 
 took no pupils to give her an option of clandestine 
 melancholy ; and a recommendation from persons 
 
fi8 HEKALINE. 
 
 who could be described as the De Quintes might 
 be, she could not be supposed to accept. Yet 
 the expedient of having his contriving head half 
 buried in a trunk, when she wanted Monsieur one 
 morning to listen to her in private, answered every 
 purpose. 
 
 He had been sent to town on business of im- 
 portance, and had been but a few hours returned, 
 when the young lady sought him. Seeing him un- 
 usually occupied, and, when he raised his head out 
 of the trunk, perceiving his countenance disturbed, 
 she asked what he was doing. The question seem- 
 ed to increase his disturbance ; but she was put off 
 with a promise that, at a more convenient oppor- 
 tunity, she should hear : — the promise was given 
 in a way to make her expect more than she had 
 asked, and she waited with as little patience as her 
 accustomed stock usually furnished, for the hour 
 of revelation. 
 
 She was not disappointed ; but previous to the 
 disclosure, her expectation had been wrought up 
 to the height by the manner of Madame, who 
 seemed to have caught the disturbance of aspect 
 which Lady Heraline had remarked in De Quinte. 
 Her ladyship made no scruple of noticing this, but 
 receiving for answer from Madame De Quinte, a 
 reference to the promise which she knew Lady 
 Heraline had obtained, she was satisfied, and uot j 
 
HERALIXE. 69 
 
 little pleased with additional hints thrown out of 
 the astonishing story she had to hear. 
 
 The canvass thus primed, was ready for the 
 colours to be laid on it by the skilful hand of De 
 Quinte ; and well knowing how to interest a fe- 
 male heart like that he had now so long studied, he 
 began by the affectation of a candid disclosure of 
 his own private circumstances. With the then 
 distracted situation of his country, Lady Heraline 
 was well acquainted : he had now to tell her that 
 his friendships and connexions there, had been of 
 the first description, and that it was for some of 
 those to whom he was bound by every tie, that he 
 was now feeling the most distressing anxiety. Hi* 
 dear friend le Due de Quelquechose was dead ; 
 his amiable son le Comte de Quelquun had, at 
 the hazard of his life, and with the abandonment 
 of all his immense property, made his escape to 
 England : he was a lovely charming youth, nine- 
 teen years of age, accustomed to all the elegancies 
 of life, and now, in danger of wanting bread. ' That 
 trunk into which she had seen him diving, was the 
 repository of all this youth's remaining possessions 
 — he had intrusted them to his care ; and she could 
 not wonder at the feelings excited by the moment. 
 — She should have been in London — she should 
 have seen the agonized note which he had found 
 awaiting his chance-return to Grosvenor Square — 
 
70 HERALINE. 
 
 it ought to have been sent express to him — he 
 wished he had it about him — where could it be ? — 
 he would show it her when he found it — there was 
 nothing more touching in Voltaire, or in the sensi- 
 tive Jean Jacques/ 
 
 The commentary of foreign gesticulation said 
 all that prudence or modesty forbade the tongue to 
 tell. — It said, ' J went to him — I comforted him — 
 I gave him all I had — ill as I could spare it — for 
 I have a most grateful excellent heart.' 
 
 And verily, incredible as it may seem, the Lady 
 Heraline's eyes were suffused with tears, under 
 those soft impressions* — But let them not be set 
 down to the account of pure unsophisticated com- 
 passion. — Lady Heraline would not have been, at 
 this time, hard-hearted towards any distress that 
 had been presented to her feelings ; but she would 
 not have felt as she did now, for any thing but a 
 handsome lad fallen from high estate — there is a 
 very engaging period of youth, when the heart is 
 soon mollified — and there is another period of de- 
 parted youth, when it is not less disposed to receive 
 impressions — the heart in hope of love, is all ten- 
 derness — the heart in despair of love, is all enthu- 
 siasm — neither the one state nor the other has the 
 least claim to any thing beyond excuse. 
 
 Tt was not De Quinte's intention to work on 
 Lady Heraline to the expense of her purse or her 
 
HERALINE. 71 
 
 note-case ; but when, in all the grace of sympathy, 
 she proffered a delicate bit of paper with 'Twenty- 
 five' in Gothic characters, he saw instantly many 
 good reasons against declining the boon — and he 
 felt encouraged more and more to enter into the 
 detail of the young count's pretensions. — She was 
 not shy in inquiring, nor in confessing to Annette 
 and Madame the next morning, that her night's 
 rest had been sacrificed to her painful recollec- 
 tions. — The work was done : the experience of a 
 few days showed that the impression did not wear 
 out. She sat patiently to hear the affectionate 
 lamentations of Monsieur and Madame, interrupt- 
 ing them in a way indicating a strong disposition to 
 be farther interested, and not half satisfied with the 
 generalizing description of grace and beauty which 
 her questions obtained for her. That all was per- 
 fection in this youth, she was well inclined to be- 
 lieve ; but the detail of perfections was, for very 
 prudent reasons, withheld. 
 
 A fine opportunity of making progress in this 
 interesting and interested business, was offered by 
 the necessity of a grateful acknowledgment of the 
 Lady Heraline's munificence; and De Quinte pro- 
 duced from the interior of a letter to himself, a 
 billet of elegant appearance written in the tender- 
 e8t style of gratitude, and concluding with four 
 lines of poetry perfectly French. It was impos- 
 
72 HERALINE. 
 
 sible now to repress the wish to know more of 
 this charming young man ; and Annette, at the next 
 confabulation, believing all that she heard, and 
 probably in hopes of a speedy restoration to her 
 own country as Jemme de chambre to a bride, 
 boldly suggested the broad measure of trying to 
 prevail on the earl to join in her noble feelings, 
 and to become himself the young man's generous 
 protector. — This gracious intention was first ex- 
 perimentized on Monsieur, and introduced by a 
 sigh and a repetition of the wish to see this object 
 of pity ; but it met no encouragement from De 
 Quinte : he could bring forward strong arguments 
 against the feasibility of such a scheme, the strong- 
 est of all, the absolute necessity of secrecy as to 
 the young count's retreat. A palliative for disap- 
 pointment was however soon found in the produc- 
 tion of a miniature-picture, representing a youth 
 some years younger than he was described, but of 
 uncommon beauty, dressed in a Venetian costume 
 — a costume of all others the most favourable to 
 such pretentions. 
 
 For some months, Lady Heraline was para- 
 lysed by this picture ; and releasing her instructors 
 from all their exertions for her, she felt full em- 
 ployment in the cultivation of a morbid sensibility, 
 the stagnant surface of which was disturbed only 
 by the ingenuity of Monsieur in fabricating mes- 
 
 4 
 
HERALINE. 73 
 
 sages and billets, to which she replied in a mannei 
 which her native pride happily preserved her from 
 rendering degrading to herself. She was not yet 
 come to that point of prudence which would have 
 made her rejoice that her sign-manual never went 
 farther than the chamber of her tutors. 
 
 The picture was now her comfort and her 
 companion — it travelled from her bosom to her 
 pillow ; and the De Quintes found themselves 
 much gainers in quiet by the absorption it pro- 
 duced. When the earl was a little more indispos- 
 ed than usual, Monsieur and Madame could pre- 
 serve a respectful silence, well knowing their 
 eleve's sources of consolation; — and Annette, with- 
 out recognizing what she might presume the feel- 
 ings of her young lady, could hint at the soulage- 
 metit of la belle passion. 
 
 Still Lady Heraline's impatience to be more 
 at liberty to be unhappy, made her wish that any 
 accident would reveal to her father the state of 
 what she thought her heart, and many expedients 
 suggested themselves to her ; but all had their re- 
 lative objections. The most rational mode of 
 proceeding would have been to interest her veteran 
 friend Lady Di umcannon in the affair ; but she 
 needed not the especial advice of Annette to avoid 
 this as the worst of all the rocks her little bark of 
 hope could split on. — She would as soon have 
 
 VOL. I. E 
 
74 HERALINE. 
 
 consulted her shoemaker on her head-dress, as 
 Lady Drumcannon on the present occupation of 
 her mind : her ladyship might be an excellent 
 chaperon ; but it was out of all calculation that 
 she could, in this moment of exigency, derive com- 
 fort from her. She did not distrust her on the 
 score of too rigid principle or too firm prudence — 
 she only concluded that she had no feeling, because 
 she was old. — The inference was not perfectly 
 fair : there are old ladies who, like old sportsmen, 
 retain the relish of their former amusements. 
 
 The consequence of this perception of the dowa- 
 ger's inadaptability to the necessities of the present 
 occupying contingency, was the suspension of inter- 
 course in that quarter. It was impossible that Lady 
 Heraline could so far detach her mind from its ob- 
 ject as to write to Lady Drumcannon, when she 
 could not assist her. Neglect was of no conse- 
 quence ; departure from professions did not strike 
 her ; and if ever Lady Drumcannon was mention- 
 ed by the earl, Lady Heraline told herself she 
 would, at her first leisure, just be civil. 
 
 The clouds broke of themselves ; and an op- 
 portunity of furthering her own warmest interests 
 was presented, in a low-spirited fit of Lord Lyn- 
 ford's disease, in which he began to despair of him- 
 self and to give vent to his fatherly anxieties. 
 
 It was not, just now, his daughter's policy to 
 
HERALINE. 75 
 
 endeavour to dispel these. — She was more disposed 
 to admit them as just, to sympathize with them as 
 tender, and to confirm them by her acceptance and 
 adoption. — A sigh and an averted look effected all 
 this. 
 
 It was her birth-day ; and the earl t was sorry 
 his situation would not admit of any festive ob- 
 servance of it/ 
 
 ( The servants may do as usual, I suppose, 
 my lord/ said she, rather emphatically. 
 
 His lordship proceeded to bemoan himself; 
 and told himself ' what a distressing thing it would 
 be to his daughter to be deprived of such a father.' 
 
 1 If I had but had a brother!' said she with a 
 \o\er Me facade of earnestness. — 
 
 Lord Lynford was going to interrupt her- — but 
 she interrupted herself — ' But then indeed ' 
 
 * Aye, " then indeed," you may well say/ re- 
 iterated he — ' But then indeed ' 
 
 There was a tone in this, which made the Lady 
 Heraline change hers. — She looked very melan- 
 choly, and directed her eyes full on her father's 
 face, but with a tenderness of expression which she 
 hoped would not pass unnoticed. 
 
 She was inexperienced: — she had not calculat- 
 ed on the small proportion which the invalids who 
 care for the feelings o others, bear to the majority 
 who are engrossed by their own. — It was lost la- 
 e2 
 
76 HERALINE. 
 
 boiir ; and now the father and daughter seemed 
 competitors in the endeavour to make each other 
 feel painfully. 
 
 ' When I am gone — and I think I cannot last 
 long now— you must keep the De Quintes with 
 you — it is your best plan, at least till you are of 
 
 age, or I should have liked to have lived to see 
 
 you married — but I shall be in my grave long be- 
 fore that happens.' 
 
 1 My situation,' replied the Lady Heraline, 
 taking out her handkerchief, ' will be most distress- 
 ing — and the De Quintes, my lord, though they 
 might be very useful to you, 1 should think very 
 improper persons to protect me.* 
 
 1 Why, what else can I do ? — I have named, of 
 course, Lady Drumcannon your guardian ; but 
 you cannot so well live with her — you must have 
 your own establishment ; and the De Quintes will 
 be the properest people at the head of it.' 
 
 ' I could have wished, indeed, you could have 
 lived, my lord, to see me settled to your satisfac- 
 tion ; for I am sure I shall be miserably uncom- 
 fortable/ 
 
 ■ But how are you to be settled ? — There are 
 many young men that I might like very well to give 
 you to ; and things, I will own, have been hinted 
 to me from more quarters than one ; but I am not 
 in a state to make the election.' 
 3 
 
HERALINE. 77 
 
 Now was the moment of projection. ' Will 
 you let me choose for myself?' said her ladyship, 
 advancing unconsciously from her seat. 
 
 ' Hey-day !* exclaimed his lordship — ' Pray 
 let me know, Lady Heraline, who is the happy 
 man — pray tell me who it is that is to be honoured 
 with the possession of my property ; for, after all, 
 something may depend upon my choice. — I did 
 not quite expect this, I must confess — but I am a 
 poor broken-down creature — of no consequence 
 now to any body — so I might have expected this. 
 — ^Pray, madam, let me into your councils — if I 
 may be so bold.' 
 
 Lady Heraline was not by nature courageous 
 beyond her sex ; and the character she was form- 
 ing for herself, though it might improve her in that 
 which, if harshness were excusable, might be call- 
 ed audacity, was not well calculated to give her a 
 contempt of danger on principle. — She would al- 
 most have rejoiced to see the floor open at her 
 feet ; but she had gone too far to recede. The 
 moment was come that was to decide probably her 
 fate for life — she pictured to herself the count at 
 the park-gates ; and, as the shortest way of opening 
 them, and giving her father the information he 
 requested, she produced the beloved miniature, 
 and said, ' This,' my lord, * is the object of my 
 choice.' 
 
 e 3 
 
78 HERALINE. 
 
 Every ailment that had diminished the loco- 
 motive powers of the earl, seemed overcome or for- 
 gotten. He was ready to leap from his chair 
 while, looking at the picture, which Lady Heraline 
 would not trust out of her own fingers, he asked, 
 whence she had that miniature. 
 
 Concluding that every emotion must be in 
 her favour, she revealed the history of the young 
 Frenchman, concealing, out of delicacy it must be 
 supposed to him, the depressed state of his finances, 
 and certainly out of a still more laudable re- 
 gard towards herself, the assistance she had sent 
 him. Perhaps it was because she thought it su- 
 perfluous or dangerous, that she did not reveal the 
 little romance of correspondence which they had es- 
 tablished: — subtracting these three particulars, the 
 object of her excited passion stood only in his na- 
 tural situation, a man of high rank — in his enforced 
 situation, one of the many thousand sufferers under 
 state-convulsions — and in his relative situation, the 
 object on which all the rays of those dispositions 
 which constituted her mind, concentrated them- 
 selves. 
 
 Gratified beyond even her high feeling of what- 
 ever contributed to her indulgence, when thus, as 
 she thought, a call was made upon her frankness ; 
 while the earl remained in a state of comparative 
 abstraction, she proceeded, in hope of turning the 
 
HERALINE. 79 
 
 balance decidedly to her own side, to heap charms 
 and pretensions on the young man, such as she 
 thought best suited to win her father's regard. It 
 was an ad libitum movement — no wax-doll in a 
 toy-shop was ever more at liberty to receive 
 fashions and decorations from the hand of a new 
 purchaser. Nothing but a good taste prevented 
 the union of incongruities. 
 
 E4 
 
80 HERALINE. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 What was the height from which Lady Heraline 
 fell— what was the depth into which she fell, 
 when her father, who had not suffered his counte- 
 nance to give her any warning, replied with inef- 
 fable contempt — ' A fine story they have told you ! 
 why, the picture is mine !' 
 
 1 Yours, my lord !' repeated his daughter — c It 
 never could be like you! 
 
 ' I mean/ said Lord Lynford, ' it is mine by 
 right and by possession ; and I beg it may be return- 
 ed to the cabinet from which it was taken — Did 
 you take it out?' 
 
 ' No — no — indeed, my lord/ 
 
 'Who then?' 
 
 1 I had it from Monsieur or Madame — I do 
 not exactly recollect which of them it was who 
 gave it last to me — But who is it, my lord ?' 
 
 1 Who is it ? Why it is — the young Pretender : 
 — you have heard of him, hav'n't you ? ' 
 
 ' Why, they told me it was the young count.' 
 
 ' Pooh ! — it is no young count, I assure you — 
 here is some mischief going on — either you are 
 deceiving me, Heraline, or they have some scheme 
 
HERA LINE. 81 
 
 against you. — God bless my soul ! — this is enough 
 to finish me at once — I shall be in my grave in a 
 week — I am all over in such a tremor — these 
 people — these people that I have so trusted ! — 
 God bless my soul ! — It is hard to have such things 
 come upon me — and in my precarious state — with 
 one foot in the grave.' 
 
 ' Shall I call Monsieur?' said Lady Heraline 
 intimidated. 
 
 ' No no — not now — if there is to be any ques- 
 tion, I cannot stand it — give me the picture — and 
 give me some lavender-drops — there they stand — 
 can't you see ? — no, no — not that bottle — that is 
 the aether — Lord bless me \ don't you know red 
 lavender from aether ? — put thirty drops upon a bit 
 of sugar — -there, there, I am sure there 's enough — 
 bring it me. — There — now I shall be better — but 
 give me the picture — I say, give me the picture.' 
 
 She reluctantly obeyed, frightened at the dis- 
 obedience connected with her obedience ; for the 
 De Quintes had not failed to impress on her mind 
 the secrecy in which she must enjoy the possession 
 of the miniature. — Two considerations acting in 
 an opposite direction to the simple impulse of 
 duty, she almost doubted what she ought to do — 
 but her father's last tone settled her proceeding; 
 and a few words of milder persuasion, which 
 seemed to acquit her, however he might condemn 
 B5 
 
82 HERALINE. 
 
 others, left her to the bitter feeling of this renun- 
 ciation, but without the added suffering of the 
 terror which had at first shaken her. 
 
 Having presumed to act in this nice affair with- 
 out instruction, and having gone counter to all 
 the injunctions she had received, she felt extremely 
 at a loss to answer even the questions now put to 
 her in order to get at the truth, so as to ward off 
 evil from the De Quintes. Utterly losing all 
 ability of pilotage in the unknown narrow sea 
 which threatened her with shipwreck of her best 
 hopes, she seized what she thought the exigency of 
 the moment, and affirmed and denied what before 
 she had denied and affirmed, till she was giddy 
 with confusion, apprehensive for herself if the De 
 Quintes should in any way be made to suffer for 
 her rashness, and unwilling or feeling it impossible 
 to forego their mediation in her most important in- 
 terest ; for, as yet, her faith in the existence of the 
 charming foreigner was not shaken. The pre- 
 vious question of the miniature remained for dis- 
 cussion ; but this her sagacity told her was not, of 
 necessity, connected with the story of the count. 
 
 The earl still animated by the business before 
 him, but shrinking from the violence of conflict, 
 for his own sake as well as his daughter's, conde- 
 scended to mild expressions as he proceeded, in no 
 very sagacious way, in this investigation. He had, 
 
HERALINE. 83 
 
 however, brought her to the point of a succinct re- 
 lation of the whole affair, which he heard with to- 
 lerable patience ; and at its conclusion, giving her 
 the key of a cabinet which stood in a room which, 
 as given up to papers and parchments, she seldom 
 visited, he told her that, if his claims to the picture 
 deserved credit, she would find there, if not the 
 case in which it was usually deposited, at least 
 some proof that something was wanting. She 
 could not deny that the appearance of the cabinet 
 agreed with what he had taught her to expect — 
 a case which the picture fitted was there ; and it 
 was empty ; but still la belle passion and the ro- 
 mance of the count were predominant over the 
 credit due merely to a father who might have views 
 in deceiving her. It mattered not that, through 
 life he had shown indulgence, in all the weakness 
 of excess, to her inclinations — it was of no avail that 
 she was the sole object of his anxiety — that he had 
 not the habit of imposing on her — and that she 
 had no foundation for distrust. The De Quintes, 
 to many of whose paltry dealings she was privy — 
 to whose management of her father she was no 
 stranger, and who were in no way entitled to 
 credit, had told her what it was agreeable to her 
 to believe ; and she believed them, in spite even 
 of no small degree of dislike to them. She how- 
 « ver, for the present, acquiesced in the earl's con- 
 
84 HERALINE. 
 
 trol over her ; and when, under great exhaustion, 
 he demanded a truce till the morrow, and enjoined 
 the most perfect silence till he had considered how 
 lie might best act, she began to revolve in her 
 mind the great advantage she had gained by the 
 disclosure, and to question whether a decisive 
 step that should substitute asking pardon for ask- 
 ing permission, or a feigned renunciation and 
 patient waiting the fulfilment of his lordship's pro- 
 mises of a short demand on her powers of endur- 
 ance, were the preferable mode of conducting her 
 now avowedly important affair. At all events, 
 her father knew she was in love, and the softened 
 tone with which he had broken off their conver- 
 sation, did not leave her without hope : — he might 
 talk to De Quinte in private, and his favour- 
 able disposition might exculpate her from blame 
 for the revelation she had made — or De Quinte, 
 when he perceived how far the affair had gone, 
 might try to persuade his lordship to what he 
 might already well know was her inclination — it 
 was, too clearly to be questioned, the interest of 
 the De Quintes to obtain her gratification — in 
 short, she would just hear what Annette had to 
 say, and then she should consider herself as in a 
 far better situation than a few hours before. 
 
 The time till she could enter into confidential 
 communication with Annette, dragged heavily. 
 
HEKAL1NE. 85 
 
 Next to an interview with a lover, ma) probably 
 be ranked an interview with his advocate ; and 
 though Annette often incurred the displeasure of 
 Madame De Quinte, when her influence over her 
 young mistress showed itself, yet in this point they 
 seemed to agree ; and Annette fancied she was 
 furthering the design of those whom, on all other 
 occasions, she hated as much as she dared, and 
 feared more than she confessed, even to herself. 
 
 But the relative situations of these two powers 
 had, while the Lady Heraline was closeted with 
 the earl, received a new direction. Annette had 
 incurred the displeasure of Madame for some want 
 of consideration for her superiority, and had been 
 threatened with such a representation of her mis- 
 behaviour, as should end in her dismission. Con- 
 cluding that the subject would be discussed be- 
 tween the husband and wife, at their next tke-a-tete 
 in their private apartment, and wishing to know 
 how far their intentions were serious, in order to 
 her claiming the protection of Lady Heraline in 
 time, she listened within ear-shot of their place of 
 consultation, and had the satisfaction of finding 
 herself forgotten in their alarm, or rather their 
 agreeable surprise, at the decidedly increased pre- 
 cariousness of the earl's life, in the course of that 
 day. They knew no cause for what they perceiv- 
 ed ; and that which, had they been privy to what 
 
86 HERALINE. 
 
 had passed, they would most unfeelingly have con- 
 sidered as a mere temporary increase of agitation, 
 they concluded to be wholly disease, and a pro- 
 gnostic which called upon them to have their wits 
 about them. 
 
 Absorbed by their own interests, in the means 
 of promoting which they did not quite agree, their 
 voices were loud ; and rendered incautious by the 
 general security of a foreign language, they argued 
 without apprehension of attracting curiosity. An- 
 nette's vicinity never entered into their suppositions : 
 — the scene of her performances was far from that 
 of their projects; she had been snubbed and threat- 
 ened, and of course with good effect — for a doubt 
 of the efficacy of any of their attempts, would have 
 been a most absurd novelty in their calculations. 
 They therefore talked at large on the present pos- 
 ture of affairs ; and discussing their interests in it, 
 proposals on one part brought out objections and 
 amendments on the other, till Mademoiselle An- 
 nette was mistress of their motives and their move- 
 ments. 
 
 She learnt, and with not more concern than 
 was expressed by her informers, that Lord Lynford 
 could not live another month — that his will was 
 made — that in it, Monsieur and Madame De 
 Quinte were passab/ement provided for — but not 
 so entirely to their satisfaction, as to render them 
 
HKUALINE. 87 
 
 iudependent ; but as ibis stale, so coveted by more 
 northern spirits, was not absolutely necessary to 
 their enjoyment, they seemed to look forward with 
 proper acquiescence in the still-subsisting necessity 
 of preserving their influence over his lordship's 
 daughter. De Quinte, as if to approve himself 
 to the partner of his schemes, related energetically 
 the means he had employed to obtain from the 
 earl, a powerful fatherly recommendation to his 
 daughter, still to keep them near her person — 
 which his lordship had promised to enforce ver- 
 bally, in the interim, while waiting for his own de- 
 mise : thus far the pair were in unison ; but on 
 the mode in which they should exercise the power 
 thus obtained, their opinions differed, Monsieur 
 calculating all his deductions on the datum of Lady 
 Heraline's celibacy, and Madame scouting the 
 idea of her pupil's submitting to such privation. 
 She earnestly recommended the far more profit- 
 able measure of disposing of the heiress, not 
 merely to their own lucrative advantage at the 
 moment, but so as to render the fortunate pur- 
 chaser equally with herself, subservient to them ; 
 and in defence of her plan, she not absurdly urged, 
 as an invincible objection to her husband's, the 
 passion now excited in the young lady's mind. 
 She asked him, somewhat contemptuously, whether 
 he thought the lips that had once suffered Cupid 
 
88 HERALINE. 
 
 to offer to them honey, even on the point of his 
 arrow, would not shrink from the flavourless ice 
 repellingly proffered by the unthawing hand of 
 prudence. She called upon Monsieur rather to 
 consider how he should accomplish the finale of 
 his own plot for enslaving the heart of the young 
 lady, than to devise a new scheme in an opposite 
 direction to it. 
 
 And here opened on Annette the grand reve- 
 lation of the instability of that on which she 
 knew her mistress built all her hopes of happiness, 
 and she herself all her expectations of requital, not 
 only for the sacrifices she had made in renouncing, 
 not her country, but all the opportunities which 
 even her scanty supply of intelligence from her 
 family told her, the confusion of the time had 
 offered to persons of their pretensions and prin- 
 ciples, to mount into saddles from which they had 
 unhorsed the legitimate occupiers. 
 
 So utterly foundationless did all that Annette 
 had been told by the Lady Heraline as the details 
 of Monsieur, now show itself, that he and his wife 
 were absolutely consulting on the raising up some 
 one to perform the part which their young count 
 was said to be so impatient to enact ; and Annette 
 heard propositions for substitutions, at which she 
 felt, as they were not her contrivance, indignant ; 
 and having listened, to the extent of her stolen 
 
HERALINE. 89 
 
 time, she was fairly in possession of the involun- 
 tary confidence of the parties. When therefore she 
 next attended on Lady Heraline, and had heard to 
 the end, her impatient detail of all that had occur- 
 red, she did not wait for the opening of the debate 
 to which this information was the preface ; but 
 she decidedly declared herself the partisan of the 
 earl, and defending him from all suspicion of de- 
 ceiving or of exercising arbitrary authority, she 
 eulogized his sagacity, and gave it all the sanction 
 which, by betraying what she had heard, she could 
 afford it. 
 
 Had any one listened to Annette as she had 
 listened to her informers, she might, or she must 
 rather, have appeared the most trust-worthy of all 
 soubrettes, and the most prudent of young women. 
 Endeavouring to compose the disturbed spirits of 
 Lady Heraline, in whose mind various conflicting 
 feelings had raised no trifling tempest, she conjured 
 her ladyship to be on her guard against * these 
 wicked people/ and rather to consider the earl 
 as her best friend, than such a man as Monsieur; 
 and one consideration apart, the young lady would 
 have felt enough of pride and indignation to have 
 carried her cause and the culprits to their proper 
 tribunal; but there was something to be renounced 
 w ith her confidence ; and however she might de- 
 cide, the struggle was great — she must give up a 
 
90 HERALINE. 
 
 prepossession — she must be convinced that that 
 which she had accepted as a substance, was but 
 a shadow. 
 
 To get rid now of Annette, was far more de- 
 sirable to her than to detain her: she therefore, 
 after two hours' perturbation, such as could admit 
 no prospect of sleep, consented to go to bed that 
 she might be alone; and, for the sake of quiet, 
 promising to consider what she had heard, she at 
 length felt at liberty to persuade herself that the 
 earl had induced Annette to assist in deceiving her, 
 and that the house was divided equally into a party 
 for and another against her. 
 
HERAL1NE. 91 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Having come to this conclusion, which, un-in- 
 iiuenced by the interest excited in her heart, the 
 exertion of one-half of her usual sagacity would 
 have shown her was absurd, she had to make her 
 election between these two supposed parties ; but 
 the strong hints thrown out, of the earl's precarious 
 situation, controlled the active part of her decision, 
 and left her in the very tolerable comfort of a pru- 
 dent resolution to keep her opinions and inten- 
 tions to herself, to observe closely, and to act on 
 what she called her own cool judgment. 
 
 The first step in this proceeding, w r as to look 
 particularly blank on Annette when she made her 
 appearance in the morning at her bed-side, in 
 order to discourage her from all repetition of what 
 in recollection had been very painful. She con- 
 sidered her waiting-maid as entirely under the in- 
 fluence even of her wishes, and had no suspicion 
 that any change of treatment could occasion the 
 smallest change in a being so subservient to her. 
 She therefore neither watched Annette's looks, nor 
 observed on the agitation of her manner — had she 
 fixed her attention on either, or on both united, 
 she would probably have concluded that fear of 
 
92 HERA LINE. 
 
 her was the sole feeling of her mind, and that she 
 had only to excite it still more, to crush attempts 
 which she considered as in action for base purposes 
 — she knew not what, except that of marring her 
 happiness. 
 
 Distinction of ranks is always levelled between 
 persons embarked in a scheme requiring mutual 
 confidence. Harry and FalstafT are indeed never 
 two princes ; but they are, not unfrequently, two 
 bandits. Annette was never, and never could even 
 have attempted to represent, the high-minded 
 English lady ; but when the high-minded English 
 lady came down to sighing sentiment and expe- 
 dients, Annette could echo and suggest, as tra- 
 gically and as efficaciously, as any one of higher 
 talents or more extended information. She there- 
 fore watched the countenance of Lady Heraline, 
 with the various expressions of which she was to- 
 lerably acquainted, and read there in legible cha- 
 racters, a disposition not at all favourable to some 
 new hopes, into which the discovery of the former 
 evening had converted her aerial prospects. She 
 no longer feasted her imagination with a wedding 
 and a trip across the channel ; but she saw, in far 
 greater solidity and much nearer, the possibility of 
 supplanting the De Quintes, and by giving her 
 hand to some one of the best of her adoren, 
 establishing this favoured object and herself as 
 
HERALINE. 93 
 
 maitre d'hotel and dame d'atour to an hen ess, 
 who would be easily made to see with any eyes 
 rather than her own. In some points, this scheme 
 was preferable to an immediate return to her 
 own country — that was a resource at any time, 
 and would not be rendered at all less agreeable by 
 the means of enjoyment she might collect in a 
 munificent English house — for the present, there- 
 fore, she determined to be honest, clearly seeing 
 that it was her very best policy. 
 
 Once decided on the measure, she was awake 
 to the necessity of despatch. Should Lady Hera- 
 line obstinately retain her misplaced confidence in 
 the De Quintes, which her deportment gave abun- 
 dant reason to fear, the sacrifice of her waiting- 
 maid, who must have incurred some degree of her 
 displeasure, if she failed in proof or was not al- 
 lowed to bring it forward, would be a trivial con- 
 sideration with her. The young lady's toilette- 
 duties, therefore, were not so quickly finished at 
 Annette's deliberations. Her mind was made up 
 to betray to Lord Lynford, not what she had heard 
 from Lady Heraline — for every syllable of that she 
 was fully prepared to deny — but all that her own 
 industry had obtained from the revelations of the 
 De Quintes, and if necessary to her own security, 
 to face, to contradict, to convict persons whom 
 the progress of her own thoughts had now ar- 
 
94 HERALINE. 
 
 ranged to her imagination, as forming a rival 
 power, in the termination of whose existence alone, 
 her own could be rendered permanent. 
 
 But there was a remaining difficulty — how 
 should she get access to Lord Lynford? There 
 was not the smallest link of intercourse between 
 his lordship and herself — or rather herself and hit 
 lordship — De Quinte stood between the earl and 
 every man-servant except the valet ; and Madame, 
 if a message was to be carried between the father 
 and daughter, uniformly interposed her good of- 
 fices ; but the certainty that she had but one door 
 to get in at, shortened her doubts which to knock 
 at ; she knew that a few of her blandishments 
 would make the valet obsequious to her ; and these 
 she unhesitatingly used to induce him to inform 
 the earl, that she had something of great import- 
 ance to tell, which must be told immediately, 
 and to tell which, she begged his lordship to give 
 her an audience in private, before he left his dress- 
 ing-room — secrecy was requested. 
 
 When his lordship's morning making-up was 
 finished, and while his daughter was tuning her 
 harp to strains of confidence, under those adversi- 
 ties which are substituted by the happy and the idle, 
 for the real cares and disquietudes of life, the 
 damsel was admitted into the dressing-room. No 
 interest, no occupation of mind could make her 
 3 
 
HERALINE. 95 
 
 forego the opportunity of ' playing amiable ;' but 
 the earl, who had been sadly unnerved by what he 
 had already discovered, and who was looking for- 
 ward with dismay to the exertion he felt himself 
 called on to make, could only shake his head as 
 saying, ' 'T is all too late now :' he encouraged her 
 however to approach him, and professed himself 
 disposed to listen. 
 
 The fountain once in play, there was neither 
 occasion nor interval, to say, ' Go on/ Even 
 with all the gesticulations appropriate to the busi- 
 ness, all the claims to praise that could be inter- 
 posed, all the oblique compliments and the soft 
 cajoleries that taste and experience dictated as 
 matter of furtherance, Annette's volubility soon 
 got to the end of a detail, which would have 
 stuck three times as long a period, in the entangle- 
 ments of an English plebeian's elocution. 
 
 This new shock was considerably abated by 
 the opening made to this business on the preceding 
 day, and the earl accepted the proffered aid, as 
 coming in time to give him fortitude to do that 
 which he of necessity was resolved to do. Un- 
 willing, as a helpless person whom indolence ha« 
 rendered unused to business, must ever feel, to 
 part from so generally useful a deputy as Dc 
 Quinte, he had yet sometimes, and particularly of 
 
96 HEKALINE. 
 
 late, when his nerves had been more than usually 
 susceptible, felt disposed to quarrel with the verj 
 authority he had given away ; and he who som* 
 years before called on ' all men to hail him happy ' 
 in the treasure he had obtained by no greater a 
 sacrifice than that of leave to follow his own in- 
 clination and judgment, now, in the present pro- 
 bability of change, began to discover that an 
 exoneration was desirable : — he could not, how- 
 ever, refrain from bewailing himself, even though 
 there was no one but Annette to hear his wailings. 
 She, poor soul ! could lend only one ear — the 
 other was pitched to the expected sound of her 
 lady's bell : she therefore endeavoured to cut ths 
 matter short, by professing her readiness to face 
 those whom she had accused, if his lordship 
 would only protect her against the resentment of 
 the Lady Heraline, by convincing her of the 
 claim such disinterested conduct as that she had 
 adopted, had on her ladyship's reconnois&ance. 
 But she could not be so easily dismissed : the earl, 
 in utter destitution of means, could arrange no 
 plan for an efficacious use of his new knowledge : 
 he could only, in the true spirit of shrinking from 
 exertion, and skulking from a reptile he was afraid 
 of— resolve to breakfast alone, and to make his 
 yesterday's disquiet a reason for not seeing hi* 
 
HERA LINE. 97 
 
 daughter. But still recurred the question — ' How 
 shall we explode the business ?' — he might have 
 added — ' without my feeling the recoil/ 
 
 The application of three fingers to her fore- 
 head, gave x\nnette the ability to advise the peer : 
 — she replied in words, which, translated, said, 
 
 ' Oh ! I have thought — your lordship knows 
 yourself to be very ill, you say you are. Now, in 
 my country — they used — I don't know what they 
 do now — for all things are altered — but they used, 
 when I was a pretty little girl there, when any 
 body was very ill, and thought they must die — they 
 used to send for Monsieur le Cure. — Now, my 
 lord, you say you are ill — you arc worse — 
 Jrou think you must die — God forbid ! but if 
 you send for Monsieur le Cine, perhaps he could 
 tell you what is best to do, or could do this for 
 you — and nobody would think any other thing, 
 than that you are just going to die — which you 
 know would not, my lord, surprise any body/ 
 
 At any other moment, who would have dared 
 in the same breath to have proposed the expul- 
 sion of the De Quintes, and the introduction of 
 Mr. Meryon, now so long a stranger at St. Eme- 
 ril's Court, to further this hostile purpose ? As 
 little agreeable would such a hint of the frail 
 tenure of life have sounded in Lord Lynford's 
 ears, but now all was on a sudden changed ; and 
 
 VOL. I. F 
 
98 HERALINE. 
 
 there was a mixture of approbation, with something 
 not quite so laudatory, in the smile which the pert 
 promptitude of the Frenchwoman forced from his 
 disturbed features. She volunteered her services 
 to spread any reports which he might think proper 
 to send from his breakfast-table, but she was now 
 become too well aware of the importance of muf- 
 fling the dagger-hand of an assassin, to repeat the 
 offer of nearer assistance. 
 
 Annette could stay no longer. She was forced 
 to commit the circumstances of these measures to 
 his lordship's sagacity ; and satisfied that she had 
 laid a train, which must blow up her enemies, and 
 devolve their credit upon her, she went briskly 
 about her daily business, waiting for some impulse 
 from the dressing-room, and even under the ne- 
 cessary delay, growing apprehensive that his lord- 
 ship's courage would not hold out, and that she 
 herself might be the victim of her own endea- 
 vours. 
 
 At last, and before she had again seen her 
 lady, her listening ears, as she wandered about to 
 catch sounds, were greeted by a laugh and its echo, 
 which proceeded from the butler's pantry, and 
 which she soon found was excited by the circu- 
 lating intelligence, that l the earl had certainly 
 seen the devil — that he was in a great fright and 
 
HERALINE. 99 
 
 going to die, and that he had sent for the parson, 
 a sure sign he could not live many hours/ 
 
 His lordship's idea of his own danger had 
 been with more delicacy communicated to the 
 Lady Heraline, by De Quinte himself. He had 
 seen the earl, found him extremely ill, and really 
 thought him now delirious, for he had ordered 
 Mr. Meryon to be sent for, which he could never 
 have done, had he been in his senses. 
 
 Madame De Quinte took her station by the 
 Lady Heraline ; d husband and wife made up 
 sufficient of grimace to get through their parts — 
 De Quinte talked lightly of death, as ' the affair 
 of three minutes/ as l a final necessity, against 
 which there was no protection, and under which 
 there was no consolation' — he jabbered about 
 1 philosophy and temporary existence — the bubble 
 human life, and that bursting of it, human death : ' 
 he talked to his wife jocularly of his utter indiffe- 
 rence about it, promised l delicacies to worms, and 
 a fine growth of cabbages from the place of his in- 
 terment;' and, as if to teach their pupil how to 
 think, patted Madame's cheek with the back of his 
 hand, while he declared that ' were she to die 
 to-morrow, his only care would be to get another 
 pretty wife/ 
 
 Lady Heraline was more disgusted with this 
 coarse banter, and more impressed with that which 
 
 ¥2 
 
100 HERALINE. 
 
 called it forth, than they intended her to have been : 
 — she had never seen death so near the threshold 
 of her home ; and though a second thought might 
 have landed her contemplation safe on her own inte- 
 rest, she now was offended at the levity of her com- 
 panions, and interposed with energy the observa- 
 tion, that * it must be a fearful thing to die. — If,' 
 said she, ' it is a subject of terror to go into a ca- 
 vern, or to be benighted in an unknown country — 
 if darkness, and solitude, and inexperience bring 
 with them horror, and melancholy, and distraction, 
 what must that state be in which all these com- 
 bine ? I am afraid my father will be very much 
 terrified ; for I do not think he has given up any of 
 his hopes of living ; and to be surprised thus, 
 must add to his distress : I should like to go to 
 him, but what could I say V 
 
 Expressions of astonishment and testifications 
 of contempt met her words ; and De Quinte, 
 though professing himself waited for by his lord, 
 paused on his last footstep, to scout, as the inde- 
 lible impression of an ill-taught infancy, the exist- 
 ence of ideas * so weak, so puerile, so unphilo- 
 sophical.' Mr. Meryon, always hated, was now 
 the object of his most pointed sarcasm ; and as if 
 determined to root out from the mind of Lady 
 Heraline, this sprout of a plant which he had fan- 
 cied long since past vegetation, he praucingly de- 
 
HEU ALINE. 101 
 
 clared his resolution to show Mr. Meryon the way 
 out of St. Emeril's Court, if he perceived that 
 any use was to be made of his professional ser- 
 vices. — ' If my lord wished to shake hands, and 
 die in friendship, he should not hinder that, or if 
 he meant to order his funeral or to make a be- 
 quest to the poor ; but he would have no comcdie 
 larmoyante, when he had the management of 
 things.' 
 
 Left to Madame De Quinte, she had a dif- 
 ferent species of consolation to endure. She ad- 
 mired filial duty, and had herself been the best of 
 daughters to her own parents, but still she owned 
 she always saw with regret, fathers and mothers 
 living till their children were almost in person as 
 old as themselves. ' In the state in which 
 my lord was, and had been for years, he had no 
 enjoyment ; and what -was life when its pleasures 
 were gone ? and her ladyship herself had no pro- 
 spect but that of a repetition of dreary winters and 
 un-used summers. — The " dolce primavera" of her 
 life was passing by, without her being conscious 
 of its existence ; and, with all her grand respect 
 for her ladyship's illustrious parent, she could 
 not so far depart from her sincerity, as to wish the 
 prolongation of a life that was a burden to him* 
 and a communication of his paralysis to the mind 
 of his daughter.' The great domain, the grand 
 V 3 
 
102 HERALINE. 
 
 establishment, and liberty to choose to whom she 
 should resign it, were delicately brought before the 
 unshrinking eyes of her imagination — and her lady- 
 ship might probably have heard more ingenious 
 detail ; but fearful of betraying in any closer con- 
 versation, the attack which had been made on her 
 faith in one point, she withdrew herself from 
 Madame, and sending Annette to inquire into the 
 proceedings of her father's private room, she 
 awaited her return in very uneasy solitude. 
 
HERALINE. 103 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Annette's report was, that his lordship had been 
 relieved by a violent flood of tears ; that the apo- 
 thecary, who had just seen him, apprehended no 
 immediate danger ; and that Mr. Meryon had ar- 
 rived, and was then closeted with the earl. 
 
 Lady Heraline, for want of occupation, and 
 unable to be still, would have detained the waiting- 
 woman in conversation; but Annette thought it 
 now her turn to be cool, and treated her mistress 
 with a very pretty imitation of the de haut en has, 
 which she had so often seen her practise. 
 
 All this was intolerable. Her ladyship pre- 
 ferred solitude to insult, and therefore walked out 
 into the garden, where she saw an old man at 
 work, whose especial business it was to keep in 
 order the spot she called her garden. — He had not 
 offended, and to somebody she must talk. She 
 began with a few trifling questions of kindness ; 
 and to the answer was joined an expression of re- 
 spectful regret, that the situation of his lord was 
 now so hopeless, and his life drawing to a close. 
 
 1 My father/ said Lady Heraline, as if to com- 
 F4 
 
104 HERAL1NE. 
 
 fort the old man, ' is now arrived at a consider- 
 able age.' 
 
 ' True, my lady ; but I have generally observed 
 that, however long gentlefolks live, they like, 
 please God ! to live a little longer/ 
 
 ' And do not poor people ? ' 
 
 ' Why, not so much I think, my lady. When 
 we have toiled and struggled through threescore 
 years, I think, if we have thought at all, we are 
 pretty ready to lie down in our quiet graves ; and 
 I sometimes wonders as great folks ben't more 
 ready than us — for if I lived their life, by what L see 
 of it, I think I should be still more tired of it than 
 of hard work — in hard work there 's something done, 
 something 's the better for it ; but in their lives, it 
 seems to me always beginning and never done/ 
 
 1 But you cannot judge, my good man, of that 
 which you cannot see : you do not see how we 
 live/ 
 
 1 That 's true, my lady, and I suppose I am 
 wrong — and I am sure I am very bold to speak so ; 
 but only having known your ladyship from your 
 cradle, I hope no offence/ 
 
 ' None at all, John ; I like to hear you. Tell 
 me why you think the life of great people tire- 
 some ? ' 
 
 ' Why, because they looks I always thinks un- 
 happy — my poor lord, I am sure, has not had a 
 
HERALINE. 105 
 
 smile to bestow on me this many a day, and your 
 ladyship, Lord love you ! can never be happy 
 under the command of those mounseer people — 
 why, they wind you, every body says, round their 
 ringer as I do this bit of grass, though I should 
 have my ears cut off for saying so. They be 
 people as fear neither God nor devil — I 'm sure I 
 should be tired of living with them.' 
 
 1 But you say, John, that poor people die con- 
 tentedly.' 
 
 ' Yes, why should they not ? — you great folks, 
 my lady, have mayhap eat your white bread first, 
 we have had our brown ; and we trust in God the 
 white is to come, when we are out of this trou- 
 blesome world.' 
 
 ' What do you mean, John, by your brown 
 bread, and your white bread ? ' 
 
 ' Why I mean, to be sure, my lady, that the 
 brown is this world, and the white is the world 
 to come — and though I 've eat the brown bread, 
 and been thankful for it, and could relish it very 
 well, yet I can't but say I shall be very well 
 pleased to have a share in the white, when I goes 
 away from here in God's good time — but his will 
 be done.' 
 
 ' Then you do expect to be happier in the next 
 world than in this ? ' 
 
 * Certainly ; else, why did I work for my pa- 
 F 5 
 
1 06 HERAJJNE. 
 
 rents $ — why did I nurse a sick wife ? — why have 1 
 brought up my children in the sweat of my brow, 
 to fear God, and keep his commandments ? If I 
 may be so bold a 8 to say it, poor ignorant man as 
 I am! — though some of us, and such as you, 
 my lady, may have a sort of a love of God, as 
 we read about him in the Bible, I can't say I 
 beliete that We could get through this world a« we 
 ought, if we warn't afraid of his anger and in 
 hopes of his goodness. — Never tell me, says I to 
 Will Stephens t'other day, about your fine no- 
 tions of good for good-sake, or God for God- 
 sake ; I tell you the fear of Hell, and the hopes 
 of Heaven, must be kept up, or we, poor crea- 
 tures, shall go like a parcel of wild asses put 
 into a team, one here and t'other there ; but all in 
 any way but the right.' 
 
 ' And what is your idea, your expectation, 
 John, of another world ? ' 
 
 * There, my lady/ answered John, resting 
 both hands on his spade, and shaking his head, 
 ' there I 'm sadly puzzled — I knows not what it may 
 be ; but, in my thoughts, I tells myself it will be 
 always sunshine, without being overhot, as y' may 
 say, always moonlight without night like ; I shall 
 have my belly filled without meat, and my drowth 
 quenched, without drink — I shall see and know 
 what I can't find out now— I shall walk about 
 
HERALINE. 107 
 
 with good and knowing people all about me. I 
 shall want nothing and wish for nothing ; and my 
 work will be done, and my pleasure will be to 
 thank God, and tell every body how good he has 
 been to me, in forgiving my many many sins and 
 — wickednesses, I can't say ; for I never was, thank 
 God, a wicked one ; and I am not bound to make 
 myself out worse than I am ; but sins, God knows, 
 we all falls into; and if he had not sent his blessed 
 Son among us, to take upon himself for us, God 
 only knows where we were to look for comfort : 
 and not only to forgive my sins, a# I say, but, as I 
 may say, to reward me for the little 1 could do 
 that was right, which I 'm sure if his holy Spirit, 
 that our good parsou explains to us sometimes, 
 did not put it in our minds, we could not do it/ 
 
 ' Well but, John, where do you get these no- 
 tions ? — what ground have you for these expecta- 
 tions ? • 
 
 ' Why, my lady, you are joking — haven't we 
 the Bible, which is God's word ? won't we take 
 God's word? And then ha'n't we, as I say, our 
 Mr. Meryon to make things easy to our compaci- 
 ties ? Ah my lady, I hope I be not bold — but 
 how I do wish my lord and our Mr. Meryon had 
 not quarrelled. — He might have been a comfort to 
 my lord now.' 
 
 1 They have not quarrelled — nay, I believe they 
 f6 
 
108 HERA LINE. 
 
 are friends; Mr. Meryon is now with my fa- 
 ther.' 
 
 1 Blessed be God!' said the old man, dropping 
 his spade — ' May we all meet in Heaven ! I have 
 eat, as I may say, my lord's bread, sin I was a 
 child : he brought me here from Lunnun, I was 
 my lady your mother's foot-boy, or indeed her man's 
 foot-boy; and I couldn't eat my master's bread 
 without wishing to meet him again in another world. 
 — 1 always prays for him, and for you, my lady.' 
 
 ' Then you hope your prayers are heard, I 
 suppose — this must be great comfort to you.' 
 
 ' Comfort ! my lady — it is comfort, I wouldn't 
 exchange to be the owner of all this fine place.' 
 
 ' But what makes you believe your prayers are 
 heard ? ■ 
 
 ' Why, the very comfort I feel in asking God 
 for what I wants, and thanking him for what I 
 has. Beside, what surety can I want beyond 
 what the Scriptures gives me? — Why, try yourself, 
 my lady, if ever you are in distress or affliction, 
 God keep you from it ! Do but open, we '11 just 
 say, the book of Psalms any where — I likes the 
 Psalms, they are so suited to every body and every 
 thing, and every body's business ; and you will 
 see, depend upon it, something suited to you at 
 the time. — I remember all the while I was so tor- 
 
HERALINE. 109 
 
 merited with that good-for-nothing Robert Morris* 
 as wanted to make out that I had got what he 
 ought to have had, when I had been obliged to 
 bear a great deal, because he was my wife's rela- 
 tion, and I didn't care to be unkind to him, as 
 sure as I opened my Bible, to get a little peace 
 to go to sleep upon, so sure I found somewhat to 
 comfort me and give me spirits. — I remember, 
 specially once, when I was almost distracted, 1 
 opened at the twenty-seventh Psalm, and after I 
 had read it, I went to sleep like a lamb. — And I 
 am ashamed to say — but I won't ever mind if I 
 can give glory to God, the last time I was drawn 
 in to deal with these smugglers, after I had heard 
 our Mr. Meryon's famous sermon on that text, 
 you know, my lady, " Tribute to whom tribute, 
 custom to whom custom," and when I had said 
 positively I never would deal with 'em again, and 
 I did it in spite of my word — O how miserable I 
 was ! And then, when I came to myself, like the 
 prodigal son I was so unhappy — and shame on 
 me ! I cried like a child — no shame to cry, my 
 lady, but a shame to need it — why, then too, as 
 y' may guess, 1 went to my Bible, no, it was my 
 Prayer-book, it's all one, and there I found, when 
 I opened it — " Blessed is he whose unrighteous- 
 ness is forgiven, and whose sin is covered." And 
 there all the Psalm went on, as if it had said, 
 
1 1 HERALINE. 
 
 u Mind, don't be wrong again, and then be of good 
 heart." Who, my lady, would not be comforted 
 with this ? and who would ask a better guide than 
 this ? ' 
 
 The man's eyes were glazed, his lips quivered, 
 as he looked to the Lady Heraline for her con- 
 firmation of his hypothesis. She could not reply: 
 — she took out her purse, and made her lovely 
 fingers the messengers of her generous feelings. 
 She walked on in thoughtful musing, but not pre- 
 cisely of the description of her late musings — she 
 was disposed to say to herself, that in John 
 Brown's homely system, and even under all the 
 disadvantage of his uncouth expressions, there was 
 a solidity, a substantiality which neither Monsieur 
 nor his wife could give to their dialectics. She 
 began to think that the ignorant might be the best 
 teachers of what was right and fit to do ; but her 
 thoughts naturally recurring to a better authority, 
 existing in the person of Mr. Meryon, she at last 
 settled into a more rational opinion, that a set of 
 people educated for the purpose of explaining and 
 enforcing subjects of this kind, were as necessary, 
 if those subjects were of importance, as physicians 
 and dancing-masters. 
 
 Her present contemplations had excluded from 
 the recollections of the moment, not only the cri- 
 tical situation of the earl her father, but the 
 
HERALTNE. 1 1 1 
 
 grievous sacrifice which she had been compelled 
 to make the day before. The disturbance of her 
 rest in the past night-— a disturbance to which she 
 was wholly un-used, had, in her regular mode of 
 existence, an effect on her sensation* which was 
 as painful as it was new ; and it soon disposed her 
 to turn her thoughts to any quarter that promised 
 restoration, if not of quiet, of that morbid de- 
 lirium which was spreading itself like the work of 
 spiders over her imagination : — she could not re- 
 cover this — she could not seek it where alone it 
 was, in her apprehension, to be found — her heart 
 beat violently in the contemplation of the restored 
 picture; but it was not that playful pulsation 
 which those who had excited it, could rally and 
 flatter — it was a strange feeling, and at every ef- 
 fort to still it, it sent her back to the recollection 
 of poor John Brown. 
 
 This did not however last long — she had wan- 
 dered onward, still farther distant from the house, 
 for about half an hour, in a distressing fermenta- 
 tion of mind, when her own peculiar man-servant 
 overtook her, and requested her, in the earl's name, 
 to return immediately. — She asked hastily if her 
 father was worse, and receiving that usual answer, 
 1 I do not know,' she accepted it for e Yes/ and 
 again thinking on John Brown, quickened her 
 steps. — In her way, she repassed the old man. 
 
112 HERA LINE. 
 
 He was still at work, and lifting up his face with- 
 out unbending his bowed back, he said affection- 
 ately, * Well ! God bless you, my lady, I pity 
 you, but never mind — there is a God for the orphan : 
 — let us all take up our burdens, they will be 
 lightened by-and-by.' 
 
 Open to all impressions — the last always the 
 strongest — Lady Heraline involuntarily paused ; 
 but shrinking from, instead of growing courageous 
 in her duty, she felt an inclination to make John 
 Brown follow her to the house — it was too ridi- 
 culous ; and she could have chastised her folly, if 
 she had known where it was seated — it was not 
 entirely cured, however, by her displeasure — the 
 inclination came up again, but she coaxed it away 
 by a very reasonable supposition, that Mr. Meryon 
 might do as well as John Brown. 
 
 She entered the house, and found the servants 
 duly stationed from the hall to the earl's drawing- 
 room, to facilitate her admission. Again she 
 paused, and seemed almost retreating — she had 
 proceeded as far in something she wished to say, 
 as ' Could not ' further she could not pro- 
 ceed — the speech, if perfected, might have been, 
 ' Could not Mr. Meryon come out to me r ' — But 
 in sounding his name to her own ear, she felt an 
 indefinite sense of shame. She was not now in 
 an audacious mood, though the mood was not un- 
 
HERA LINE. 113 
 
 usual with her when she had to suffer — she asked 
 no questions, ' Who is Mr. Meryon ? ' or ' What 
 am I not ? ' She thought of no inheritance, no 
 independence — neither of miniature-pictures, nor 
 handsome Frenchmen — she expected to see some- 
 thing little short of a corpse, perhaps, if she de- 
 layed longer, a corpse in all its ghastliness. — Mr. 
 Meryon she might see on his knees, with a book 
 in his hand : — Monsieur De Quinte might be, in 
 the grief necessary for the occasion, talking to 
 himself of his ' bon ami : ' — Madame must be of- 
 ficiously administering and chattering — but what- 
 ever the accompaniments, the reality was the same ; 
 — she was summoned to a sight that must appall her 
 feelings, if it did not conciliate her affections. — 
 ' I do not know whether I shall not be more 
 grieved than I expected,' said she to herself as the 
 door opened, and she tried to reduce the firm 
 tread of her natural dignity, to the gentle pat of 
 obsequious delicacy. 
 
114 HEIIALINE. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 What did she really see when she entered the 
 room ? Not the earl on the splendid couch of his 
 superb drawing-room, his features wrung, his 
 cheek pale, and his eye gazing at vacancy — neither 
 did she find him fevered with impatience at her 
 delay, and straining his departing powers to catch 
 the first certainty of her approach. She found 
 him in his after-breakfast costume, sitting at a 
 table, part of the covering of which was indeed 
 his medicine-chest in full freightage. Various 
 glasses, of various tinges, graduated and lipped 
 for accuracy of admixture and convenience of 
 transference, showed that he had not merely 
 looked at his comforts ; but his lordship, though in 
 a sort of crying posture of features, had no appear- 
 ance of immediate dissolution : — he extended his best 
 hand, as his daughter, in very gratifying emotion, 
 came gently up to him, and said, ' 1 am better now, 
 my dear, don't alarm yourself, we shall all do better, 
 I hope ; but it has been a sad business for me* 
 
 She could almost have said, * Thank God ! ' 
 but De Quinte was standing with his face towards a 
 window ; and though his back was presented to her, 
 
HERALINE. 115 
 
 and he remained without the smallest approach 
 to a more respectful diagonal of position, she felt 
 the exclamation, not perhaps culpable or absurd in 
 itself, but out of keeping just now, and perhaps li- 
 able to incur hereafter, a daunting application of ri- 
 dicule and sarcasm. — Mr. Meryonwas at a distant 
 table, writing ; and to him, as she in silence let go 
 her father's hand, she ventured to make a slight 
 curtsey : her own feelings would have admitted of 
 more ; but she dared not bid them please them- 
 selves. — Madame was on the twin-couch to that 
 on which the earl was seated ; and though her 
 face was covered with a handkerchief, as she re- 
 clined her elbow on the end of the couch, her 
 gulps and the pressure of her other hand against 
 the region of gulps, indicated that whatever the 
 present state of the climate, it had been a stormy 
 one. 
 
 To four points almost opposite, was the Lady 
 Heraline now attracted — a sensation of relief in 
 finding the scene so different from what she had 
 portrayed it to her imagination, would have 
 drawn her to her father, to congratulate at least 
 herself on the escape from oppressive necessities : 
 respect and a sort of instinctive appreciation, 
 would have made her come in contact with Mr. 
 Meryon. — A wish for information, and the habit 
 of being prompted, would have sent her to Mon- 
 
116 HEKALINE. 
 
 sieur, while the echoes of words seldom long out 
 of hearing, ' devoir ,' ' politesse,' i consideration 
 pour moi,' would have driven her, through fear 
 of reproof, to inquire into the sufferings of his 
 wife. 
 
 Under these influences, she remained in the 
 proper situation, the centre ; and there she stood, 
 a statue, for some moments — not by many degrees 
 so much an object of admiration even to a father's 
 fondness, or the pride of tutors, as to the chari- 
 table affection of him who had the most cause, the 
 only cause, to think harshly of her. There was 
 not a person in the groupe who had so fair a right 
 to plead his own virtues, as a reason for demand- 
 ing virtue in others — there was not one who could 
 say as he could, ' What fellowship can there be 
 amongst us ? ' he stood exemplary and independent: 
 — he had not partaken of the follies of his patron 
 to obtain his boons — he had not entered into the 
 tracasseries of those who governed him, in the 
 hope of sharing in plunder or a future administra- 
 tion : he had not flattered a misguided girl in 
 hopes of succeeding to her favour — he had spoken 
 his conscientious sentiments with firmness but with 
 respect: — he knew that what he had done was 
 known, he knew himself hated, but he knew he 
 could not be despised ; and thus unconcerned for 
 himself, he was at liberty to feel for others, to 
 
HERALINE. 117 
 
 sheathe the sword with which he might have 
 wouuded, and to give the primary cause of all 
 his temporary degradation, not only the honour 
 due to her rank, or the admiration due to the 
 charms of her person, but the tenderest feeling of 
 interest that any heart but that of a parent has to 
 offer — a feeling of interest which, passing over all 
 that for which parents too often supplicate Hea- 
 ven in favour of their offspring, carried this good 
 man's ideas to the throne of his ultimate Judge* 
 in the hope of leading thither, by the gentlest 
 methods, this sheep now beguiled from his flock. 
 
 The business of the scene unfolded itself; 
 and at the earl's request, Mr. Meryon stood up to 
 let the Lady Heraline into what was passing — his 
 lordship making a little prefatory speech expres- 
 sive of the restoration of his confide nee to him — 
 and then desiring him to go on, aim his daughter 
 to take her seat on the same couch with himself. 
 
 Mr. Meryon attempted to obey ; but the 
 earl's commentary on what he began to say, soon 
 amounting to the recital itself, the vicar very ju- 
 diciously, and perhaps not very unwillingly, gave 
 way, and suffered his patron to proceed, till the 
 exasperation of his passion having disabled him, 
 he again took refuge in deputation. All together, 
 the Lady Heraline was informed that Monsieur 
 and Madame were receiving their rjismission — that 
 
118 HERALINE. 
 
 their conduct had, in the discovery of various par- 
 ticulars, very much distressed the earl ; but that 
 they had been made to understand what was their 
 best prudence — and that their final and immediate 
 expulsion was decided on, awaiting only the pre- 
 sence of her ladyship, that a measure so highly 
 necessary, might not wear an appearance of clan- 
 destine proceeding towards her. 
 
 Lady Heraline had gazed and listened in as- 
 tonishment, as if doubting her own existence. In- 
 voluntarily she would have risen and approached 
 Madame ; but from this, both her protectors hin- 
 dered her. She then begged leave to withdraw, 
 and was allowed to retreat to the hardly less ex- 
 ceptionable care of Annette. But in the present 
 state of things, even Annette could not do much 
 mischief. When informed by her lady of that on 
 which she had much better information, she was 
 lavish of her ' Bon Dieu,' and { Graces a Dieu/ 
 ' mi-lord was le bon ptre,' * Monsieur Meryon was 
 le bon curt,' and all was hope and prospect in the 
 mind and fortunes of Mademoiselle Annette. 
 
 1 I would turn that girl away too, my lord,' said 
 Mr. Meryon, when, having dismissed the De 
 Quintes, with a charge to be gone from the house 
 in two hours, and from the village in two days, he 
 advised the recall of the Lady Heraline. 
 
 The earl had time to declare against this vio- 
 
HERA LINE. 119 
 
 lent proceeding — to Annette he was obliged for 
 the most important fact of this information — * he 
 would never betray her, even to Lady Heraline/ and 
 1 he must insist on being allowed to follow the lead 
 of his own feeling here. It was quite enough to 
 have parted with such a man, who was by far the 
 cleverest fellow in all departments, that he had 
 ever seen, and a woman who really, with all her 
 faults, took all trouble respecting his daughter off 
 his hands' — he c wished he might not yet live to 
 repent it — but Annette he could not and would 
 not part from — it would be cruelty to his daugh- 
 ter. — Much to her credit was it that she had 
 shown no repugnance to the dismission of those 
 to whom she certainly had great obligations, for 
 she was certainly most highly educated — and now 
 to tear away her waiting-woman, and place a 
 stranger about her, would be to treat her in a 
 manner very unbecoming him as a father, and 
 with very little of that consideration, which he did 
 not doubt her conduct to him would merit.— He 
 should have trouble enough to find another to fill 
 the various situations which that clever fellow had 
 filled in his own person : he did not object to Mr. 
 Meryon's suggestion of dismissing all those ser- 
 vants who were of the De Quintes' introduction ; 
 but Annette was not one — and there was no just 
 ground for her being thus punished/ 
 
120 HERALINE. 
 
 Mr. Meryon made no reply ; and Lady Hera- 
 line returned, with traces on her countenance which 
 required to be talked away. Her imprisonment 
 while the exiles were preparing to depart, was ne- 
 cessary, but Mr. Meryon had the power to pre- 
 vent its being very painful. 
 
 A week of terrible chaos prevailed at St. 
 Emeril's Court, after this stupendous convulsion, 
 during which Mr. Meryon had to sustain, under 
 every discouragement which the peevishness of 
 Lord Lynford and the collecting perverseness of 
 Lady Heraline could give him, all the weight and 
 obloquy, necessary and unnecessary, that could be 
 heaped on him. Had the dismissed pair been 
 within reach, there is no doubt they would have 
 been recalled by the joint acclamation of father 
 and daughter; but the vicar had taken good care 
 to accelerate their departure by auditing their ac- 
 counts and adjusting their demands. There was 
 no danger of Annette's conniving at any inter- 
 course between her lady and them, or of their in- 
 ducing any servants who hoped to retain their 
 places, to forward applications or present suppli- 
 cations. The expelled favourites were too gene- 
 rally objects of hatred to find advocates ; and the 
 shouts of the servants' hall must have proved to 
 them, had they approached the house, how little 
 chance they stood of making their way again into 
 it. 
 
HER^LINE. 121 
 
 B>jat, whatever her opinion on the subject, it 
 was not without the greatest repugnance that the 
 Lady Heraline relinquished the hopes connected 
 with their delusions. It was not, till she was cer- 
 tified of the truth of what the earl had told her, 
 by their suffering the unfortunate miniature- picture 
 to remain in his possession, that she could entirely 
 withdraw her confidence in the legend appended to 
 it— it was too agreeable to be so easily given up — 
 it was too necessary, too habitual to her, to be 
 abandoned for that solitude of thought to which it 
 reduced her — how was life to be supported? — 
 how was existence to be endured ?— It would have 
 been a very rational measure to have at least re- 
 solved to consult Mr. Meryon — but this was too 
 regular a proceeding : — it was easier to tell herself 
 that she would go and talk to old John Brown, 
 and this she did, at all opportunities, without any 
 detriment, recommending the good old man very 
 much to the earl's favour, by reporting his sen- 
 sible speeches. 
 
 What might have succeeded to the unfinished 
 romance, who can tell? — Most probably some 
 new one from the brain of Annette, had not her 
 lady most happily conceived for a time, a strong 
 dislike to her, under the persuasion of her having 
 a share in the late events. Lord Lynford was 
 most honourably true to his protection of her, 
 vol. i. c 
 
122 HERALINE. 
 
 which perhaps did not increase his daughter's par- 
 tiality ; and Annette, under that security, excul- 
 pated herself fiercely from whatever even merito- 
 rious imputations, Lady Heraline's peevishness in- 
 clined her occasionally to hint, clearly perceiving 
 that no pretensions to integrity, no plea of duty, 
 would regain her favour. She knew enough of 
 her whom she served and studied, to trust herself 
 to ' time and industry ' for the wearing off the pre- 
 sent impressions, and the substituting for them 
 some less likely to keep herself at this unpleasant 
 distance. 
 
 With the change of ministry, of course a 
 change of measures took place. The earl, roused by 
 what had occurred, supported under it by Mr.Me- 
 ryon's activity and good sense, and furnished with 
 employment by the new arrangement of his house- 
 hold, was soon a renovated creature. — Instead of 
 being lapped in Elysium under the subjugations of 
 Monsieur De Quinte's solicitudes — instead of list- 
 ening to his caveats ' against giving the diminished 
 powers too much to do/ his lordship took the 
 vicar's advice, did what he could, shifted for him- 
 self in preference to being assisted, and, in lieu of 
 calmants and palliatives, de Veau sucree, and ve- 
 getable messes, he pursued a more generous plan 
 of diet, and found himself the better for it. The 
 sense of benefit brought that of obligation, and a 
 
HERALINE. 123 
 
 feeling of reliance ; and Mr. Meryon stood, if not 
 on higher, on firmer ground than ever De Quinte 
 had obtained in his lordship's estimation. His 
 powers of usefulness were not indeed as versatile. 
 The clerical member of an English university 
 could not flavour a ragout, or so well direct the 
 cutting of a collar : he had not correspondencies 
 that facilitated the importation of delicacies ; but 
 he had inestimable substitutes for abilities which 
 could be hired — such as his could not. 
 
 The vicar was a year older than his patron ; 
 but ten years younger in constitution, though far 
 less robust in original building, and on a less scale. 
 — He had been born a gentleman ; but turned to 
 graze upon the church-establishment, by an impru- 
 dent father, whose follies he had veiled, and whose 
 life he had made comfortable, in the most ho- 
 nourable and conscientious manner. He had had his 
 thwartings and vexations — he had had his conflicts 
 and disappointments; but under them and their 
 consequences, he felt and confessed himself ulti- 
 mately a gainer. By his filial respect and forbear- 
 ance, he had purchased the happiness of seeing an 
 unthinking old man brought to his senses — and had 
 closed his eyes in the hope of Heaven's mercy and 
 forgiveness. — By personal endurances, and bitter 
 acquiescences in decrees against which he dared 
 not murmur, he persuaded himself that he had 
 c2 
 
124 HERALINE. 
 
 made an excellent bargain, in obtaining the power 
 of understanding and of consoling the real and 
 imaginary griefs of others. The distress of pa- 
 rents, the martyrdom of disease, the wounds of 
 conscience — all came within his power of com- 
 fort; while he kept, as it were, a private bank, from 
 which, with equal charity and accommodated li- 
 berality, he could furnish what was requisite to 
 bring the culpable wanderer home again, and even 
 to still the heart and dry the tears of the love-lorn 
 maiden. To guilt, he was majestically severe, as 
 long as he could, by any severity, keep it at arm's 
 length. For those whom he knew zealously en- 
 gaged in the dire conflict, he fought manfully — he 
 made common cause with them: he was the fel- 
 low-prisoner of those in bonds, the fellow- delin- 
 quent of those whom sin had unawares surprised ; 
 and by his various communications with mankind, 
 he had obtained what may be called such profes- 
 sional knowledge, as placed the cure of many dis- 
 eases of the mind, which seemed those of the body, 
 under his hand. 
 
 Could the good old man, however, now be rais- 
 ed from the dead, he would seem a mere child in 
 knowledge and experience — nay, he might ask him- 
 self whether this were the world he had left. — -He 
 would say, ' When I laid myself down to die, I 
 quitted a world which was, and was known to be, 
 
HERALINE. 125 
 
 under the management of its acknowledged Maker ; 
 — but now, what do I find ? — If I may speak so 
 lightly, the workshop of the Great Artificer has 
 been broken into and ransacked ; and presumptu- 
 ous men, ignorant of the use of his tools, and 
 mistaking his materials, are teaching, not only how 
 to imitate him, but how to prove him not worth 
 imitation. — By the establishment of theories 
 and consequences amounting to necessity and 
 fatality, I presume they fancy nothing peculiar to 
 their pillaged Master, but the ability to animate 
 that which they could compose as well as he : — 
 this inability, at present, I see, they are forced to 
 confess — how long they will be so modest, I leave 
 the world to calculate ! — Away, away/ he would 
 have said, ' with systems that pretend to discover 
 the hidden things of the Lord. — Split mountains, 
 ye geologists ! — analyze seas, ye chy mists! — dissect 
 bodies, ye guardians of health ! — but, for Heaven'* 
 sake, do not pretend to announce, as detected mys- 
 tery and invariable combination, your own narrow 
 speculations. — Let, at least, the immortal soul 
 escape your presumption — nor make its image, its 
 witness, its surety, the mind, your skeleton. — Tell 
 not your deluded fellow-creatures that truth is not in 
 their Scriptures ; and fear by your silly half-witted 
 hypotheses and your misnamed metaphysic jargon, 
 to offend against the prohibition of human pre- 
 gS 
 
126 HEUALINE. 
 
 judgment. — When He who was confessed by his 
 bitterest enemies, to speak as never man spake, 
 says, " judge not," who shall dare to say, " Hie 
 niger," because a mouth or nose have a particular 
 conformation, or " All hail !" because a forehead 
 has its "grand elevation?" — * Experience of the 
 ways of mankind/ he would have concluded, ' may 
 give useful power of discrimination, under the aid 
 of memory, or the information of history ; but it 
 never was intended by the only-wise God, that a 
 science should be made out of imaginary postu- 
 lates, imputed data, and assumed consequences.* 
 
HERALINE. 1 27 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 In the new arrangement of the earl's establish- 
 ment, such a mind as Mr. Meryon's was singularly 
 useful, and he could uot but feel and acknowledge 
 with respectful gratitude, the pain he was spared 
 in his wish to execute blamelessly, an office he 
 had never sought, by his lordship's disposition to 
 listen to him. Still more, perhaps, was he grati- 
 fied by perceiving a daily increase of his influence 
 over the mind and spirit of Lady Heraline, whose 
 sore heart was compelled to seek beyond its own 
 halo of aspirations, the refreshment it needed. 
 
 The parent and child were now brought into 
 much closer contact than heretofore ; and when Lady 
 Heraline, in her morning-3aunter, had chanced to 
 light upon John Brown, and had led him out, by 
 bewitching condescension, to the free use of all 
 his admirative apostrophes, and the unreserved 
 communication of his hardships, his struggles, and 
 his long-decayed powers of manly perseverance, 
 she could meet her father at his breakfast-table, 
 not only with urbanity, but with a feeling of tender 
 consideration, which, in want of its real object, 
 fell in the form of filial affection on him. What 
 g 4 
 
128 HERALINE. 
 
 change the re-appearance of one of theDe Quintes, 
 leading in the amiable French youth in bona-Jide 
 existence, might have produced in Lady Heraline's 
 proceedings, can only be guessed — her emotions 
 of tenderness might rather have changed their ob- 
 ject, than their nature — she was in love, deeply in 
 love, with she knew not what ; and therefore she 
 was almost affectionate towards her parent. Has 
 nobody ever seen this strange effect ? — It was 
 when the heart of the ensign had been practised 
 on by the widow that he fell so desperately in 
 love with little miss — Had the widow been out 
 of the way, the ensign had been safe ; but the 
 widow was not to be had — she, notwithstanding 
 her blandishments, fortunately for him ! soared too 
 high — so he gave his inexperienced heart, which 
 was always looking over its paling for an object, 
 to this little lass whom his imagination decked out 
 in the softest tints of an amatory wardrobe. — And 
 now he has the effrontery to complain, and quar- 
 rels with his relations, not becaase they were de- 
 ficient in their admonitions, but rather because he 
 would not believe them. 
 
 But good is always good ; and in the present 
 instance, the father and daughter could not but be 
 happier for these appearances of goodness. The 
 house was yet far from settled — it was under a 
 sort of conventional or provisional government, 
 
HBiiALUSTE. 129 
 
 which awaited the leisure of the earl to pay his 
 daughter, as he said, ' the respect due to her, by 
 consulting her on his permanent arrangements.' 
 
 The consultation began t&e-a-tete, of course, 
 as in it Mr. Meryon was rather to be talked about 
 than to talk. The earl reported progress, and des- 
 canted with very creditable feeling, on the good 
 plain sense of Mr. Meryon, ' who, being a man 
 thoroughly acquainted with the world, was far 
 from offended at the distance to which the plans 
 necessary for the high style of education of a 
 young person of her rank, had, of course, thrown 
 him for a time ; ' but i that was now all over, and 
 Meryon would be their firm friend and very use- 
 ful — as useful as he could possibly be — not, to be 
 sure, the handy fellow poor De Quinte was — that 
 they had no right to expect, and could never find 
 in any Englishman — the French were certainly the 
 cleverest people in Europe — that he must say — 
 and he was particularly partial to them — he re- 
 membered what a clever fellow he once found 
 when he travelled. — dear dear ! — how many years 
 ago that was ! — he was almost ashamed to say — he ! 
 he ! he ! — but that fellow was courier, valet, cook, 
 every thing. — As for Meryon, he was a worthy 
 creature, and one could not have every thing' — 
 but ' he was now going seriously, while the rain 
 continued— for he should be very sorry to hinder 
 g5 
 
ISO HERALINE. 
 
 her exercise — exercise was necessary for all young 
 people — it kept them in health and vigour — and 
 indeed he thought'— (he did not say l therefore he 
 thought/ but simply he thought) that * he should 
 himself take more exercise, and put himself regu- 
 larly into the hands of this new Exeter physician) 
 who, by all he could discover in one or two visits, 
 was a very clever man : he concurred with Mr. 
 Meryon in recommending moderate exertion and 
 unfatiguing exercise ' — he ' was sorry to find him 
 an enemy to the storax-piil to which he had so 
 long been accustomed — it had been recommended 
 to him as a very pretty pill — and he thought it 
 had agreed with him very well ; but it might, in- 
 deed, have latent effects, which drugs sometimes 
 left imperceptibly behind them/ 
 
 Lady Heraline looked at the newspaper be- 
 fore her, and pointed out a Devonshire marriage — 
 his lordship stood corrected. 
 
 ' We must now/ resumed he, ' form some plan 
 of living, while I remain with you — or you remain 
 with me — for I certainly expect great offers for 
 you— and I shall be very ready to meet them.' 
 
 Lady Heraline sighed and shook her head. — 
 Of this the earl was too wise, or too cunning — -for 
 they are very different things — to take notice : he 
 proceeded— 
 
 'Meryon has made it his request, and I do 
 not think it handsome, just now, to thwart him, 
 
HERALINE. 131 
 
 that T would make a sort of — I do not know what 
 to call it — a sort of chapel-establishment in my 
 house, by letting him read prayers ; and as he is 
 my chaplain, and I had settled it with him, that he 
 must, as much as he can, be with me — he shall have 
 every accommodation — the house will very well 
 admit of it : — he wishes to have the old form kept 
 up, of saying grace at my table — I shall indulge 
 him in all these trifles, by way, you know, of keep- 
 ing him in the tact I must have him in ; and in- 
 deed I can have no objection ; for I myself think 
 there is something very suitable to persons of my 
 rank, to have prayers and grace entirely for them- 
 selves and their own household. — I have, however, 
 not bound myself, nor you, to a strict attendance — 
 I have said for myself, that if he can wait my time, 
 and I have not had a bad night, I will make one of 
 his congregation in the morning, and in the even- 
 ing, unless I am very much overcome by fatigue : 
 —and I have said for you, that you will do as it 
 suits you, and that I wish you, as much as possible, 
 to be your own mistress. — You are now old 
 enough to be trusted to your own government/ 
 
 ' Now,' continued the earl, ' on what plan, my 
 dear, would you wish me to make my establish- 
 ment? — It might perhaps be proper for you to 
 have somebody with you. — I should have told you, 
 indeed, what Meryon said very handsomely of you 
 g6 
 
132 HERALINE, 
 
 on your polite attendance on him at church.— I 
 assure you, your trouble is not thrown away on 
 him.— I told him you had an odd unaccountable 
 passion, or whim, for going to church. — I told 
 him you always had it, and that I never interposed 
 my authority. He talked, as you may suppose, 
 for you know how mat description of people are 
 apt to set off when they get on their hobby — he 
 talked about foundation, and fruit, and early good 
 habits, and the Lord knows what, — and I would 
 not atop him— I know him so well ! — he was my 
 tutor at college— r-at the university, I should say — 
 I was of Oxford — an unworthy member, to be 
 sure. — Lord! how many years ago that is!— as I 
 say, I am ashamed to say. — Well ! we shall all be 
 old one time or other, if we live so long.' 
 
 Now, why did the Earl of Lynford, who was 
 no very egregious fool, though he was perhaps 
 equidistant from the character of a wise man, talk 
 in this silly manner ? — His daughter was very far 
 from the least tincture of silliness— it could not 
 
 therefore be to please her Why did he talk 
 
 so? — He did it, because he had points to carry 
 which he had not the independent courage to 
 bring forward at once: — with absolute power in 
 his hands, he was afraid of his daughter — it was, 
 he knew, she who bore the lofty mind. — Had he 
 been secure from her opposition by word or look, 
 
HERALINE. 133 
 
 be would still have dreaded the instantaneous sen- 
 tence her rapid judgment must, he well knew, 
 pass on his poverty of spirit; and he was there- 
 fore, like the juggler, half whose movements only 
 tend to dazzle and perplex and mislead, pop- 
 ping off squibs and crackers, that she might not 
 ascertain the moment of explosion, which might 
 reduce her to a compelled acquiescence. 
 
 But she was not so easily thrown off her 
 guard. She took up the subject from the period 
 in which was contained the acknowledgment of 
 her ability to guide herself, and, as if fearful of 
 retractation, she attempted to rivet his lordship in 
 this opinion by an assurance that, as she considered 
 her education entirely finished, except as she might 
 wish to keep pace with fashion in accomplish- 
 ments, she would, on no consideration, submit to 
 any thing in the shape of goavernante or chape- 
 ron. She reminded his lordship that many ladies 
 were wives and mothers when not older than her- 
 self ; and giving him rather a haughty permission 
 to devolve on whom he pleased, the detail of 
 his housekeeping, she repeated her expectations of 
 her own perfect independence. 
 
 The earl perhaps a little misconceived this last 
 branch of her reply ; for he met it with a frank 
 and candid, as well as affectionate declaration 
 against a second marriage on his part. — He took 
 
134 HERALINE. 
 
 pains to state some of his reasons against it — i the 
 difficulty now, of finding a person proper for so 
 important a situation — suited to such a trust as a 
 man so blest in a daughter must repose in a wife ; 
 — the danger of some young woman's too readily 
 accepting him for a share in his exalted rank, and 
 the participation of a princely income ; and, last 
 of all, and more important than all, his concern 
 for the perfect comfort of an only child, the sole 
 object of his care in this world.' — His lordship 
 concluded by feeling for his handkerchief. 
 
 Lady Heraline not only could have laughed, 
 but with great difficulty refrained from doing so, 
 in the least qualified way. Pensive as was the 
 present habit of her thoughts, she could not, with 
 any possible preservation of seriousness, image to 
 herself his venerable lordship leading captive to 
 the altar of Hymen, that indivisible and unalien- 
 able property of youth and beauty — some inade- 
 quate nymph, all grimace of love and bashfulness, 
 whose pedigree lay scattered in church-registers, 
 and whose maiden-dowry was comprised in her 
 humble wardrobe. — Had the De Quintes been 
 at hand, there might have been a revelry of mirth 
 extracted from the fancied frolic ; but at the exist- 
 ing moment, business was the question, and there 
 could be no retention of the past ludicrous for 
 
HERALINE. ]55 
 
 the entertainment of the not-yet-smiled-on Made- 
 moiselle Annette. 
 
 The colloquy proceeded, as soon as the Lady 
 Heraline could send back her merry ideas to the 
 farthest recess of her brain ; and having settled 
 the one point of independence, she very graciously 
 came into her father's other plans. He proposed 
 to turn over to Mr. Meryon, all sorts of personal 
 trouble, and all responsibility for his comfort — 
 and as a subordinate female must take the same 
 species of ministry in the domestic detail, he, 
 very very cautiously — for here was the point of 
 the forlorn hope — here was the greatest proba- 
 bility of a vigorous repulse — he very gently ven- 
 tured to commend the unselfishness of good Me- 
 ryon, in having declared his readiness to part from 
 Mrs. Parr, who had 3 in a most respectable and 
 respected manner, presided over his little menage, 
 if his lordship thought her more worthy of trust 
 than any one else within his reach. 
 
 Lady Heraline certainly started : but when the 
 earl, in addition to her praiseworthy qualities, de- 
 clared positively against Mrs. Parr's having the 
 smallest control over her ci-devant pupil, when 
 he repeated his guarantee of independence to his 
 daughter, she made no opposition. To object to 
 the proposal would have been unreasonable ; and 
 the Lady Heraline might at the moment think, 
 
1 36 HERALINE. 
 
 that the power of exciting the apprehension or the 
 jealousy of Mademoiselle Annette, was not to be 
 despised, if she wished to keep the pert French- 
 woman in her proper place. — At least, unless she 
 had herself had some fitter person than Mrs. Parr to 
 introduce, which she had not, there was no ground 
 for rejecting a woman, in whom she well knew, 
 whatever her deficiencies, confidence could not 
 be misplaced, and who would most obsequiously 
 rid her of cares which both their own nature, 
 and her want of experience, must render annoying 
 and troublesome. Mrs. Parr's admission there- 
 fore in a middle rank, neither raising her to the 
 society of her employers, nor degrading her to 
 that of the domestics, was agreed on : — she had a 
 table and a personal servant, with perfect liberty of 
 visiting or receiving her few friends ; and a very li- 
 beral stipend was proposed, to which Mr.Meryon, 
 in kind consideration, prevailed on the earl to add 
 a small annuity for her life, in case of his lord- 
 ship's demise — not enough to make his death a 
 benefit to her, but sufficient to prevent really pain- 
 ful anxiety. Mr. Meryon was to make St. Eme- 
 ril's Court, as much as he could, his abode; but 
 at the vicarage-house he was provided with a re- 
 sponsible successor, though of an inferior class, 
 to good Mrs. Parr : his own station was to be at 
 the bottom of his lordship's table. 
 
HERALINE. 1 37 
 
 All this was judiciously arranged and honour- 
 ably ratified, and Lord Lynford and his daughter 
 were to live like other great folk under the same 
 circumstances. The neighbourly intercourse in 
 their power was to be encouraged, but with the 
 most perfect exemption of the earl from all fa- 
 tigue of body or mind, and all subjugation to 
 hours and forms; and there was now a fairer 
 chance for the respectability of St. Emeril's 
 Court, and for its owner dying decently, than had 
 ever been afforded it. 
 
 It would have been uncandid and arbitrary not 
 to allow an experiment of some innovations, be- 
 fore they became parts of an irrevocable code; 
 and consequently his lordship held himself at 
 liberty to reject what he called trifles, if they 
 proved inconvenient or unpleasant to himself. — 
 The first that presented itself in this form, was 
 the half-intention of, as he said, * showing him- 
 self at the head of his people ' at church, when his 
 health permitted — he did not even wait to ascer- 
 tain the effect, but he very civilly excused himself, 
 by appealing to < the good sense ' of Mr. Meryon, 
 and to his ' nice perceptions of things as they are/ 
 when he endeavoured, in a fog of reasoning and a 
 cloud of words, to define the painful impossibility 
 of keeping the attention on the stretch, for so long 
 
138 HERA LINE. 
 
 a period as that of the church-service — especially, 
 as he justly observed, to a man not used to it. ' It 
 was not,' as he remarked, < the fashion in his time, 
 for polished men of high rank to attend churches, 
 unless, indeed, some great preacher occasionally 
 drew them without knowing why they went, nor 
 what they went for : — if he had been brought up 
 to it, like other things, it might have become 
 habit ; and habit, Mr. Meryon well knew, made 
 every thing easy/ 
 
 The vicar very prudently set his perfect ac- 
 quiescence under a lamented necessity, in the van 
 of his reply. Had he inverted the order of it, he 
 might have had cause to repent his arrangement ; 
 but while be admitted every plea of health or in- 
 firmity, he thought it his duty to inform the 
 young lady at least, that for the healthy and stout, 
 the bare two hours devoted once a week to the 
 business of bringing our stubborn minds to a sense 
 of their danger, and confessing our want of merit, 
 to imploring the assistance of Him who alone can 
 govern the unruly wills of his sinful creatures, to 
 begging for his worldly blessings, and thanking 
 him for those in our possession, and to hearing 
 how all those concerns of our most important in- 
 terests may best be furthered, could never be rea- 
 sonably thought a superabundant allotment of 
 
HERAL1NE. 13£ 
 
 time. ' State/ said he, l only what is to be done^ 
 and the space of time allowed ; divide the space 
 by the various acts ; and the fallacy must appear. 
 T grant that, as in the public worship of our 
 friends the Quakers, if the same time were to be 
 passed nearly without the interposition of any ac- 
 tive means of performing its duties, and with 
 scarcely the variation of posture, the stretch of 
 demanded attention might be objected to ; but to 
 our liturgy it is not a well-founded objection. 
 But there are/ said he, ' a set of lively-minded 
 fidgetty people, who never can lend their minds 
 to any thing, or sit quiet for ten minutes together; 
 and to them the impositions of the church must 
 be painful — they scamper through every thing, 
 notice nothing, shrink from all feeling, and com- 
 plain of every thing as lasting too long. — " What 
 shall we do next?" is their motto — they live in the 
 future, which is again dismissed as soon as it be- 
 comes the present ; and probably at the close of 
 life — O shame ! shame ! — reproach their Maker 
 for their want of time/ 
 
 Lady Heraline, to whom this was said in whis- 
 per, while the earl took a Saturday after-dinner- 
 nap, could say little in contradiction of the vicar's 
 statement. She did not feel that tedium herself; 
 for her dignity was of a still species ; she was not 
 offended. 
 
140 HERALINE. 
 
 The next chafing under unaccustomed tram- 
 mels, was that produced by the attempt to intro- 
 duce family-prayers, and a Sunday-evening un- 
 formal exposition of some useful text of Scripture. 
 The earl suffered the former to be established ; 
 but in the first instance excused himself. Nor 
 did his daughter, even in all her kind instinct to- 
 wards the vicar, relish this ' uproar of devotion/ 
 as she called it. The ringing of the bell mis-led 
 her, the clatter of the servants into the hall, was 
 disagreeable — * they were not very agreeable com- 
 pany ' — ( if the house had a regular chapel, and 
 she her gallery, it would be a different thing. As 
 it was,' she thought it c a form better omitted — 
 — the people might be told to always take care to 
 say their prayers, night and morning; and there 
 was no objection to Mr. Meryon's asking them 
 occasionally whether they did so; but really at 
 present, the day was so shortened by these te» 
 o'clock doings at each end, and if she did not at- 
 tend herself, it was so inconvenient to her to spare 
 Annette, who being a Catholic, really ought to be 
 excused — and her father could so ill let his men 
 have such idle indulgence, that she must vote for 
 the abolition.' 
 
 ' Not for the abolition, my good young lady,' 
 said Mr. Meryon in a tone of regret ; ' we will 
 say suspension — a time may come ' 
 
HERALINE. 141 
 
 1 Well, well ! the suspension, if you please : 
 only take care that the culprit hangs out his 
 hour ! ' 
 
 She who made this reply could laugh. He 
 who heard it, did not. 
 
 : 
 
142 HERALINE. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 1 he pleasant liberty in which Lady Heraline 
 was left by the dismission of her instructors, pre- 
 vented her feeling, for some time, the vacuity it 
 produced in her mind. Mrs. Parr was indeed no 
 substitute for the lively information and gipsey-like 
 experience of Madame, but then she had no autho- 
 rity; and Mr. Meryon, by the seeming novelty of 
 his mind, and its utter want of resemblance to any 
 thing that she had met with, was rendered rather 
 agreeable. Foreseeing the trial her patience might 
 have, and sincerely interested even in the cheer- 
 ful passing of her hours, he gently strove to ex- 
 cite a laudable curiosity, and then to find for it 
 the means of satisfaction. 
 
 With untried pursuits, which at once gratified 
 her pride and employed her time — under the new 
 regime, which had considerably invigorated her 
 father's general system of health, and abated his 
 local affections — cultivating society so far as to 
 make long morning-visits, to have a young friend or 
 two occasionally in the house, and admitting many 
 against whom the gates had long been shut, or 
 who, in contempt of a lord so lorded, had for-^ 
 
HERALIN£. 143 
 
 borne to seek their opening — in short, with all 
 the indulgences of a house so circumstanced, Lady 
 Heraline got pretty well through the following 
 winter. Mrs. Parr not only gave no offence, but 
 revived in the mind of the young lady, much of 
 the fondness which had served to render tolerable 
 the imperious character of her early years, and 
 perhaps unconsciously endeavouring to conciliate 
 the good opinion so necessary to her own comfort, 
 she manifested a disposition so very indulgent, and 
 represented her attachment to Lady Heraline as of 
 necessity so predominant over every consideration , 
 that her ladyship, with all her high pretensions, 
 suffered herself to be flattered, and was not deaf to 
 insinuations, that, at any rate, to keep his lordship's 
 mind quiet, was the grand point to be aimed at. 
 
 A pause in her occupations, made by the ne- 
 cessary absence of Mr. Meryon for a fortnight, 
 threw Lady Heraline on herself again, and all re- 
 collection of the past being now forgotten, and all 
 connexion with it broken by the violent measure to 
 which she had, in her own opinion very meritori- 
 ously submitted, she ventured, after a little prefa- 
 tory flourish of good humour and blandishment, at 
 the next mention of the De Quintes, to let out a 
 little of what was again fermenting in her mind. — 
 ' By the way, my lord/ said she, f I have thought 
 
144 HERALINE. 
 
 many times to ask you to let me copy that beauti- 
 ful miniature.' 
 
 ' Pooh, pooh ! you had better sit to yourself, 
 for your own miniature — you can never take it at 
 a better time/ 
 
 ' Oh ! but it would be such a lesson for me ! 
 it is so beautifully painted ! and I really want im- 
 provement. Mr. Meryon is very kind in com- 
 mending my attempts ; but still he owns himself I 
 am far from excellent.' 
 
 Lady Heraline did not dissemble in her lowly 
 self-approbation : she was too proud to be vain. 
 
 But all this would not do : his lordship most 
 unfortunately referred her to some real portrait for 
 improvement — for he had forgotten, for the mo- 
 ment, his former prevarication: he asked her what 
 was the use of copying a /arc cy-por trait. His 
 daughter was too astute to return his lead without 
 interposition : she coolly asked him if he knew the 
 name of the artist who had painted it. 
 
 He replied, l No, no, not 1/ 
 
 The petulant repetition of the negative was 
 highly inconsiderate: — had he said candidly and 
 simply, ' No, my dear, I do not/ she would have 
 been far better satisfied. 
 
 ' If I recollect right, my lord, you said before, 
 that it was the picture of the young Pretender.' 
 
 ' Did I ? ' said his lordship, with too much vU 
 3 
 
HERALINE. 145 
 
 vacity — * I believe indeed I did ; but, my dear 
 child, you must add that to his pretensions — you 
 know he was but a pretender — ha ! ha ! ha ! You 
 have heard, I dare say, the story of Cardinal York, 
 Harry the Ninth as he wished to be, who, when 
 an English gentleman dined with him, introduced 
 his roast beef with an apology for its inferiority 
 to that of England, by saying, " You know we are 
 but pretenders." ' 
 
 Lady Heraline was struck dumb. She had 
 no power to interrupt her father — he was opening 
 volumes to her view : — she had by far too logical 
 a head to give any applause to the jumble of ab- 
 surdity about pretensions and pretenders— she had 
 caught his lordship in a deviation from truth, 
 which her deep interest in it, would not suffer her 
 to consider as a new failure of memory — she 
 saw through the whole — that there was a scheme 
 which she could not understand ; and she had no 
 doubt it was planned against herself. She asked 
 no more for the picture : she would have disdained 
 to make the request : she sunk again into her 
 musings, though endeavouring to wear a face of 
 ease, and rendered now something too much re- 
 sembling a hypocrite : — all her ingenuity was set 
 at work to deceive her father, because he had de- 
 ceived her. 
 
 A confidant was made necessary to her; and 
 
 VOL. I. H 
 
J 4:6 HERALINE. 
 
 three days were spent in deliberating whether she 
 should practise on Mr. Meryon, or condescend to 
 make Mrs. Parr her friend, or command the fide- 
 lity and obedience of Annette. In the first, her 
 success was doubtful, and a failure might bring 
 most unpleasant consequences — in the second, she 
 had a prospect of success, and risqued little — to 
 the third, she had a strong feeling of repugnance. 
 She therefore took the middle course, and accele- 
 rated her proceedings, so as to have her mind free, 
 at least from the disturbance of indecision, when 
 Mr. Meryon returned. 
 
 Mrs. Parr was easily induced by the laudable 
 wish of a young artist, to contribute so innocently 
 to her ' improvement/ which was a word and an 
 idea much on her tongue and in her thoughts, ever 
 since she had been employed about Lady Hera- 
 line. She knew no harm — she saw no harm in 
 just using the earl's keys, for a purpose that could 
 never be made known to him, and by which conse- 
 quently he could never be disturbed. She had no 
 reluctance to promise secrecy, or to keep her 
 word in so trifling an affair: she therefore, the 
 next time she was intrusted with his keys, \o re- 
 plenish from his perfume-chest the vessels of his 
 toilette — a necessity which she could in her various 
 inspections bring forward — made a small excursion 
 to this private room, and under the direction of 
 3 
 
HERALINE. 147 
 
 Lady Heraline furnished her with the miniature, 
 saying, with appropriate remark, ' They must all 
 be yours, my dear, one day or other, and God 
 knows how soon ! therefore there can be no harm 
 in your having any of them now.' 
 
 Two things would have struck the Lady Hera- 
 line's mind at a moment of less pre-occupation — 
 she had positively insisted on Mrs. Parr's entire dis- 
 use of all terms of affectionate familiarity in her new 
 situation : she had demanded to be addressed with 
 the most distant respect, to be spoken of as ' the 
 Lady Heraline,' and to as ' Your ladyship' — there- 
 fore the ' my dear' ought to have called up her ready 
 anger. There certainly and evidently exists a strong 
 caveat against the argument that, because after the 
 death of another, we are to possess something, we 
 therefore may possess ourselves of it without the 
 intervention of that contingency, and this Lady 
 Heraline would have felt and exposed ; but now 
 her mediatrix was ' dear Goody Parr,' she put 
 her arm round her neck and fairly kissed her, and 
 subscribed by a hearty ' Certainly/ to all her so- 
 phistry. As there was no need of disguise where 
 * dear Goody Parr ' was concerned, the unbounded 
 rapture with which the picture was received, 
 might have caused some suspicion that, if what 
 had been told her was not wholly false, it was not 
 the whole truth ; but Mrs. Parr was not prone to 
 H2 
 
148 HERALINE. 
 
 doubt, and she imputed this rapture to her c dear 
 childV love of improvement, pluming herself, 
 perhaps, not a little, on having originally im- 
 planted that taste in her infant mind. 
 
 The next solicitude that occupied Lady He- 
 raline, after having descended to impose on a 
 harmless ignorant woman, was to hide her own 
 proceedings from her despicable waiting-maid. 
 Waiting-maids admitted to confidence, as was 
 Annette, are very apt to fancy they have the 
 entree to their ladies' innermost apartments at all 
 hours, and will pout, as did that famous arche- 
 type of them all, Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, 
 when her puzzled mistress thought it the policy 
 of the hour to play at being awful. But it was 
 too long since Mademoiselle Annette had been 
 a favourite, to resent openly ; and when she com- 
 plained to his lordship of the hauteur with which 
 she was treated, and the superior favours shown to 
 Mrs. Parr, though the earl compassionated her 
 hard case, and was inclined to blame his daughter, 
 a few minutes' conversation with Mr. Meryon 
 induced him to be quiet, and at least to let the 
 candidates make good their separate pretensions 
 for themselves. The vicar did not exactly say, 
 but he certainly thought, nothing could be worse 
 for Lady Heraline than the friendship of Ma- 
 demoiselle Annette. Whether he was right, is a 
 
HERA LINE. 1 49 
 
 question that cannot be settled till the previous 
 one is adjusted — Whether knaves or fools do most 
 mischief. 
 
 ' Cui bono?* — what end will it answer? — 
 would have been the earl's query to himself, had 
 he ever formed the least intention of divulging 
 the trifling matter of his daughter's application for 
 the miniature-picture to Mr. Meryon — he had 
 never talked to him about the miniature — he 
 knew nothing of it, but that the De Quintes, in 
 some scheme of selling their pupil, had made use 
 of a picture in his lordship's collection. That it 
 had ever appeared to make any impression on 
 Lady Heraline's heart, he had never felt inclined 
 to tell ; and to begin now to be confidential on so 
 unimportant a subject, would have been utterly out 
 of place. The matter therefore was sunk in this 
 quarter, however it might rise in another ; and by 
 the kindness and policy of her friends, Lady He- 
 raline was most pitiably, though not without fault 
 on her part, suffered to go nearer and nearer to 
 the edge of a precipice, from which she might 
 never find her way back. 
 
 How young friends marry, is matter of observ- 
 ation with very young ladies of rank ; and how 
 they may chance to marry themselves, occupies 
 not merely a vacant moment of their thoughts. 
 Lady Heraline had for many years been accus- 
 H 3 
 
ISO HERALINE. 
 
 tomed to discussions of this sort; and in her in- 
 sulated and commanding situation, habit had made 
 it very familiar to herself and to the earl, to 
 weigh various propositions, and to be ready with 
 a manner to receive or dismiss proposals. 
 
 St. Emeril's Court having now for some time 
 been regarded almost as a new acquisition to^the 
 neighbourhood, the resort thither of parents to 
 introduce their children, and of young people to be 
 introduced, was increasing, and offers were made 
 and proposals tendered, which were rejected in 
 various ways, on reference to the lady. Once 
 engaged in the bewitching employment of copying 
 the picture, and the still more narcotic occupation 
 of gazing on it, every interruption was unpleasant, 
 and every disturbance annoying. If the earl ap- 
 peared to interest himself in any application, it 
 was so much the more opposed as making her 
 fear, or rather affect to fear, compulsion ; and 
 on this ground she most vehemently set her face 
 against a very eligible connexion, proposed in the 
 handsomest manner by the- widow Countess of 
 Winchmore for her son, then abroad, against the 
 time of his coming of age, which was not to be till 
 he was twenty-five. The mutual liking of the 
 parties was made a condition ; and nothing but 
 what was fair and honourable, and worthy of 
 a noble family of the highest principle, was in- 
 
HERALINE. ] 5 1 
 
 tended. The estates were magnificent; their 
 principal seat in an adjoining county — there could 
 be no objection to opening the business, with a 
 view to a happy termination, leaving the young 
 people still at the most perfect liberty — they were 
 not strangers to one another ; and all might have 
 ended well; but Lady Heraline pretended — for 
 she was losing the power of being honest — to feel 
 affronted at this * bespeaking/ as she called it, 
 and prohibited all farther mention of his lordship, 
 and ' his marketting mamma/ 
 
 The disappointment to Lord Lynford was, 
 in this instance, serious, and he wished Lady 
 Heraline to see that he felt it ; but no testimonial 
 of this sort would have weighed with her in the 
 present state of her mind, or rather of her resent- 
 ment towards her father. That he had deceived 
 her, was sufficient of itself to provoke her, and 
 render her indifferent to his inclination — but that 
 he had deceived her in a matter which she had 
 made of such peculiar consequence to herself, 
 was what her spirit would in no wise brook. 
 Rumination on the circumstance, only served to 
 set her still farther from him ; and the mystery 
 attached to it, the impossibility of getting at 
 that which no one but himself could tell, kept 
 her feelings always in a state of irritation, which 
 nothing veiled, but her conviction that her only 
 H 4 
 
152 HERALINE. 
 
 chance lay in keeping him off his guard ; had she 
 put him on it, by the least want of self-command 
 or prudence, the door of hope was, she well 
 knew, for ever closed against her — his lordship 
 might ' die and make no sign.' 
 
HERALTNE. 153 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 One of the pretty young gentlemen supposed to 
 be candidates for the presumptive heiress's person 
 and favour, and one who seemed the most likely 
 to please her fastidious taste, was the second son 
 of an Irish marquis ; his father was known to 
 Lord Lynford, and he himself came introduced 
 and strongly supported by Mr. Meryon's media- 
 tion, and with such pretensions as, except in his 
 want of title, atoned for the prohibition of Lord 
 Winchmore's suit. He was a soldier, extremely 
 handsome, of the first class in dress and manners, 
 well-educated, well-principled, of unblemished 
 moral character, and, by the just partiality of his 
 grandmother, prodigiously rich : his temper was 
 such as made him universally beloved, while his 
 noble integrity and independence obtained for him 
 an equal portion of esteem ; he had a very cool 
 head and a very warm sensitive heart. He was 
 the Sir Charles Grandison of a former age, the 
 ###* ****## Q f ^ . anc j t j ie jr ar j Q f Lynford, 
 
 if ever he had been in the habit of saying * Thank 
 God!' would probably have uttered those words, 
 when he hoped that the facilities and encourage- 
 
 VOL. I. *H 5 
 
354 HERALINE. 
 
 tnents which he had held out to Lord Charles, 
 and the distinctions with which he received him ; 
 were fairly leading on to a happy arrangement. 
 
 To secure his lordship — to have every reason 
 to think that his family valued and wished for the 
 connexion, were however but two points of pro- 
 bable success ; and the earl might have trembled 
 for the skittish waywardness of his daughter, had 
 he not perceived some unquestionable proofs of a 
 disposition to conciliate the young man's favour- 
 able opinion. — Love was no canker-worm in the 
 bosom of the Lady Heraline — she grew fat on it ; 
 — and it was not her fantastical melancholy, or 
 her fancied cause for despondency, that could in- 
 jure so lovely a form, or so fine a constitution. 
 
 Lord Charles's visits, which had at first been 
 made with diffidence and repeated with caution, 
 grew more intimate and frequent, till, at length, 
 they became matters of course, and the day was 
 remarked on which he was not seen at St. Emeril's 
 Court, rather than those when he was there. — 
 Kxcuses were found for this growing frequenta- 
 lion, which saved the different persons concerned 
 in it, from the necessity of confidence. 
 
 Lord Charles was extremely attached to Mr. 
 Meryon, and, from his boyhood, in the habit of 
 visiting him, applying to him in all cases where 
 he did not trust his own judgment, and seeking 
 
HERALINE. 155 
 
 from a veteran scholar and a classic traveller, that 
 information which he knew enough to value. It 
 was consistent with the politeness of Lord 
 Lynford, or rather with his standing appeal to 
 what became men of his rank, to give Lord 
 Charles all opportunities of seeing his friend, with- 
 out recognising any change of place in his day- 
 residence ; and Mr. Meryon might, under the 
 persuasion that nothing but good could ensue — he 
 might, in a sort of parental solicitude for his pa- 
 tron's daughter, add a little more encouragement 
 than he otherwise would have done, to draw him 
 to the house. 
 
 Nothing in the conduct of Lady Heraline 
 checked the views of her father or the wishes of 
 her friend. That she strove to please, was evinced 
 even by the compliments she paid his taste — her 
 dress — her pursuits — her sentiments all might be 
 called, in poetic language, ' redolent' of Lord 
 Charles's preferences. She had all the little play 
 of love about her ; and he could not but perceive, 
 if he chose to perceive any thing, that he was treat- 
 ed by her ladyship as no other visible pretender 
 was treated. — This she would have confessed her- 
 self, but perhaps with a recondite meaning peculi- 
 arly her own. 
 
 If Lady Heraline had not lost in some measure 
 that honesty of character which seemed born with 
 H 6 
 
156 HERALINE. 
 
 her, the evidences of her favourable sentiments 
 would still farther have convinced or deceived her 
 friends. She must have expressed — for every hu- 
 man heart not entirely vitiated, loves goodness — she 
 must have expressed some approbation of a young 
 man so distinguished by nature, and so worthy to 
 wear his high distinctions. — It was not consistent 
 with the pleasure she still took in conversing with 
 poor old John Brown, whose goodness certainly 
 was his only license to entertain her, to pass over, as 
 of every-day attainment, the splendid virtues of 
 Lord Charles. If she felt her heart glow with sym- 
 pathetic warmth when John Brown described the 
 filial duty and brotherly affection of a son whom he 
 had lost, she ought to have almost worshipped Lord 
 Charles, who was exemplary in his attentions to 
 parents whose affections were too much engrossed 
 by his far inferior elder brother — while he bore, 
 without even allowable resentment, the envious and 
 malignant disposition of that brother, excusing him, 
 as often as was possible, under the plea of excessive 
 indulgence in his childhood, and again apologizing 
 for that, by his claim to tenderness on account 
 of bad health and personal defects. But on Lord 
 Charles's merits she never spoke : she contented 
 herself with letting him see that his person, his 
 tastes, and pursuits, were interesting to her ; and 
 though conscious to the supposed intentions of her 
 
HERALINE. 157 
 
 father, and the wishes of Mr. Meryon, she seem- 
 ed to them to be dismissing her waywardness, and 
 gave hopes, however slender, that she might at 
 last settle into rationality. 
 
 But her mind was made up, and in a way not 
 at all likely to gratify her friends. She had pic- 
 tured to her warm fancy, the whole scene up to 
 the moment of its highest interest, and had con- 
 ned over the terms in which she meant to pro- 
 nounce the most mortifying sentence. She grew 
 impatient for the crash that was to destroy a solid 
 fabric of hope to his lordship — a house of cards 
 in her estimation — but carried up, as she designed 
 it to be, to a perilous height. In every interview, 
 she now put out a new bait, and seemed to wish 
 him to see, and to be unable to avoid, the hook 
 to which it was attached. — She had drawn him 
 into a correspondence, first on some very trifling 
 occasion, and continued afterwards at greater 
 length, for the sole purpose of exhibiting her 
 epistolary powers, and her exquisitely beautiful 
 hand-writing. — Her letters and notes were unique. 
 She had a pretty badinage from which she could 
 break off, in a way that left the reader to seek again 
 the resumption of a subject which he regretted her 
 quitting : — on serious topics she wrote with perspi- 
 cuity and intelligence — she was humble in con- 
 
\5S HEKALINE. 
 
 fessing ignorance, persuasive in her entreaties for 
 information, and grateful for any trouble or 
 
 thought bestowed on her. She was — and, alas ! 
 
 this may be said of many more — she was, on 
 paper, all that she ought to have been always, and 
 in all situations. 
 
 Four months wore away, and certainly Lady 
 Heraline's spirits were not lowered by the atten- 
 tions of Lord Charles. She knew now that the 
 matter was got into circulation : — Annette had tried 
 the effect of hinting what she had heard ; and per- 
 ceiving her lady in better countenance towards her 
 next day, had continued to administer the same 
 cure for repelling looks, with tolerable success. 
 Mrs. Parr, in her excessive unwieldy fondness, 
 had, larmoyante, congratulated herself aloud to 
 Lady Heraline on this rapturous prospect; and 
 her ladyship had the pleasure of foreseeing that the 
 explosion would be far from private. If she ever 
 asked herself what in Lord Charles's conduct 
 warranted this wanton insolence, she could only 
 have alleged the resentment she owed her father, 
 and might have done justice to Lord Charles's 
 worth and powers, by saying that nothing was 
 wanting to his success, but the unoccupation of 
 her fancy — for heart it would have been almost 
 profaue to have talked of — and the earl her father's 
 strenuous opposition. 
 
HE11ALINE. T59 
 
 Excess of attention sometimes renders us in- 
 attentive, and the sinister accidents of this life will, 
 in spite of watchfulness and armour, make their 
 attacks at the moments when we least expect 
 them, in forms under which we have the least 
 contemplated them, and in parts which we had 
 thought unassailable. 
 
 Impatient as she was to mortify her friends 
 and their favourite, Lady Heraline, in all the in- 
 consistency of persons who never ask a question of 
 any higher oracle than the tyrant Caprice, wished 
 to make the drama hold out a little longer — the 
 miniature had been long since finished, and the 
 original safely restored to its piace, without sus- 
 picion or discovery ; and she might foresee, that if 
 she extinguished the lambent flame of Lord 
 Charles's passion, she might feel the want of the 
 amusement it afforded her. At any rate, she had 
 no desire to part from any thing which served to 
 enliven a mode of existence which, with all that 
 could be done to give it variety, was rather, in her 
 acceptation, to be endured than enjoyed. She 
 therefore repelled her impatience, and having 
 settled her behaviour against the time when her 
 best energies would be called forth, she rested on 
 her oars, and suffered the tide to carry down with 
 it, her ill-constructed bark — improving in tran- 
 quillity and external composure iu proportion as 
 
 \ OL. I. H 8 
 
160 HERALINE. 
 
 she saw reason to doubt whether he, with whom 
 she was thus sporting, had any chance for enjoying 
 the one, or could command as much of the other 
 as would prevent his being very delightfully ridi- 
 culous. Hints which he threw out, of an ex- 
 change of regiment, by which he might be ordered 
 abroad, made her a little apprehensive of a sudden 
 catastrophe ; but these were so counteracted by 
 hints of many things, deferred till he saw farther — 
 in what way he did not explain — that expectation 
 again went to sleep ; and she could only comfort 
 herself that, if he went, he would have the scene 
 of parting from her to go through ; and as she 
 meant to make his corresponding with her a very 
 urgent request, she knew she could keep all his 
 feelings alive, and have him in good order, when, 
 \iclding to increasing impatience, he should seize 
 the first opportunity to return. 
 
 All this advantage of the privileged power of 
 giving pain — all this mis-use of too much liberty, 
 Mas productive of a species of gratification, to 
 which, in some minds, the endurance of disease or 
 the struggles against unmerited misfortune, would 
 be preferable. But Lady Heraline, under the 
 sweet disturbance given to her mind by her insi- 
 dious teachers, seemed to estimate self-approbation 
 at nothing, and to delight in perversely acting in 
 opposition to it. She had not lost her sense of 
 
HEIIALINE. 161 
 
 right and wrong — no one could decide better, in 
 any case, which did not respect herself ; but she 
 still entertained the opinion, that her orbit was in 
 a plane never touching on that of any other celes- 
 tial luminary. 
 
 The accident which she least of all deprecated, 
 was Lord Charles's too soon being aware of his 
 perilous situation ; and of this, as she made no 
 confidant, there was little danger. But, as it has 
 sometimes happened, that the elaborate character 
 of a forgery has detected it, — in the present in- 
 stance the extreme solicitude of the deceiver was 
 too evident to escape the observation of the de- 
 ceived — a young man not so very desperately in 
 love as at all adventures to run the hazard of re- 
 pentance, and not so very thoughtless as to sup- 
 pose that, if courtship was successful, matrimony 
 must be felicitous. 
 
 It was not at all times possible, even for Lady 
 Heraline, to counteract the second nature given 
 her by education ; and that expression of counte- 
 nance and character of manner which were part of 
 her high distinction, would sometimes betray, to- 
 wards the earl, something very little like filial con- 
 sideration, and to her admirer, something that 
 justified the question * What can this mean V 
 
162 
 
 HERALINE. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 1 hts was the internal polity of St. EmeriFs, 
 when one morning a servant approached the Lady 
 Heraline with two letters — oner only of which he 
 presented to her, saying, when she seemed inclined 
 to take both, that the other was for Mr. Meryon. 
 
 1 Never mind — I am prepared/ said she, as 
 she broke the seal which she knew to be Lord 
 Charles's : — it was indeed his seal that formed 
 the momentary impediment to her gratification — 
 it was his fine unstudied manly characters, that 
 met her eye in these words: 
 
 " My dear M — — " 
 
 ' Well ! * thought her ladyship, ' voila Vouvrage 
 de Monsieur Cupidon — he has written only the 
 first letter of Madam/ — She read on — 
 
 " I have at length made up my mind on the 
 subject which has so highly interested, 1 believe I 
 may say, both of us." 
 
 The Lady Heraline felt indignant at this pre- 
 sumptuous article of Lord Charles's creed. She 
 laid the letter down on a table, near which she 
 had been standing. She began to deliberate on 
 the propriety of enclosing it to the writer unread ; 
 
HERALINE. 1 63 
 
 but second thoughts are generally cooler, if not 
 better — she was not going, just now, to spite her- 
 self — so she proceeded. 
 
 " I cannot describe to you the pain I have 
 endured : " 
 
 ' Come come,' thought Lady Heraline — ' he 
 is only, poor soul ! in a state of distraction — I 
 think my father is a governor of St. Luke's — and 
 I '11 furnish the strait waistcoat.' 
 
 " I have not closed my eyes all night." 
 
 'Delightful!' shouted Lady Heraline. — She 
 proceeded with increased interest. — She forgot all 
 causes of offence. 
 
 " You do not, I am sure, suspect me of want 
 of sensibility to the extraordinary combination 
 of great advantages which the goodness of Pro- 
 vidence seems to have put almost within my 
 reach " 
 
 * No, I give you credit for that — ' 
 
 " You do not suppose me blind to charms of 
 person, deaf to the most brilliant powers of con- 
 versation, or uninfluenced by the most exquisite 
 grace of deportment and the noblest dignity of 
 manners " 
 
 ' Thank you, my lord,' quoth the Lady Hera- 
 line. 
 
 " All these are eminently to be found in " 
 
 ' You might as well have finished your sentence 
 
164 HEUAL1NE. 
 
 with "you, madam, or Lady Heraline Beltravers," 
 in the third person — it is the more respectful / — 
 
 " 1 admit all that you have said to guard me 
 against unfounded prejudice in favour of unim- 
 portant circumstances " 
 
 ' I am sure I never said any thing of un- 
 founded prejudices — any in my favour, I think are 
 tolerably well founded — at least, I believe the 
 world thinks so — ' 
 
 " I agree with you, that time and tenderness 
 may do much to improve happiness ; but happi- 
 ness, to be improved, must exist to a certain de- 
 gree — and I really see no prospect of mine." 
 
 ? Poor soul ! — O don't despair ! — I have not 
 fired yet, man — and when I do, you shall not 
 linger, depend on it.' 
 
 " Now do not imagine I am going to hang 
 my harp and myself together on a willow — but 
 hear me." 
 
 1 You had better, I think, hang one of them, 
 at least.' 
 
 " You know my very high opinion of my dear 
 sister — nay, your own has not been less high." 
 
 ' That 's going a little too far — the girl is very 
 well, the woman I should say — I forgot she 's 
 married — and I have the delectable bride-visit to 
 make ! — I hate bride-visits.' 
 
 " You know the gentle sweet timidity of her 
 
HERALINE. 165 
 
 character— you know how justly she might have 
 claimed distinction and applause, when she has, 
 in true humility, shunned it." 
 
 1 / never saw this — but why does the man 
 dash under the word true ?— Well, never mind/ 
 
 " You know her devotion to my mother under 
 all the discouragement of her unfortunate irrita- 
 bility—you know how honourably she has pro- 
 moted domestic union in our family, what sacri- 
 fices she has made, nay, what sad returns they 
 have met with — yet, who ever heard her murmur, 
 or challenge what was due to herself ?— who ever 
 saw her otherwise than amiable and respectable :" 
 
 ' An exemplification of the fifth commandment 
 1 presume — but what is that to me?' 
 
 " It is useless to recapitulate — the man who 
 has been so fortunate as to obtain her hand, it is 
 joy to me to be certain will appreciate her virtues. 
 I only wish to call your attention to her conduct 
 towards him while he was her lover, and to com- 
 pare it with " 
 
 ' O ! O ! my lord — now, I suppose, I am to 
 be called cruel by inference and implication. — I 
 do not mind that.' 
 
 " I do not say I have not met with encourage- 
 ment — without it, you know me well enough to 
 be certain I should not have lingered here — but 
 do you not perceive a mixture of coquetry with 
 2 
 
166 HERALINE. 
 
 what I suppose I ought gratefully to acknowledge 
 as tenderness, which I do not say must but may 
 end in my complete mortification, if I am not on 
 my guard." 
 
 Lady Heraline began to think : — the blood was 
 not very apt to suffuse her cheeks in more than its 
 due proportion — she was universally firm and 
 steady in strength and spirits, and as little suscep- 
 tible of the surprise of novel sensation, as of the 
 gaucherie of diffidence — but she coloured — and 
 most deeply. — She could not proceed — the letter, 
 for the present, she locked up in her writing-desk, 
 and turned her back on it, to get rid of the painful 
 feeling it had excited. — She even gave orders for 
 her horse to be got ready for her, and intended not 
 to have time to look at the letter again till she had 
 taken her ride. — Annette was in waiting for her 
 change of dress — but curiosity was triumphant; 
 and she resumed the perusal of the letter. 
 
 The writer went on to say : " Allowing me to 
 reason by analogy, you will have patience while I 
 ask you two questions. — Do you imagine rne in- 
 sensible to the fault of character as well as errors 
 of deportment, which the least opposition brings 
 out? You may indeed plead partial ignorance; 
 because 1 have observed that a compliment is paid 
 you when present. — You ought never to be away, 
 if you wish things to go on well. — My second 
 
HERALINE. \67 
 
 question is, What can a husband hope where a 
 spirit cannot bend to the age, the infirmities, and 
 the fondness, the doting fondness, of a father; and 
 when he cannot flatter himself that he has influ- 
 ence enough to correct a fault?" 
 
 Lady Heraline did not colour now, she turned 
 pale — she shook. She was convinced there was 
 some confusion in what she had before her ; but 
 she looked at the envelope, and saw clearly that it 
 was directed to herself. 
 
 The necessity of finding out the puzzle gave 
 her power to proceed — but all inclination to go 
 out was gone — she countermanded the horses, and 
 dismissed Annette from her attendance. 
 
 ' At all events, I will see the whole,' said she ; 
 ' I will know all.' — She now sate down fairly to 
 her task. 
 
 " How can I ever pretend to the authority, the 
 command that a father ought to have? How could 
 I, to a woman who had been so generous to me, 
 and who certainly might marry^more advantageously 
 — how could I utter a harsh word, or say, * This is 
 my will, and I expect your obedience/ — and were I 
 to attempt convincing, or even persuading, you 
 must know how such methods have a chance of 
 speeding." 
 
 ' Shame, shame ! ' said Lady Heraline aloud 
 — when she felt herself feeling for her handker- 
 
168 HERALINE. 
 
 chief. — The reproof was efficacious, she bade her- 
 self go on; and self obeyed. 
 
 " I have tried to indulge myself — I have tried 
 to be blind and deaf to all but one object and one 
 sound, but to no purpose. — I will not feign shame 
 when I say that reason is triumphant over love." 
 
 ' Perhaps he thinks this of me ; — he may sup- 
 pose the triumph on my side — if so, I shall not let 
 him off quite so easily — I must spin my poor cock- 
 chafer a little longer yet. But let me see what my 
 merry-go-round says while he spins — I am almost 
 at the end, thank Heaven! for I am r more than 
 half tired. — This is not for me I am sure.' 
 
 Her ladyship tried to yawn — with this relief, 
 she read on to the end. 
 
 " I flatter myself, in spite of all your flat- 
 tery " — ' I never flattered you/ — " that I 
 
 have interested, sincerely interested, nothing more 
 worthy of regard than vanity — I will not say there 
 was nothing else to interest — this would be un- 
 just — there is so much good sense, that there ought 
 to be good nature ; and there may be a heart 
 somewhere — but as far as regards myself, I think 
 I am justified in saying, that to enthrall aud then 
 reject mine, is the aim and final intention. 
 
 " Under this persuasion, I take my leave, and 
 join the regiment. I will not trust myself in an in- 
 
HERALINE. 169 
 
 terview. I write now to the lady, saying that I am 
 called away, and so I am.— I am, my dear Sir, 
 " Most faithfully yours. 
 
 " P. S. You shall hear from me soon." 
 
 i In the wrong envelope ! ' exclaimed Lady 
 Heraline; ' I am sure it is so — this is to Me- 
 ryon.' 
 
 Her head turned, and she threw herself on the 
 sopha ; but presently her immediate concern was 
 uppermost in her recollection : she crushed the 
 letter and the envelope together, and lighting 
 them on the inner hearth, had seen the last spark 
 on the paper-tinder expire, when Mr. Meryon 
 came in quest of her, and with his usual simpli- 
 city of manner, said, ' Lady Heraline, 1 fancy 
 Lord Charles has made some mistake: he has put 
 a note, evidently designed for you, into a cover di- 
 rected to me — I could not avoid reading your 
 billet; but there is no secret in it: he cannot be 
 at your music-party, for he is called to join his 
 regiment that is going abroad. — Had you any note 
 that ought to have come to me ? he appears to me 
 to have made a mistake in inclosing the notes. Your 
 man says you had a letter by Lord Charles's mes- 
 senger, and, that he gave you yours first.' 
 
 Without this last sentence, Lady Heraline in 
 her present mood would undoubtedly have taken 
 refuge in a negative ; but as the affair stood, this 
 
 VOL. I. I 
 
170 HERALINE. 
 
 was impossible — she therefore replied, that she had 
 had a note from Lord Charles, telling her what he 
 had told Mr. Meryon, and that, having read it, she 
 had burnt it, ? and there were the ashes/ 
 
 There were ashes more than could have been 
 accounted for in this way, but the old gentleman 
 did not put on his spectacles ; and to suspect what 
 had occurred, would have been almost equal to 
 the perpetration of it. 
 
 Mr. Meryon retreated, saying to himself, ' It 
 is very odd/ The note followed its murdered com- 
 panion, and Lady Heraline sate down and thought. 
 — She fancied it thundered, but it was not very 
 probable, .as the day was cold — she called Annette 
 —then sent her away — she asked where Mrs. Parr 
 was, and then said there was no occasion to seek 
 her : — to her father or Mr. Meryon she had no de- 
 sire to betake herself, just now. Not knowing 
 what to do, she did nothing, but sate down by 
 herself, aud — most appalling company ! with her- 
 self: — she was compelled to commune with her own 
 heart and be still. 
 
 The apostle of the Gentiles has well designated 
 human nature as, in every individual, comprising 
 two wills. It was Lady Heraline's one will to 
 brave all the disgrace which she had brought on 
 herself; but, contrary to the experience of St. 
 Paul, the better will seemed to predominate ; for 
 
HERALINE. l7l 
 
 the remonstrances of her own heart, though it re- 
 iterated pulsations of one tone and measure, were 
 loud as any voice of reproof, and under the testi- 
 mony of herself alone, she stood convicted, con- 
 fronted, and abashed. No spirit of defiance, no 
 exertion of courage, no shield of right, no pallia- 
 tion of falsehood, could avert or conceal from her 
 the sense of being defeated, foiled, over-reached, 
 and despised. Nay, in the perversity of her dis- 
 torted judgment, she now began to see the loss of 
 Lord Charles as a misfortune-^she fancied she 
 had loved him-s-she thought she could have been 
 happy with him, and proud of him— ^-she must have 
 respected him, and she might have been brought 
 to obey him. The miniature in her bosom was 
 scarcely of potency to overcome any part of this 
 retrograde feeling — it was losing its influence under 
 confronting reality ; and she almost wept when she 
 asked herself, where was a substitute for it and 
 for Lord Charles, when in the same instant both 
 of these failed her. 
 
 Such sufferings were too acute to be endured, 
 without some effort either to render them useful 
 or to overcome them. The former purpose 
 might be best worth the trouble ; but the latter 
 was the more convenient, and Lady Heraline un- 
 fortunately determined — ' to think no more on this 
 horrid business.' — She generally succeeded in what 
 12 
 
172 HERALINE. 
 
 she determined on ; and her expectations from 
 herself were not, in this instance, disappointed. 
 She ran certainly some risque of what Lord 
 Charles's next letter to Mr. Meryon might pro- 
 duce ; but though there was nothing to rely on in 
 that case, but good fortune, hers had so often be- 
 friended her, that she could almost plead prescrip- 
 tion in her claims on it. She had turned in her 
 mind a negotiation with the servants, to make them 
 recognise any such letter, and to bring it to her ; 
 but as Lord Charles, even if he was in England, 
 was not himself in parliament, he would pro- 
 bably write under cover to the earl ; and it was 
 going rather too far to break open her father's 
 letters. A few days levelled all the chaos pro- 
 duced in her mind, and restored the miniature 
 to its full powers of consolation. Whatever the 
 sentiments of Lord Lynford and Mr. Meryon 
 on her supposed lover's departure, they forbore 
 naming him in her hearing ; and with the expe- 
 dient of denying herself for some mornings, that 
 she might not be persecuted with wonderings, re- 
 marks, and inquiries, till she could make due re- 
 plies, she placed herself in her own opinion 
 just where she was, when his departed lordship 
 was not the frequent visitor he afterwards became. 
 
HERAL1NE. 173 
 
 CHAPTER XV, 
 
 Mr. Meryon's tenderness of manner towards 
 Lady Heraline after this event, had increased, as 
 if he thought she claimed pity for some unkind 
 treatment; and he was assiduous in finding agree- 
 able employment for her mind, as if he feared de- 
 jection might overspread it. It was impossible, 
 had she been so inclined, to notice this, even by 
 grateful acceptance ; but Lady Heraline was not 
 much troubled with grateful feelings — she stood 
 too high to be sensible that any body condescended 
 to her. What then was her astonishment — what 
 was her dismay, when this gentlest of all human 
 beings — this most charitable of all judges — this 
 conscientious servant of a meek and lowly Master, 
 whom he with every faculty adored, with every 
 feeling loved, and with all possible exactness 
 strove to imitate, as far as human imperfection is 
 allowed — when this man, uniformly her friend 
 and often her advocate, and overflowing with ten- 
 derness to her sex and its foibles, entered her bou- 
 doir without ceremony, his brows knit, his open 
 forehead disturbed with dark clouds, his cheeks 
 suffused, — and to her sight taller than ever, and to 
 13 
 
174 HERALINE. 
 
 her conscience more awful than ever, in a voice 
 which she did not know to be his, demanded from 
 her the letter to which one in his hand referred. — 
 Like the obstructed beast of the prophet, she 
 would have encountered the harsh proximity of 
 any wall, to escape, — but she could uot submit to 
 lie down : she turned again and faced her enemy, 
 and now, instead of denying or falsifying, she as- 
 serted her right to destroy as she had done, that 
 which related only to herself, and which was inju- 
 rious to her. 
 
 The question of right was not disputed, but it 
 was not conceded — it was waived in favour of a su- 
 perior concern — that of telling Lady Heraline 
 Beltravers, in a manner very little accommodated 
 to her pride or her saucy spirit, truths such as no 
 one else would tell her. Lord Charles had trans- 
 mitted an abstract of his letter, and Mr. Me- 
 ryon made it a text-book for the most painful ex- 
 ertion of his affectionate authority, that had ever 
 been demanded from him. In vain the young 
 lady fired into rage — in vain she went to the door 
 to call for rescue — in vain she flew to the bells — 
 in vain she stamped — and, more marvellous than 
 all ! cried with passion — in vain she threatened 
 hysterics and her father's displeasure, and seemed 
 on the point of choking. Mr. Meryon, old as 
 he was, and subservient as she might deem him, 
 
HERALINE. J 75 
 
 was, without the smallest departure from respect or 
 decorum, too powerful for her : — he was before her 
 in every advance of foot — with a finger he put by 
 all her outrageous movements — he tried no means 
 to soothe her while she was in this ferment — 
 he threatened withdrawing from the house — re- 
 nouncing all concern for her — and the revelation 
 of the cause : he set at nought her pride while he 
 gave due honour to her rank, and treated her pre- 
 tensions to distinction with the most mortifying 
 contempt, while her real distinctions were most 
 candidly acknowledged. Instead of consoling her 
 by setting off her merits against her faults, or her 
 talents against her waywardness, he considered 
 her claims to commendation only as pledging her 
 to a better conduct, and her natural endowments 
 as taking away all excuse for her failings. He la- 
 mented sincerely, but without giving her the ad- 
 vantage of knowing what it cost him, that the of- 
 fice of correcting her should fall into his hands — 
 he gave her the option Of himself or the earl for 
 her judge — in choosing himself, he assured her of 
 the most honourable secrecy — in appealing to her 
 father, he would promise nothing in her favour :■— 
 exposure, and of the harshest kind, should cer- 
 tainly attend her disregard of the more merciful 
 option; he had no motive for the trouble he was 
 taking, but her most essential advantage — he con- 
 i 4 
 
1 76 HERALINE. 
 
 sidered her as a mere child, on whom punishment 
 was much more profitably bestowed than indul- 
 gence ; and till he could subdue her spirit to the 
 authorizing him to tell Lord Charles, not that she 
 had been guilty of so dishonourable an act, for 
 that he would never ask, but that she had seen his 
 letter, and resolved to profit by his reproof, he 
 would not desist from his endeavour to spare her, 
 by timely repentance and amendment of her many 
 faults, the bitter bitter self-reproach with which 
 he must rather hope than fear, her future life 
 would be attended. * He did not/ he said, ' de- 
 mand all this at once — he asked for nothing at 
 present, but this concession and the wish to amend : 
 — weeks, months, nay years, if it pleased God to 
 grant him years — he would wait to see this in- 
 dispensible work perfected. He only begged per- 
 mission to assist her. Would she make him as 
 much her confident as he was her friend, he could 
 perhaps abate the painful conflict, and shorten her 
 labour : he would watch over her mind as a phy- 
 sician would do over the uncertain health of a pa- 
 tient— -she should have every encouragement to 
 subdue her faults one by one; and he would pro- 
 mise her in a very short time that peace which the 
 world could neither give nor take away. 
 
 It was at present preaching to the waves : she 
 was exhausted in bodily powers ; but her spirit 
 
HERALINE. 177 
 
 was unconquered : she still asserted her right, as 
 an object of worship to the other sex, to treat 
 them as she best liked or thought fit ; and not at 
 all sparing the earl in her rapid animadversions on 
 her situation, gave perhaps a worse portrait of 
 herself than her corrector could have imagined a 
 likeness of her. She, at length, finding nothing 
 gained by this, so far gave way, or finessed, as to 
 beg for forbearance at present, and to promise to 
 think,— her manner of doing both which gracious 
 acts of condescension, did not pledge her for 
 much. 
 
 Being released by the departure of her tor- 
 mentor, she meant to have felt comfort in her 
 freedom, and was disposed to rejoice in being again 
 alone ; but solitude is not made for such turbulent 
 spirits ; and as soon as she had cooled herself, she 
 cast about for a companion. Her father, fortu- 
 nately, was not just then inclined to admit her; he 
 was in his poorly state ; and, from some hints let 
 fall by the vicar, there was ground to suppose 
 this awkward and sudden disappearance of Lord 
 Charles, had done him no good. The young man 
 had not been wanting in respectful civility : he had 
 contrived to offer a five minutes' visit of adieu, 
 when he knew, indeed, that it would not be accept- 
 ed, and had followed it by a few lines of acknow- 
 ledgment ; but this was neither agreeable nor 
 15 
 
178 HERALINE. 
 
 satisfactory ; and in Lord Lynford's situation, the 
 whole was particularly grievous. To see his 
 daughter therefore, for whom and his pride, he 
 felt the circumstance in all its force, was not de- 
 sirable ; and as little desire had she to exhibit her- 
 self to him. 
 
 Mrs. Parr was too much indebted to Mr. 
 Meryon to allow of seeking consolation from her, 
 even by a general statement of undefined aggres- 
 sions on his part ; and Annette, though smiled on, 
 when she could make imaginary good appear still 
 better, was no resource in affliction. Mr. Meryon 
 had replied to her request for forbearance, by a 
 recommendation which he might think would call 
 up a smile, or in some other way be useful, — to 
 go and talk to her favourite, John Brown : she in- 
 dignantly rejected the banter with a muttered ex- 
 pression of contempt that did not escape him— 
 but he had just then no ears for that insolence 
 which must have drawn added suffering upon a 
 sufferer. 
 
 Left then to herself, she could only resolve 
 more firmly than ever, to follow her own will, arfc! 7 
 this, in the first instance, led her to do what she 
 had been advised to do, and in effect refused to do.. 
 She walked out for air ; and while she was telling 
 herself she would avoid John Brown, she went to 
 seek him : but there was no harm done — the old 
 
HERALINE. 1 ?$ 
 
 man, indeed, bowed, and spoke as she had encou- 
 raged him to do ; and he began to thank God for 
 fine weather, and prospects of plenty ; but the charm 
 of his garrulity was vanished : he was now pre- 
 suming and impertinent ; — and she was freezingly 
 silent : he perceived, as he continued at work with 
 his lawn-rake, that her foot moved to go : — looking 
 up to make his bow, he was struck with the dis- 
 order of her countenance : he shook his head and 
 said, ' Ah! God bless you, my lady! — I pity you ; 
 for I know what it is — I was once young myself; 
 — but I hope it is n't as they say. They says he 
 was quite, as one may well think, broken-hearted 
 — and now he's gone to the wars. — I hope no of- 
 fence, my lady/ continued he, throwing off his hat, 
 dropping his rake, and joining his hands : — ' I hope 
 no offence — I would only speak afore it is too late 
 — I hope you did not turn him off in unkindness — 
 for if you did, I would not be you — you '11 repent 
 it, dear dear lady, to the latest hour of your life — 
 do, do, let him come back again — you do not 
 know half how good he is. As to t' other lord, 
 beyond seas, one would n't much mind — you had 
 a good right to do as you pleased there ; but Lord 
 Charles, every body thought of, and talked of, and 
 you seemed going on so well together — do let him 
 come back — he will make a good husband, and a 
 good master, or my name isn't John Brown/— 
 
180 HEUALINE. 
 
 Her ladyship walked away in very ungracious 
 silence. 
 
 It was necessary now to prepare for dinner, 
 and she decided on a perfect tranquillity of manner, 
 such as should give no offence to her father, or in- 
 crease Mr. Mer) on's ' spirit of bitterness/ as she 
 called it, against her. She appeared subdued into 
 placidity, which, however remarkable, absorbed as 
 the earl was in his own concerns, did not excite 
 his curiosity, while, to the vicar, it gave hopes of 
 progress in the task which he had set her. 
 
 But when Mr. Meryon had left the table, 
 Lady Heraline, if cunning is worse than unpre- 
 meditated evil, was guilty of an act still more de- 
 serving of punishment than that which had so dis- 
 graced her. — She reported to the earl her having 
 just seen and conversed with poor John Brown, 
 as he was raking the lawn in her garden. The 
 subject of the conversation was not demanded, 
 neither was it reported: she spoke of the old man 
 with tender concern, and suggested to her father, as 
 a due consideration for her client, and as a favour 
 done to herself, the charitable expediency of re- 
 lieving him from his daily labour, and by assigning 
 him a weekly stipend, allowing him to live in 
 peace and comfort in his cottage. Lord Lynford, 
 to whom, perhaps, the matter was of perfect indif- 
 ference, seemed gratified by the opportunity it af- 
 
HERALINE. 1 8 1 
 
 forded him of obliging her; and she had full 
 power granted her to consult John Brown's com- 
 fort in any way most agreeable to her sense of his 
 merits. The thing was very specious, and to every 
 judgment but her own and — One far above it,-— it 
 must have appeared highly in favour of the poor 
 old man ; but Lady Heraline knew that the seem- 
 ing permission to live in his cottage, was virtually 
 exile from every thing that varied the monotony 
 of his life — it precluded him from wholesome la- 
 bour — it separated him from that which flourished 
 under his care—it destroyed his importance — it 
 reduced him to the rank of an alms-man ; and it 
 might probably shorten his days. Of these con- 
 sequences she could not be ignorant ; and though 
 she did not recount them when she resolved on 
 pleading his cause, she did not exercise that con- 
 sideration of them, which justice demanded, or a 
 well-kept conscience would have prompted — her 
 view was to get rid of a censor ; and very ready 
 means being at hand, she scrupled not to use 
 them, reserving to herself the secret of their ulti- 
 mate tendency. 
 
 To punish or to pinch the poor man was no 
 part of her intentions : she obtained from her fa- 
 ther's generosity the continuance of his full wages, 
 and was commissioned to inform him of the ar- 
 rangement, in a manner that showed it was de- 
 
182 HERALINE. 
 
 signed and understood as indulgence. She did not 
 say, that, feeling it a disagreeable office, she should 
 use a deputy, but she had not the courage— ef- 
 frontery would be the more descriptive term— to 
 perform the treacherous embassy herself. — It did 
 not press ; therefore it was deferred. 
 
 And now came bed-time — the hour of repose 
 to some, of thought to others, and of bitter reflec- 
 tion to many, whose day makes no provision for it. 
 
 She could not sleep — she could not think — 
 for it was neither sleeping nor thinking, to fancy 
 Mr. Meryon still speaking, and herself still trying 
 to escape from the intimidating sound of his voice. 
 She was compelled, by this sort of haunting, to 
 recollect Lord Charles, and the offence his letter 
 had given her. — Pride saved her from repining 
 anew at that which she had brought on herself; 
 but it barred the access to all wholesome regret. 
 She was too much irritated to perform any part of 
 the promise, given or implied, which the vicar had 
 extorted from her : — her present feeling would 
 have induced her to behave rather worse than bet- 
 ter, if ever the opportunity offered ; and above all, 
 she condemned as the most degrading weakness, 
 the idea of profiting by the hints of his lordship or 
 the severe admonitions of his friend. She could 
 very firmly decide on considering herself in what- 
 
HERALINE. 185 
 
 ever she might think fit to do, but to bring herself 
 to consider, was less easy ; and however unwilling 
 she was to confess that Lord Charles had the 
 smallest influence over her, scalding tears came, at 
 least to the very threshold of her eyes, when she 
 called to mind the degradation to which the man 
 whom she designed to use ill, had reduced her. 
 
 She passed the night without sleep, and rose 
 next morning in a fever ; but as it is in the later 
 stages of inflammatory disease that the spirits sink, 
 hers were not at present subdued. She gave or- 
 ders to the head-gardener to inform John Brown 
 of his lord's kind consideration of his services, and 
 congratulated herself on having despatched one un- 
 pleasant task. Something not very clear to her 
 own perceptions, made her avoid the looks even 
 of the person she charged with this apparently 
 agreeable commission — but when she had given it, 
 she was alarmed by the perfect silence with which 
 \ it was received — the gardener, however, retreated ; 
 and npw she was, in her own imagination, safe. 
 
 But the man returned after a few minutes, and 
 very respectfully begged her to represent to his 
 lordship, that what he was doing with the kindest 
 intention, would, he feared, not be so accepted by 
 the person on whom the favour was conferred. 
 John Brown was neither greedy nor lazy — it was 
 his joy to work, and his pride to keep her garden 
 
1 84 HEUALINE. 
 
 in order — the double of his wages would be less 
 valued by him than permission still to dig and 
 hoe, and mow and rake, at his ease. — ' I always 
 leet him do his wark in his ain way, my leedy/ said 
 the Scots gardener, ' and it is always doon, and 
 better doon than the ithers do thairn. He is the 
 father of the grounds ; and I reelly dinna ken hoo, 
 my leedy, bigging yer paredon, to till him he is to 
 gi' o'er coming amaingst us. He '11 sairtainly think 
 he ha' iffended ye/ 
 
 Lady Heraline thought she had only to sweeten 
 the unpalatable potion with a few honeyed words ; 
 and these she liberally bestowed, begging that 
 John might be assured of her regard, and of her 
 intention to come and see him frequently at his 
 cottage — which being only a mile off, and entirely 
 out of her walks and rides, was, as perhaps the 
 gardener thought, ' vary leetle leikly to taimpt sic 
 a fine leedy till it.' 
 
 Gentle perseverance, however, carried the 
 point ; and the gardener again retreated, very far 
 from satisfied, if his looks and movements were to 
 be trusted. 
 
 Breakfast was over, and Lady Heraline was 
 planning her day, when crossing the hall to the 
 library, she heard sobs and murmurings, and the 
 voice of some one trying to soothe and give com- 
 fort. — She could not be uniformly and consist- 
 
HEKAI1NE. 1 85 
 
 ently hard-hearted. — Nature had not made her so. 
 —She looked to see what was the distress ; and 
 any but that which it was, might have moved her ; 
 but it was John Brown, supported by the gar- 
 dener, and coming to beg that he might not be 
 dismissed. She was startled, and for a moment 
 thrown off her guard— her first impulse was that 
 of pity; and she was very near doing what she 
 ought to have done : — but John Brown, in his sup- 
 plication, saying, ' I am sure, my lady, and no- 
 thing will ever make me not sure, that I displeas- 
 ed you yesterday by what I said — and meant no 
 offence neither — she could not, because she would 
 iiOi, deny that she was displeased ; and therefore 
 the shortest way was to persist in her injustice. 
 She was, or affected to be, angry; and in spurning 
 her former favourite, she communicated to him 
 the indignation and the firmness he needed. Rising 
 from his suppliant posture, and shaking his head 
 and arm, as he turned from her, he said, ■ A long 
 long lane, my lady, will you have to tread back 
 again before you get into the way to heaven.— I 
 am a poor old man, and your father's almost use- 
 less servant, but I won't be turned off in this sly 
 way, as if I had stole something, and you was too 
 good to take the law of me :— I 've told you my 
 mind — and now you have your choice — when you 
 did not know it, you might say something for 
 yourself, but now this is what is called revenge— 
 
186 HERALINE. 
 
 and what did I do to deserve it ? — only asked you 
 not to make yourself miserable.' 
 
 Altercation with so low a dependent, ill suited 
 the dignity of the lady ; and as she had the re- 
 source of retreating, by pursuing her way, she took 
 advantage of it, and sheltered herself in the library, 
 which, to her great comfort, she found free for her 
 to enter — for Mr. Meryon was not there. 
 
 But she rejoiced without cause, in her escape 
 of one whom she now dreaded to see. Mr. Me- 
 ryon had been stopt on his way to the library, as 
 she had been : and John Brown had closeted him- 
 self with the vicar, to whom he was then telling 
 his tale, with 3omewhat more of effect than it had 
 produced on his mistress. The old man, from 
 mere instinctive delicacy, would not avail himself 
 of the credit he might have derived from the ap- 
 pearance of the gardener as his protector : he 
 thought it perhaps necessary to his success, to tell 
 how he conceived he had offended : but he might 
 feel that he had no right to divulge to a third per- 
 son, that which respected his lady. 
 
 It was not, however, as yet, his good fortune 
 to meet his due reward. Mr. Meryon paid Lady 
 Heraline the compliment of withholding his be- 
 lief: he could not suspect John's integrity and 
 honest meaning ; but the clearness of his ancient 
 intellects, he a little questioned, when he heard 
 
HERALINE. 187 
 
 bim alleging as a reason why he was to be pu- 
 nished munificently, his having presumed to say a 
 word to his lady about Lord Charles. The story 
 was, all together, too incredible and too absurd 
 to be believed : and the vicar hearing which way 
 Lady Heraline had taken, bade John follow him, 
 and sought her. 
 
 It was a new call on her courage ; and she was 
 determined to make it answer it. When Mr. 
 Meryon had opened the business, she did not at- 
 tempt to deny what the man said, but she con- 
 tended that his construction of an act of goodness 
 into a desire of revenge was unfair. — On this point 
 Mr. Meryon was quite as good a judge as she 
 could be ; and having duly considered the ques- 
 tion and heard the parties, he in his heart, and to 
 the grief of it, decided against the lady. He 
 kept this opinion to himself, while John was pre- 
 sent : he endeavoured to excuse what had happened, 
 as a too hasty supposition that what w r as desirable 
 to one, must be desired by all ; and bespeaking 
 John's patience till the next day, he tried to restore 
 Lady Heraline's credit by inducing her to convince 
 the man of her perfect freedom from any vindic- 
 tive feeling ; but she was now past persuasion, he 
 was therefore compelled to inform Lord Lynford 
 of John's preference of servitude ; and in this 
 way, without betraying her, the matter was ad- 
 
188 HERALINE. 
 
 justed. But by adding fresh exasperation to her 
 ladyship's ill- temper at the time, it destroyed all 
 hope and prospect of any submission in the former 
 case, and threatened to render her incorrigible. 
 John Brown was restored ; and she did not dare 
 prohibit his working in her garden — she had a re- 
 medy : she could avoid the spot, or if of neces- 
 sity she went thither, she was under no obliga- 
 tion to speak to him. They talked no more; but 
 John bowed, and whispered his blessings and 
 prayers. 
 
 Little more intercourse was there now between 
 Mr. Meryon and Lady Heraline — she would ac- 
 cept no assistance, she would enter into no con- 
 versation. Her confidence in his abused good 
 nature, enabled her to behave with ease to her 
 father, and to affect a cheerfulness in his presence, 
 which hid from him the distance to which she 
 had thrown the vicar. To him St. EmeriPs Court 
 was now made very unpleasant: he got away from 
 it as much as he could ; and Lady Heraline was still 
 further soured by the increased trouble his fre- 
 quent absences occasioned her, in assisting Lord 
 Lynford in the laborious task of amusing himself : 
 — but still she was far too proud to wish for Mr, 
 Meryon, or to court his favour by any undertaking 
 to be wise. 
 
 2 
 
HERALINE. 1 89 
 
 Unwilling to give her up, he next tried the ef- 
 fect of a temperate remonstrance in writing — to no 
 purpose : — he constructed a sermon in such a way 
 as to leave her room for application— all served 
 only to make the matter worse, and the breach 
 wider. He resorted to the expedient of alarming 
 her, by a short note decidedly threatening her with 
 an appeal to the earl. She replied to it by a few 
 words of defiance — and thus, if such a victory 
 was worth obtaining, she might glory in being 
 victorious over him whose far better spirit, never- 
 theless, in no small degree controlled the lord of 
 the mansion. It is a most disgraceful power 
 which is too often assumed by those least fit to 
 govern — and perhaps it is one of the hardest les- 
 sons, short of those of calamity, which we are 
 commanded to get by heart, which is contained in 
 the instructions to wait and see the end of such 
 power. — Not to wait — not to endure, and still 
 more speciously than all, not to encourage evil by 
 the toleration of it, is the counsel of the world : — ■ 
 to wait — to endure and to trust to Him who can 
 best avenge us, is the better advice of the Gospel ; 
 and by this was Mr. Meryon's proceeding regu- 
 lated — still bearing in mind that supineness was 
 not Christian moderation, and only waiting his 
 opportunity to bring this untoward girl to her 
 senses. 
 
190 HERALINE. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Some weeks had now elapsed since the depar- 
 ture of Lord Charles, whose arrival on the Con- 
 tinent the papers had announced. The neighbours 
 all round had paid visits, and Lady Heraline had 
 passed triumphantly all the plough-shares which 
 she knew were laid for her. For the bride-visit to 
 his sister, she had put on a little more of the un- 
 amiable than usual, and had civilly sneered and 
 sarcastically complimented-out twenty minutes tu 
 her own satisfaction. But now came something 
 rather more serious. 
 
 Mr. Meryon, having with very proper and ne- 
 cessary spirit declined the sacrifice of his time in 
 reading with her, as he had for some time done, 
 had arranged his attendance at St. Emerirs into 
 stipulated periods, and had his times for coming 
 thither and departing. The change was in every 
 way very unpleasant to her : it mortified a new 
 species of pride, which he had excited by show- 
 ing her how many rounds of even the female 
 ladder of learning, she had yet to mount, if she 
 chose to survey at leisure, and with an inform- 
 ed eye, the prospect it affords. She knew she 
 
HERALINE. 191 
 
 had the recovery of this indulgence in her own 
 power : she knew she had only to say, ' I have 
 done wrong,' to recall him to that delightful inter- 
 course and welcome drudgery, which filled the 
 best hour of her day, and the satisfaction of which 
 no one could have appreciated more than she her- 
 self. But, still obstinate, she would not yield 
 even to her own laudable inclination. Unable, 
 however, to rest in quiet ignorance, she tried to 
 carry into effect a bravura which she had intem- 
 perately uttered to him towards whom it was most 
 indecorous ; and constituting herself her teacher, 
 she endeavoured to proceed on her small stock of 
 acquired knowledge ; but pitiable would have been 
 her situation had she been reduced to it by any 
 but herself, when involved in a maze of doubts 
 and indefinite perceptions, without the power of 
 satisfying the one or ascertaining the other, while 
 she bit her lovely lip to suppress the treachery of 
 her sorrow, she closed her books as a dead letter 
 to her. — Those, and those only can feel for her, 
 who have panted for knowledge without the power 
 to obtain it — who have wandered in a labyrinth 
 beyond which they saw a heavenly country, and 
 have found no friendly hand to extricate and guide 
 them. — Neither can any but persons so tried and 
 so schooled, appreciate at its full value, the gene- 
 rous liberality of an unpaid teacher, who, not in 
 
192 HERALINE. 
 
 the consciousness of his own intangible superiority, 
 but with a disposition even to yield it, if by yield- 
 ing he could confer it, was binding himself to a 
 task, over which he had often sickened, and, ac- 
 commodating himself to the natural character of 
 female intellect, was trying to make a scholar out 
 of a lady. 
 
 In the fever of her mind, or rather of her 
 temper — for it is too solemn to attribute mind to 
 any thing so childish-^ — she reckoned at nothing, 
 the injury which she was doing herself. She de- 
 spised his prophecies of the mortification she 
 would have to endure, when, arrived at the acme 
 of the blessings with which she was surrounded, 
 she saw others on whom no such claims could be 
 made, superior to her — she deafened herself against 
 all the arguments to which she had heretofore 
 gladly listened as excuses for the gratification of 
 her love of distinction, by which he had con- 
 vinced her of the different cultivation of the mind, 
 which should attend on different situations. He 
 had represented cases in which a merely elegant 
 education would suffice for one of the many 
 daughters of a large family, but not for her who 
 was to take the place of a male-heir in an exalted 
 house. He had convinced her : he had stimulated 
 her ; but now she was almost ready to deny that 
 she had ever, on any subject, adopted his opinions. 
 
HERALINE. 193 
 
 But this artificial temperament could not be 
 made permanent : — she did not submit, but she 
 cooled ; and common sense having obtained a 
 hearing, she could not continue the imposition on 
 herself. — Still she persisted, and finding the 
 striking of the clock at the wonted hour of her les- 
 son, unpleasant, she took an admirable method to 
 stun this sense — she contrived to volunteer her ser- 
 vices to read the news-paper to her father! ! — A fine 
 substitution ! — a brave equivalent! — but, to be se- 
 rious, not at all worse than many others daily 
 adopted. — Is giving up comfort for splendour — 
 health for pleasure — female character for fine 
 clothes, at all a better bargain than Lady Heraline 
 made, when she gave up the Iliad for the contents 
 of the Morning Post? 
 
 But even this daily record was not destitute of 
 historical events and interesting facts — she read on, 
 with little concern and less caution — War was the 
 state of Nature at the time; and the aggressions and 
 oppressions of those who conducted it, were to 
 her less than the moves of a chess-board. — She had 
 got deep into the abstract of some not-yet-oflfici- 
 ally-received intelligence, when she found herself 
 reading of the slaughter of the regiment into 
 which Lord Charles had exchanged — and saw, 
 in the next lines which she was to articulate, that 
 he too had fallen ! 
 
 vol. i. x 
 
194 HERALINE. 
 
 Before she could arrive at the words contain- 
 ing this direful finale, she paused — and in a deep 
 tone ejaculated — ' Murder ! Murder ! ' — Utterly 
 powerless, but neither fainting nor falling, she 
 slipt down from her seat, and remained in a heap 
 upon the carpet. 
 
 The doors about the apartment were open, and 
 a servant passing near, heard the words, and look- 
 ing in, was ready to attend to Lord Lynford's tre- 
 mulous cries for assistance. — She was raised from 
 the ground, and laid at her length on a couch — her 
 eyes were fixed; and she continued iterating the 
 word ' Murder/ more and more faintly, till it 
 died away in the air : her eyes closed ; and it seem- 
 ed as if her exclamation referred to herself. 
 
 The earl's situation was agonizing — it had 
 stunned him into stupefaction — but when he saw 
 the stare of the servants, who had collected to as- 
 sist their lady, directed at once to him, and felt 
 himself standing like a stag at bay, while mouths, 
 as well as eyes, seemed ready to open on him, he 
 so far recovered as to ask the question, which he 
 well might have been asked, ' What is the mat- 
 ter v 
 
 In this terrible moment, that compliment was 
 paid to Mr. Meryon, which is seldom withheld 
 from the useful, however out of favour they may 
 chance to be — Lady Heraline, to the satisfaction 
 of the attendants, and the inexpressible joy of 
 
HKRALINE. 195 
 
 her father, revived, and in a low voice desired that 
 Mr. Meryon might be sent for. — She was obeyed ; 
 but the messenger had no commission to account 
 for his embassy — he could only say, as in all such 
 cases, that ' her ladyship was very ill/ 
 
 The vicar came immediately ; and by that time, 
 Mrs. Parr had removed Lady Heraline to her 
 dressing-room, and Lord Lynford had braced 
 himself with the panoply of his medicine-chests. 
 The first introduction was, of course, to his lord- 
 ship ; but from him no satisfaction was to be 
 gained — it needed almost the talents of an Old- 
 Bailey cross-examiner, to get out a single fact. 
 The earl was so taken up with his own feelings, 
 imaginations, suppositions, apprehensions, and au- 
 guries of fatal consequences to himself from the 
 shock, that he could not describe the circumstances 
 of his daughter's seizure ; and when he had just 
 arrived at the fact, he skipt over it, to the con- 
 templation of his own hardship in being looked on 
 by his own people, ' almost/ as he said, ' as if he 
 had been the cause of the death of his own child.' 
 —-he was convinced that, ' for some moments, they 
 fancied he had killed her.' 
 
 1 What, my lord, could occasion any thing so 
 ^ut of all possibility V 
 
 1 Why, her crying out, " Murder, Murder ! " ■ 
 
 i But did she do so ? ' 
 K 2 
 
196 HE11AL1NE. 
 
 € Yes, repeatedly.' 
 
 * And what occasioned that ? ' 
 
 i I cannot tell — she was reading/ 
 
 1 Was she reading when she cried out so ? ' 
 
 * No, she had stopt, which I wondered at, 
 and then it was, as I say, that she fell/ 
 
 ( Your lordship had not told me that she fell/ 
 ' O yes : she fell down as if she had been 
 shot/ 
 
 ' What made her do so ? ' 
 
 1 I cannot say — she was reading/ 
 
 ' What was she reading ? ' 
 
 * The news-paper/ 
 
 ' Show me the paper, if you please/ 
 
 The paper was brought. 
 
 1 Can your lordship show me the part that 
 Lady Heraline was reading ? ' 
 
 ' I can tell you — it was this shocking account 
 of the regiment that, they say, is cut to pieces/ 
 
 The vicar mounted his spectacles, and soon 
 found the paragraph. 
 
 A few low words — his dismounting his spec- 
 tacles — and the quivering of his lips, told that he 
 too had his feelings on the occasion. 
 
 4 We must be ourselves, my lord/ said he — 
 ' and remember who it is that appoints these 
 things/ Then seating himself by the earl, and 
 taking his hand with the respectful affection of his 
 
HERALINE. 197 
 
 relative situation, and his truly kind heart — he said, 
 
 * I do not wonder at any thing now Lord 
 
 Charles is gone. — If you can spare me, I will go 
 to her ladyship— she may feel it more than we 
 suppose/ 
 
 ' Just stay, one minute — just one minute; 3 
 said his lordship, in a quivering voice—' I am so 
 shaken ! — God bless my soul ! — gone — do you 
 mean fallen? — killed?' 
 
 \ Yes, certainly ; and grieved we must all be- 
 but God's will be done ! — I grieve for his poor 
 sister/ 
 
 1 Well but my daughter — my daughter, said 
 Lord Lynford; for it must be owned, next to 
 himself, she was his first care — and called anew to 
 his recollection, by the mention of Lord Charles's 
 sister. 
 
 With constructive permission, the vicar went 
 to see how it fared with Lady Heraline. — And 
 here ensued a scene, for which, not even he, with 
 all his experience of the world, and power of prog- 
 nostication, was prepared. 
 
 Lady Heraline had been sitting in an arm- 
 chair : Mrs. Parr, Annette, and the upper female 
 servants of the house, were round her. As Mr. 
 Meryon entered, she dismissed them, and then 
 rising, in the native ease and dignity of her man- 
 ners, when her mind was freed from the incum- 
 k 3 
 
198 HERALINE. 
 
 brance of her artificial interests, she came forward 
 to the vicar, saying, ' Mr. Meryon, if I did not 
 know your merciful disposition to be equal to 
 your sense of justice, I should not dare to look at 
 you.' 
 
 1 Sit down, my dear young lady,' said he, ta- 
 king her hands and moving her towards the chair — 
 ' sit down — bHt do not, I entreat you, make use of 
 such unmerited expressions of confidence in me — 
 they are fit only for your Maker — He alone is mer- 
 ciful — He alone is just -I know what has occur- 
 red — and I grieve for you : — I come to meet your 
 feelings, whatever they are : I hope and trust they 
 are now such as I can joiu in.' 
 
 4 If they are not, correct them.- — My spirit is 
 for ever broken — I am a sincere penitent for all 
 my folly and wickedness : — the punishment/ said 
 she, stretching down her arms and locking her 
 hands, as in complete self-abandonment — ' the pu- 
 nishment is severe — severer, I hope, than was quite 
 necessary/ 
 
 'Hush* — said Mr. Meryon — ' not a word of 
 murmur — nor of justification — I am not come 
 hither, my dear Lady Heraline, to flatter you, even 
 at this moment : — what I have said to you hereto- 
 fore, I still think, and should repeat, could it do 
 good ; — but this is no time for harshness — " the 
 
HERALINE. 199 
 
 bruised reed," /remember, "is not to be broken" 
 — " the smoking flax is not to be quenched :" — 
 may it kindle in your heart, like fire on the altar, 
 and make it an acceptable holocaust to Him whom 
 you have offended ! ' 
 
 ■ Is it so serious ? ' said Lady H eraline, in 
 quiringly. 
 
 1 Undoubtedly/ replied the vicar. ' Trifles light 
 as air in the scale of our biassed self-love, may be 
 heavy as lead to the discernment of an impartial 
 judge.' 
 
 1 O do not be so severe — pity — pity ' 
 
 * Can you call me severe ? Am I severe, when 
 I see, in silence and sorrow, young persons, whom 
 I would put in the path to heaven, running con- 
 trary to all my endeavours? — or when 1 gently 
 warn them that small faults may arise from enor- 
 mously bad motives I — that things which they 
 laugh at, and glory in, they ought to weep for, 
 and be ashamed ? — or am I severe, when 1 try to 
 persuade the profligate, that sudden death may 
 be eternal perdition to them ? Ah ! my dear Lady 
 Heraline ! — you are not the only one, by many, 
 for whom my heart has ached ; nor can you want 
 for abettors in calling me severe or unkind. — All I 
 can say in my defence is this, that if to wish with 
 all my soul, the happiness of the deserving, and 
 K4 
 
200 HERALINE. 
 
 the reformation of the undeserving, be severity 
 and unkindness, I am, I hope, one of the most 
 severe and unkind of human beings. Were I mad 
 with the riotous, and licentious with the lawless, I 
 should, at least, have the praise of good-nature, and 
 I might be ranked amongst this world's most liberal- 
 minded, warm-hearted sons; — 'but what should I 
 have to say, when He, to whose service I have de- 
 dicated myself, imputes it to me, as he did to Eli, 
 that in not endeavouring to oppose iniquity, I have 
 made myself an accomplice in it? — Now, Lady 
 Heraline, have some mercy for me, and do not 
 ask more from me than I dare grant. You have 
 been wrong, very wrong — but you know how to 
 open the door of forgiveness — I shall not suffer 
 you to take more to yourself than is your due; and 
 what is your due, I will, to the best of my ability, 
 instruct you to bear, as you ought, and as is your 
 best interest/ 
 
 The power which Lady Heraline had been so 
 inclined to dispute with Mr. Meryon, she now 
 seemed entirely to concede ; and in the distress 
 of her mind, she gave herself up wholly to his 
 guidance. The earl joined him in his kind en- 
 deavours to heal the wound made in her peace, 
 but went far beyond him in that sort of comforting 
 which he thought necessary to the restoration of 
 his own quiet. The vicar acted like a skilful sur- 
 
HERALINE. 201 
 
 geon, who, before he heals a wound, removes every 
 thing that can produce subsequent mischief — her 
 father like a rapid empiric, who, as long as the 
 surface is skinned over, presumes that all must be 
 well. 
 
 K5 
 
202 HERALINE. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 The next year of Lady Heraline's life closed very 
 decently. She had recovered her spirits, and was 
 on good terms with Mr. Meryon, who, while he 
 directed her to make every profitable use of the 
 disaster that had for a time overwhelmed her, re- 
 stored to her every comfort and advantage that 
 depended on himself. To her father she behaved, 
 if not with cordiality, with external propriety ; and 
 even her treatment of Mrs. Parr, provoked as she 
 sometimes was by her want of discernment, was 
 no worse than the many good things attached to 
 her situation, would well compensate. As mistress 
 of the first family in that part of the country, she 
 could not be quoted as of very bad example. She 
 made no base associations — she had no profuse 
 taste in dress, nor was she frugal in it — she did not 
 wear rouge — she discouraged smuggling — she dis- 
 liked cards — she rose early, and was always em- 
 ployed. To the poor, she was liberal, and to those 
 about her, generous — she encouraged trade around 
 her — and she gave no ear to slander or gossip. — 
 She took especial care that no one under her au- 
 thority should disgrace her — whatever was wrong, 
 
HERALINE. 203 
 
 she chose to do herself; and as this disposition 
 was not of a subordinate class, she easily obtained 
 forgiveness or excuse. — ' His lordship was known 
 to be odd and whimsical — her ladyship was a fine 
 creature, only a little spoiled, and certainly, it 
 could not be denied, very proud — but then, when 
 she did condescend, she made up for it all. — It 
 was pity, poor thing! that she lost her dear mam- 
 ma ; for those French folks were not the best 
 teachers for young ladies ; — they always hated the 
 English, and set them against their own country- 
 people.-— Mrs. Parr was a very nice woman — but 
 certainly not a fit bringer-up of such a great lady 
 — a plain person as she was ; and every body knew 
 her origin. And what could good Mr. Meryon 
 do with people so much above him? — he must 
 say as they said — though, indeed, since her lady- 
 ship had taken to him, she was certainly much 
 better — at least, not quite so high/ 
 
 These were the opinions of the St. Emerilian 
 tea-tables, in little parlours and back shops — opi- 
 nions very much improved, when at a general con- 
 firmation, they saw Lady Heraline place herself 
 amongst the candidates, entirely divested of all 
 ornament and distinction ; and when, on the ensu- 
 ing Easter Sunday, she took the centre place at the 
 communion-table, attended by Mrs. Parr, and 
 showing the most becoming seriousness. 
 k6 
 
£04 HERALINE. 
 
 Those who wished well to the house of Bel- 
 travers, now looked forward with kindly-disposed 
 confidence to the approaching reign. Lord Lyn- 
 ford had inspired no interest : he was considered 
 only as waiting, in sour solitude, the termination of 
 an useless life embittered by disease which attract- 
 ed no pity, because it seemed the privilege of his 
 rank, and perfectly consentaneous, as an end, to 
 the means he had pursued. 
 
 The time came when hopes were to be realized 
 or to cease. Lord Lynford received the shock 
 that was to close his endurances and his existence ; 
 and Annette came to her lady's bed-side one morn- 
 ing an hour earlier than usual, w ith the prefatory 
 ' O mon Dieu ! ' of some astounding event. 
 
 The Lady Heraline's self-possession did not 
 desert her. When she had heard the fact, she sent 
 for Mrs. Parr, and, from her, learnt particulars, 
 and heard that the medical assistance nearest, had 
 long since arrived, and that a messenger was des- 
 patched to Exeter for the physician. Mr. Meryon 
 was with Lord Lynford's servants in his chamber. 
 She sent Mrs. Parr to say that she was rising, and 
 to obtain the latest tidings. 
 
 In the mean time, she had hastily drest ; and 
 
 sending for his lordship's valet, she heard farther 
 
 particulars, all describing the seizure as paralytic, 
 
 and of a desperate extent.— Mr. Meryon then 
 
 3 
 
HERALINE. 205 
 
 came out to her, in a state of feeling that showed 
 his grateful attachment, his unconsoled grief for 
 his patron, and his tender concern for a young 
 woman so situated. What regarded herself, she 
 waived : she made no false pretensions to exquisite 
 feeling, nor any claim to peculiar consideration j 
 but she enjoined care and encouraged exertion, on 
 the part of every one ; and while she shrunk, even 
 in thought, from any participation in the scene, she 
 affectionately coaxed Mr. Meryon into supplying 
 her deficiencies. She meant that every thing right 
 should be done by others ; but in herself she had 
 no fortitude. On this point she reasoned when 
 alone, and found that, if what was requisite, was 
 performed, the hand which achieved it, was not to 
 be considered. Her post was to rule the move- 
 ments of others. The garrison was under her 
 command — she was not a common soldier. She 
 then again rang her bell to make inquiries — and to 
 order her breakfast. 
 
 Mr. Meryon came again to her, while she was 
 taking it. She did not forget to ask him if he had 
 had his. He could scarcely tell : — she insisted on 
 his suffering her to take care of him, and, with 
 all her condescending graces, and with the most 
 elegant humility, confessed her own inefficiency, 
 and begged him not to let her father be sensible of 
 it, through his neglect of his own powers of assist- 
 
206 HERALINE. 
 
 ing him. — * I leave all to you/ said she, ' but your 
 care of yourself.' 
 
 Her friend was now an old man, but still in 
 the perfect enjoyment of every faculty and power. 
 He had no wish to spare himself in such a case : 
 he replied, ' I will do the best I can for you, if 
 you, in return, will do the best you can for your- 
 self.' 
 
 ' He does not mean eating and drinking, as I 
 mean by him/ said she to herself, ' but still I will 
 do it. — I wish to do right. — I am sure I do not 
 wish to do wrong : T have suffered too much to do 
 it again/ 
 
 By the evening of the day, the earl was again 
 relieved, and the next morning still better, though 
 much injured by the attack. The prospect now 
 was more dreary than ever for poor Lady Hera- 
 line ; and Mr. Meryon did every thing in his power 
 to reconcile her to an unqualified submission. 
 
 Again the earl was settled on his couch, and 
 the vicar and his lordship's daughter had establish- 
 ed their system of attention. And at the moment 
 when all around him thought best of his situation, 
 and really began to fancy they must submit to see 
 him again at least sitting, he was taken off, while 
 Lady Heraline was at her toilette, and Annette 
 was at once adjusting her draperies, and smoothing 
 her own way to favour and confidence, by compli- 
 
 2 
 
HERALINE. 207 
 
 merits on something, which, translated into Eng- 
 lish, would have come out, her ladyship's amiable 
 endurance of my lord's existence. 
 
 On receiving the news of this, the most deci- 
 sive step her father ever had made, her head turned : 
 she sat down in fear of falling or fainting, but 
 was in a moment herself again. 
 
 A message from Mr. Meryon, telling her that 
 he awaited her in her drawing-room, removed her 
 from the observation of her personal servants, and 
 them from the restraint of her presence. Mrs. 
 Parr was the messenger, and the decency of her 
 deportment could neither excite nor encourage any 
 indecorum. She was ready with a few words of 
 general commiseration for all who died and all 
 who remained. — An apostrophe to the deceased 
 earl, and another to the surviving baroness : — a 
 compliment — a congratulation — a condolence — a 
 dismal retrospect — a brighter prospect — were all 
 over the tip of her tongue in a few words. She 
 attended Lady Lynford to the door of the room 
 to which she was summoned; — the men-servants 
 were in waiting to throw it open and set her chair ; 
 and she was left alone with Mr. Meryon. 
 
 His fair cheek, which a cheerful tint — the re- 
 flection of a wintry sun setting to rise again in 
 splendour — usually overspread, was now pale, and 
 channelled with a few tears : he dried them as she 
 
208 HERALINE. 
 
 approached ; but unable to speak, he seated him- 
 self by her, and carrying her hand to his lips, 
 seemed, by that action, to give her his cordial 
 blessing, and to do homage to her new rank. 
 
 Her agitation was considerable — but she re- 
 gained the use of her tongue before he could 
 speak. — * I know/ said she, ' what has occurred ; 
 and glad I am to spare you the pain of telling me : 
 — but, my dear sir, do not feel too much for me : 
 — you know my sentiments and my abhorrence of 
 affectation and grimace : — the De Quintes dis- 
 gusted me with both — when they acted in public, 
 and unmasked in private. — I know the worst of my 
 situation ; and if I do not meet it as you would 
 expect, remember the force of many years' tutel- 
 age. Under your management, my heart might 
 be now breaking ; and perhaps the power to feel 
 thus forcibly, and, I believe, rightly, is preferable 
 to my present state of mind ; but I must bear with 
 myself, and you with me. Though too proud per- 
 haps to be tutored, I may be corrected ; but, at 
 the present moment, you must not expect me to 
 act out of myself.' 
 
 * You will find me,' said the vicar, *■ I hope, a 
 very gentle corrector; — but, as 1 believe I am 
 your guardian, I must be your sincere friend. — I 
 could have wished to have found feelings some- 
 
HERALINE. 209 
 
 what different from those which you now express, 
 occupying your mind at this moment/ 
 
 ' I believe/ said she, ' yours is always a candid 
 judgment on my defects, and I feel obliged to you 
 for it. — You know how I have been trained ; and 
 you must admit the impossibility, or at least the 
 improbability, of my being better than I am. — I 
 execrate the De Quintes, while I feel enslaved by 
 their theories ; and, upon my honour, I am ready 
 to confess, that all the good I have in me, I owe 
 to Mrs. Parr, whom, I need not tell you, 1 de- 
 spise.— But as to the present moment, if I make 
 you angry, or grieve you, neither of which, God 
 knows, would I willingly do, you must recollect, 
 that from the time when the De Quintes took me, 
 the event that has occurred, was the bribe with 
 which they allured me: — it is for this moment, 
 and for this event, that every movement has been 
 calculated — therefore, can I lament it ? ' 
 
 Mr. Meryon shook his head. 
 
 i Why shake your head, my dear sir, at me V 
 
 1 Because you lose a pleasure at the time when 
 you fancy you are avoiding pain.' 
 
 ' Probably I may ; but I am not made for 
 thought.— Yet I will confess to you, that I have a 
 glimmering notion of gratification — I will not say 
 enjoyment — that may arise from a different set of 
 feelings. — I have seen persons acting in direct op- 
 
210 HERALINE. 
 
 position to my manner, and whom I have almost 
 envied ; — but, I believe, it was rather because 
 there was a grace or an interest in their conduct, 
 which I felt wanting in mine. — I have often com- 
 pared my own mind to a fine broad sunshine, and 
 that of others totally unlike me, to a situation of 
 shade, and verdure, and coolness ; and 1 have 
 sometimes felt half ashamed of mine ,* — but then 
 it has occurred to me, that it was as foolish to 
 feel so, as it would be to wish for a sickly state of 
 health in preference to my excellent constitution. 
 — I have heard of national defects, family defects, 
 personal defects, mental defects — you must allow 
 me the privilege of the last, and take me for what 
 I am. — I can never be called to account for that 
 which was never given me/ 
 
 ' We must have further conversation on this 
 subject/ said Mr. Meryon — * you must not hold 
 such a doctrine — at present, I would only warn 
 you against the terrible possibility, that that to 
 which you reconcile yourself so easily now, as 
 natural blindness, may, some years hence, appear to 
 you to have been, as I make no scruple to say it is, 
 a voluntary hood-winking — I can now only insist 
 on the most perfect propriety of conduct in every 
 point, or I will not interest myself in your af- 
 fairs.' 
 
 ' You may depend upon me : p said Lady Lyn- 
 
HERALINE. 2 1 1 
 
 ford — i there can be no danger of my disobeying, 
 when I love and respect my governor : — I hope you 
 are my sole guardian, though I rather suppose old 
 Lady Drumcannon may be joined with you — and 
 perhaps this is requisite. — Do you know whether I 
 am to have Mrs. Parr ? — I hope not as guardian/ 
 
 * Not as guardian, I can assure you, but I be- 
 lieve as your attendant lady ; for you must have 
 some one to appear with you, even here. In town, 
 Lord Lynford's arrangement for you is different 5 
 and I do not think you will find any cause to com- 
 plain/ 
 
 So gracious was the baroness's reply, that it 
 seemed as if she had only needed to be an orphan, 
 to be perfectly amiable — but human nature does 
 not play harlequin-tricks ; and there is some dif- 
 ference between our being in good humour with 
 the Almighty, and our acting so as to obtain his 
 approbation. 
 
212 HERA LINE. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 The deceased earl's will made his daughter of 
 age at twenty-one, of which she now wanted about 
 two years; and till six months previous to that 
 time, she was to reside at St. Emeril's Court. Mrs. 
 Parr was to live with her entirely ; and Mr. Me- 
 ryon, her sole guardian, without whose consent 
 she could do nothing during her minority, was to 
 be as much with her as he could — she might ab- 
 sent herself occasionally from her residence — she 
 might travel ; but Mr. Meryon must attend her ; 
 and for this purpose, an arrangement was pre- 
 pared, and an allowance was made to him to meet 
 the expense of a curate. 
 
 She might marry under age, if with Mr. Me- 
 ryon's approbation. The only restriction imposed 
 on her, respected the country of the husband she 
 should choose ; and this, let her marry when she 
 would, must be decidedly within the four seas. 
 Any breach of this condition, subjected her to the 
 tremendous penalty of her whole inheritance, ex- 
 cept a reserved annuity of five hundred pounds, 
 which was described, in the most degrading terms, 
 to be for her sole subsistence. 
 
HEUALINE. 213 
 
 Had she needed any explanation of this clause, 
 Mr. Meryon's endeavour to account for it would 
 have satisfied her. He traced it up to the nefa- 
 rious conduct of the De Quintes, whose attempts, 
 he presumed, the earl feared might be renewed 
 after his decease : lie described his feeling on this 
 subject to have been almost unaccountably bitter, 
 especially considering that she had, to do her jus- 
 tice, behaved well in giving up these dangerous 
 people. 
 
 1 Well ! ' said she, ' there can be no danger 
 now — I have long been convinced that they made 
 up a story only to keep me under their dominion — 
 I am sure, my dear sir, you cannot suppose there 
 can be any collusion between me and them/ 
 
 Mr. Meryon acquitted her most honourably. 
 
 She now warmly, sincerely, affectionately, and 
 repeatedly, professed her intended confidence in 
 her guardian. There was not a thought of her 
 heart which he should not know — there was not a 
 step to be taken, on which she would not pre- 
 viously consult him. — It must be confessed that 
 the influence of the miniature-picture, and the 
 pains she had bestowed in copying it, came under 
 neither of these heads; therefore it was no breach 
 of her word to say nothing on the subject ; but 
 still here began concealment, and here was virtually 
 a departure from the spirit of her undertaking. 
 
214 HERALINE. 
 
 The six months preceding her attaining her 
 majority, were to be spent under the protection 
 of Lady Drumcannon, who had ' most obli- 
 gingly ' bound herself, by a very polite reply to 
 Lord Lynford's request, to introduce her to the 
 society iu which she was to find her friendships 
 and associations, to present her at court in the for- 
 malities of the existing fashion, and to be her 
 chaperon, as long as such an appointment should 
 be requisite. For this purpose, the young lady 
 was, at the period specified in the will, to betake 
 herself to her own house in Grosvenor Square, 
 still retaining Mrs. Parr about her, but leaving 
 Mr. Meryon to accompany her or remain at St. 
 Emeril's, as he saw good. 
 
 In all this, considering the shortness of her 
 time of tutelage, there was nothing very grievous. 
 The adhesive quality bestowed on Goody Parr was 
 the worst ; but still as she was not afraid of her, and 
 only a little ashamed of her; there was no feeling 
 of hostility towards her ; at least, not enough to 
 overcome that instinctive tenderness, which, how- 
 ever it might slumber, was never quite asleep in 
 the young lady's heart. The substitution of Lady 
 Drumcannon, which must take place on the re- 
 moval to London, answered every purpose. — 
 Goody Pair might inspect household affairs, buy 
 and provide, for which offices she was by nature 
 
HERALINE. 215 
 
 and experience, very fit — she might air with her 
 in her carriage, when she had no better company, 
 which she could not suppose would be often her 
 misfortune — and she might be very useful in con- 
 tributing to her taking necessary exercise on foot. 
 —She was no horse-woman, either in practice or 
 figure — therefore some more agreeable associa- 
 tions might be found for that contingency — she 
 would permit her to sit with her when alone, be- 
 cause it was very convenient to have somebody to 
 ring the bell, stir the fire, and, though not to snuff 
 candles, to look to them; and as her ladyship felt 
 her spirit of independence disturbed and her pur- 
 suits hindered, by too much assiduity in servants, 
 and she was sometimes too much occupied, and at 
 all times too rapid, to attend to small concerns, a 
 deputy-conservator of her comforts was no bad 
 resource. — She would take care that Goody was 
 always well drest — she should be treated like what 
 she had made herself, a gentlewoman, and the 
 poor soul should, after all her woes, be made com- 
 fortable. 
 
 All these points, and innumerable others of 
 nearly the same nature, and as fitly adapted to the 
 solemnity of the proceedings of St. Emerirs 
 Court, were settled in the young baroness's mind, 
 before her father's remains were consigned to their 
 last abode. She had even visited the cabinet, from 
 
216 HERALINE. 
 
 which she had borrowed the picture, but — the 
 picture was gone ! And now doubly did she rejoice 
 in the exertion which she had made to copy it. 
 
 Mr. Meryon took all pains, all trouble on 
 himself, and gently checking the vivacity of her 
 mind, forbore the compelling it to take refuge in 
 grimace. He was uniformly serious, and she did 
 not offend him by any very violent contrast. She 
 confined herself to the house, or a retired part of 
 the grounds, while the body lay un-interred — she 
 was kind to poor John Brown, who was now 
 closing his life at his cottage, dying, as he said, 
 like a dog who could not outlive his master. She 
 was munificent in her ideas of bounty on the pre- 
 sent occasion ; and her very deep mourning ar- 
 riving in good time, and being, as Annette con- 
 fessed, very becoming, all went well. She made 
 her appearance, in due form, at church, and 
 though a little vexed at a mistake in blazoning the 
 escucheon on the pulpit-cloth — which she told 
 herself must, and positively should be corrected — 
 she kept her self-command, and listened with great 
 complacency, to the vicar's sermon on the text, 
 c If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in 
 the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy 
 hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me/ 
 
 There was no call for flattery, or even for 
 much personal application, in a discourse on such 
 
HERALINE. 217 
 
 a text. It referred indeed to the defunct, but it 
 was equally addressed to those whom he had left be- 
 hind him ; and his daughter thought herself fortunate 
 in escaping the necessity of feeling deeply for her 
 father or painfully for herself: — decorum, or rather 
 dignity, admitted of her keeping out of sight of the 
 congregation ; and there was nothing yet to be 
 predicated of her that was not in her favour. In 
 her manner of going through the subsequent forms 
 of business, Mr. Meryon had every reason to be 
 satisfied ; and she received and returned the civi- 
 lities of the neighbourhood, in a way that could 
 not fail to send abroad a good report of her, and 
 counteract any prejudice conceived against her: — 
 all her faults were consigned to the grave of her 
 father, and she set out with the most enviable ad- 
 vantages of wealth, grandeur, and popularity — 
 1 And now/ thought she, ' come somebody like 
 the picture — and I will confess myself happy. 
 — Why should I not say this to dear Meryon ? — 
 Shall I ? — No, I cannot — I have made no promise 
 on that point — every thing else, the dear good 
 creature shall know — I am sure he deserves every 
 attention I can pay him — and as to marrying with- 
 out his consent, I would as soon trust myself — to 
 — to — to — what shall I say ? — to rebuild the 
 church— or to cut my hair with my own fingfcrt/ 
 VOL. i. l 
 
2 1 8 HERALINE. 
 
 The remaining years of Lady Lynford's life 
 must have been marked as of peculiar felicity, had 
 they produced any period of happiness, superior to 
 that which intervened between the death of her 
 father, and her departure from Devonshire. A 
 word of unpleasant difference never occurred be- 
 tween her and her guardian. Giving up herself 
 entirely to his gentle guidance, she suffered him to 
 follow his own plans for amusing and informing 
 her. She proceeded in those paths of literature 
 which he thought necessary to the due furniture of 
 her mind ; and as assiduously did he bring her ac- 
 quainted with common things. These pursuits 
 formed winter-employment, which he thought pre- 
 ferable to any occupation which guests in her 
 house would have afforded her : her manners were 
 too good to want the improvement of imitation : 
 he wished her rather to originate than to copy ; 
 and he saw that she might safely be trusted to find 
 out what was right in her to do, as well as what 
 was due to herself, in which latter perception there 
 was indeed no danger of her falling short. 
 
 In the summer he travelled with her, and gave 
 her all the information which his younger years 
 had laid up for him ; and she every day found her 
 respect for him increased by the variety of his 
 knowledge, and her affection for him rendered 
 
HERALINE. 219 
 
 more tender by the evidences he gave of parental so- 
 licitude about her. It would have been painful to 
 him to have disturbed this serenity by exciting an 
 artificial tempest of experiment, or he might per- 
 haps have found that some part of the merit of 
 the young lady's conduct consisted in the novelty 
 of her freedom, in her having every thing the world 
 could, at the moment, give, and in the exhilarating 
 effect of those rose-coloured hopes which made 
 the future responsible for the improvement of her 
 present happiness. This was no situation of trial, 
 except as prosperity may be reckoned amongst the 
 greatest that await us. 
 
 But with the commencement of the year that 
 was to remit her to her own keeping, came other 
 ideas ; and she was less settled in her pursuits and 
 acquirements. So little disgust had Mr. Meryon's 
 guardianship given her, that it was her earnest 
 wish that he would accompany her to London, 
 and remain with her there. She left no solicitation 
 untried : she promised him every thing that 
 could induce him : — in playful banter, she proposed 
 giving him a sleepy potion, and conveying him to 
 Grosvenor Square, without his consciousness to 
 the remove — she pretended to bribe him with the 
 undertaking of obtaining for him whatever mitre 
 he would fix on for his choice. He laughed at 
 tar, and shook his head, and asked if a mitre 
 
220 HERALINE. 
 
 would conceal his silvered locks, or hide the crow- 
 foot on his temple. He professed that his only 
 anxiety was to see her return to take possession of 
 her noble property ; and he hoped it might be 
 followed by her commands to unite her whom he 
 had initiated into the Christian church, and led 
 on in its duties and rites, whom as the one sheep 
 particularly committed to his charge, he loved 
 with a tenderness that even parental affection could 
 scarcely exceed — to unite this dear deposit to 
 some man of real worth and fair pretensions, who 
 would be to her, husband, father — and that friend 
 which the course of nature could not long allow 
 him to be. 
 
 To separate was now becoming, even to the 
 hopeful favourite of fortune, a very painful neces- 
 sity ; and however impatient she had been for the 
 last week in January, which was the time fixed for 
 her departure, she could not but feel a contrary 
 impulse, which made her regret the hours as they 
 flew. She had had very little more intercourse with 
 Lady Drumcannon by letter, than was necessary 
 to acknowledge her kind acceptance of a trouble- 
 some office, but now she wrote to prepare her for 
 the demand on her friendship. Having requested 
 a reply, that she might be certain her intrusion 
 would not be sudden, she received a very civil bil- 
 let, conveying the old viscountess's sentiments -»f 
 
HERALINE. 221 
 
 congratulation, but in the not very promising 
 hand-writing, and the much less promising phrase- 
 ology of a friend who wrote for her ladyship, 
 whom a cold had disabled. The billet began 
 with ' Lady Drumcannon's compliments,' and con- 
 cluded ' Your's to command, Harriet Wyerley/ 
 
 Lady Lynford felt a little mortified and dis- 
 gusted, but confessed that it would be very silly 
 to quarrel with this accidental circumstance, which 
 could, in no way, affect Lady Drumcannon. — 
 Mr. Meryon smiled, and commented on the im- 
 portance of attention in trifles, if the want of it 
 was productive of an alienation of good opinion.— 
 There was no occasion to lecture his ward on this 
 point. However little attention she had to be- 
 stow on some things which demanded it, the eti- 
 quette of life, and whatever could keep up her 
 consequence — for, to increase it was hardly pos- 
 sible — and whatever could recommend her, where 
 she wished herself recommended, were never passed 
 over by her without due circumspection. 
 
 The last week that ' dear St. EmerilV — now 
 dearer than ever, for it was to be quitted — could 
 claim her for its inhabitant, began. — The last Sun- 
 day came ; and the vicar felt it an awful business 
 to preach his farewell-sermon to this child of his 
 heart and conscience, who had won her Way to his 
 L 3 
 
222 HEHALINfi. 
 
 esteem, when she might have forfeited all his in- 
 terest, and had paid to his spontaneous affection, 
 the tribute of a love such as he wished her father 
 could have excited in her generous heart. She 
 was his pride — his sole pride — on nothing else, in 
 this world, did he look with such pleasure — on no 
 countenance was there such a smile to greet him 
 when he returned; and the expression of regret 
 when he quitted her, was too bewitching for even 
 his years, the clerical function, the gravity of 
 a scholar, and the chastened habits of an almost- 
 wearied pilgrim, to withstand — he had linger- 
 ed when she said, 'Do not go yet.' — He had 
 urged his feet to their quickest pace when she had 
 said, ' Come back as soon as you can.' — He had 
 listened to her ingenuous acknowledgment of faults, 
 till he almost forgot they were faults — he had en- 
 couraged the giowth of budding virtues, and had 
 seen them, in his imagination, shooting up into 
 palm-trees — he had cared for her when he had no- 
 thing else to call out his care — and now he must 
 resign her — it was necessity — it was for her advan- 
 tage — and he submitted as cheerfully as he could. 
 In preaching for this last time, he made no 
 scruple of addressing himself to her, connecting 
 her with those whose best interests had, in his situ- 
 ation, as their pastor, a proportionate claim on 
 him ; he took for his text, part of a verse of the 
 
11EKAL1NE. 323 
 
 Proverbs, * The eyes of the Lord are in every 
 place,' — and thus afforded himself an opportunity 
 of giving religious confidence to her whom he was 
 to commit to the world, and of comforting those 
 who might be auxious for her safety in it. Un- 
 important as might seem the occasion, to those 
 used to the intercourse between city and city, it 
 was not so to the St. Emerilians, many of whom 
 thought as seriously as could their vicar, of a now 
 fatherless young woman's undertaking any thing so 
 formidable as the journey, and encountering such 
 a many-headed monster as they imagined the me- 
 tropolis. Little less than Mr. Meryon, though 
 on different motives, did they grieve at the loss of 
 her ; and far less sanguine were they in their hope 
 of her returning. It was in the power of the 
 preacher's oratory, to make the subject impressive : 
 — he could abate ilie repinings of the poor, by 
 representing the lions in the way of the rich : — he 
 could show that the cares of the lofty are neither 
 so few nor so light as the lowly think them — he 
 could, and without fear of distressing her, contrast 
 the orphan-state of his ward, obliged to ask the 
 protection of comparatively a stranger, with the 
 ready resources of a cottager's habitation, to which 
 sons and daughters might apply, when they needed 
 what she now asked, without offending their honest 
 pride, or the fear of slight or rejection. — He en- 
 L 4 
 
224 HERALINK. 
 
 forced on the minds of his hearers, the ignorance 
 and folly of envying greatness, and the unobserv- 
 ed, and, consequently, unrecognised equalization of 
 blessings. He then bade them remember their 
 benefactress in her absence, not unmindful of the 
 hand which, under Providence, so frequently had 
 fed many of them from her well-used abundance — 
 he enjoined them to give her a place in their pray- 
 ers ; and he assured them of her return with the 
 same affection towards them, as she now enter- 
 tained for them : he repeated to them the comfort- 
 ing assurance that, as she would depart in the fear 
 of the Lord, she would be certain of his protec- 
 tion. He then addressed the lady herself. — She 
 had the good taste to rise when he turned to her ; 
 and she stood patiently and submissively, while, 
 with no more qualification than he had allowed 
 those whom he had already addressed, he brought 
 to her recollection the security and attaching cha- 
 racteristics of the home which she was leaving, 
 the trials she might be exposed to in that which 
 she was seeking, and the great need there was of a 
 perpetual remembrance that she was not under the 
 eyes of the Lord as her guardian alone, but as her 
 judge : he most fervently recommended her to the 
 best protection of the Almighty — and, in broken 
 accents, concluded. — The humble church which 
 her bounty had improved into a building of more 
 
HtRALINE. 225 
 
 than common neatness, was filled •, and a stranger 
 must have thought the parishioners all of one fa- 
 mily, and under equal sensibility to some one in- 
 terest: — there was not an eye that did not glisten, 
 few that did not weep — there was not a heart that 
 did not reverberate every good wish that the 
 preacher uttered for the noble orphan. The people 
 rushed out of the church to repeat their bless- 
 ings as she got into her carriage ; and if there was 
 a delicious moment in the life of Heraline Beltra- 
 vers, it was this, when she was made to feel that 
 the good have pleasures beyond those which even 
 her great advantages insured her. 
 
 l* 
 
226 HERALINE, 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 And now came the vigil of this red-letter day, 
 and the last conferences of the guardian and his 
 ward. She again urged his accompanying her, 
 and offered to make up for any delay which await- 
 ing his little preparation might occasion, by subse- 
 quent exertions on the road ; but he was firm. Al- 
 most changing places with him, she remonstrated 
 ou the risques to which his refusal exposed her. — 
 ' I may yet/ said she, * with all this good old dow- 
 ager's care and vigilance, contrive to make mistakes 
 and commit blunders — nay, I have not confidence 
 enough in her, to be certain that she might not 
 lead me into some, herself. — If I remember right, 
 her own marriage was imprudent and unhappy. 
 Whether Lord Drumcannon is alive or not, at the 
 present moment, I do not recollect ; but the Peer- 
 age, I suppose, will tell us, and I must look before 
 I go. In short, my dear sir, you had better go 
 and take care of me for the next six months ; for 
 you may depend upon it, I shall want you ; and 
 now that I am so accustomed to refer to you, I 
 shall be terribly at a loss — it will be worse than 
 wanting a dictionary ; for 1 could find that at a 
 
HERALINE. 227 
 
 bookseller's ; but you will be out of my reach. — 
 And you know it would give me such consequence 
 to be seen always with my lord-almoner in the back 
 of my carriage ! And you shall say grace, and we 
 will have family-prayers, as we have now had so 
 comfortably since you came to the administration. ' 
 
 ' I am really very much obliged to you, my 
 dearest child/ said Mr. Meryon, l . for the serious 
 value which you set on my attending you — my 
 vanity is perhaps not quite as much proof as it 
 ought to be, against the compliment — and 1 love, 
 and I may say, esteem you, the more, for the pre- 
 ference which you show of what is in your judg- 
 ment right, to what is, most probably, more agree- 
 able : — but there are many objections, besides my 
 own repugnance, to be urged against my compli- 
 ance : — I might die with you ; and only think what 
 an imbittering an old man's funeral would be to 
 your gaieties ! ' 
 
 *l will run that risque with pleasure — I do not 
 think you will die these ten or fifteen years — and 
 I am sure, I hope and pray you may not.' 
 
 4 1 should be a sad impediment to you, without 
 power to do you good. — You are going to a world 
 of fashion and finery, of which you must be sen- 
 sible I know nothing.' 
 
 4 O ! but you have a good taste, and I intend 
 l 6 
 
228 HERALINE. 
 
 to have my own fashions, in choosing which, vow 
 might assist/ — 
 
 ' No, no — I am much more likely to be unrea- 
 sonably shocked at things because they are strange 
 to me — and things which it would be wrong in you 
 not to adopt. I have always recommended it to my 
 middle-aged friends, to keep up their intercourse 
 with boys and girls, and their acquaintance with the 
 fashions of the rising generation, that they may not 
 start, like a horse at a wheel-barrow, when they see 
 a cap or hat not just like their grandmother's — I 
 am for great lenity to young persons in small 
 things, provided there is no sinning against good 
 manners in what they do. — Let young women have 
 their top-knots and furbelows, their flowers and 
 feathers, and ribands and rings, if their situation in 
 life warrants it ; but they must not come to me, as 
 I fear you would do, to ask, point-blank, whether I 
 like such trappings — because I should say, " I like 
 you better without them" — and then you must 
 either, out of compliment, discard them, or ru» 
 counter to my taste/ 
 
 ' Well then — I will never trouble you on such 
 subjects/ 
 
 1 Still there are great objections — London 
 might disagree with me ; and, after all, I really do 
 not think the tenour, or at least the spirit of my 
 lord's will, admits of my continuing myself die- 
 
HERAL1NE. 229 
 
 lator, when Lady Drumcannon is to commence 
 her consulate/ 
 
 There was nothing more to be urged. Lady 
 Lynford desisted, only repeating with a tone un- 
 usually grave — ' I wish I may not wish for you, 
 when wishing is vain/ 
 
 ' I will come to you in any exigency/ said the 
 vicar, in his kindest manner : — ' at a minute's 
 warning, I will set off, whenever you say you need 
 me. — Will that satisfy you?' 
 
 ' Perfectly — you dear good creature — I really 
 believe, after all, I had better choose you for lord of 
 my castle, to save me from doing any thing foolish/ 
 
 ' That would be doing the thing itself, to avoid 
 doing it/ 
 
 1 Well ! you shall see — I will answer for no- 
 thing if you provoke me. — You were born, I pre- 
 sume, within these same four seas V 
 
 * O yes — I have that requisite,' said he, laugh- 
 ing; ' I was born, I believe, nearly equidistant from 
 them all/ 
 
 1 Then you see that is a safe point/ 
 
 With the cheerfulness of this little badinage, 
 the guardian dismissed his beloved ward to her 
 early repose, considering the claim to be made on 
 her spirits the next day. — Reluctantly she obeyed 
 him, when he bade her depart ; and again she re- 
 turned, when half way to her chamber, under pre- 
 
l 230 HERALINE. 
 
 tence of things to be said ; but, in reality, to assure 
 herself that he was not too painfully interested 
 about her. She found him reading, and was satis- 
 fied. 
 
 In her arrangements for her London residence, 
 she had made a sacrifice, greater than he could 
 have expected, in suffering him to persuade her that 
 Annette was not a proper servant to be about her 
 person, in her new mode of life. He knew the 
 human heart in general too well, and her ladyship's 
 in particular, to hope to accomplish this separation 
 by straight-forward argument-— that she was a Ca- 
 tholic, would have been no new objection — that 
 she was a foreigner, was, in her department, a 
 distinguishing recommendation: — if he had im- 
 peached her principles, they would have been 
 treated as below consideration ; and if he had 
 found fault with her practice, he must have sub- 
 jected himself to that which was very unpleasant 
 and unfit — he therefore represented her as beneath 
 the situation, and, of necessity, uninformed in points 
 of service, where habit was requisite. — By these 
 means he gained a patient hearing ; and Mademoi- 
 selle Annette was easily induced to put an end to the 
 courtship of some one of her lovers, by matrimony, 
 and to employ the six months of her lady's pro- 
 posed absence in settling herself in her new home, 
 ready to remain there if her services were not re- 
 3 
 
HEUALINE. 231 
 
 claimed, or to resume her situation should they be 
 required. 
 
 To supply her place for the time, there stood 
 ready, in London, a niece of Mrs. Parr who was 
 aufaite in the toilette-duties of a peeress in town 
 — and against whom there could be no objection. 
 Mrs. Parr, for the sake of two such valuable con- 
 siderations, as the getting rid of Annette and the 
 introduction of her own relation, proffered all the 
 personal attendance necessary on the journey ; and 
 both she, and the far-wiser Mr. Meryon, thought 
 they had carried a most important point. With 
 regard to the latter, he had done better to have 
 promised Annette five guineas for betraying her 
 mistress's secrets ; but this he could neither know 
 nor suppose. 
 
 Of Mr. Meryon's comfort in her absence, 
 Lady Lynford had shown herself gratefully and 
 affectionately considerate. His curate, a poor sickly 
 man, who rather needed than could afford much 
 assistance, had brought with him a wife and child ; 
 and, for mutual accommodation, some additions 
 had been made to the parsonage-house, which, 
 without abridging the master's independence, al- 
 lowed these new-comers to live under the roof, and 
 would now, by this arrangement, afford Mr. Me- 
 ryon domestic society at his table, and whenever it 
 was his wish to quit his study. Mr. Holby, the 
 
232 IIERAL1NE. 
 
 curate, had been an old friend of the vicar's ; and 
 it was the hope of the benefit he might receive from 
 change of air, which had induced Mr. Meryon to 
 fix on him as his choice, and had tempted Mr. 
 Holby to forego a more lucrative situation ; his wife 
 was a woman well -suited to the purposes for which 
 she might be useful — she was of some family, had 
 domestic activity, knowledge of the world, in- 
 formation on various subjects, and prepossessing 
 manners : the child, who was a pretty little girl, 
 was no objection to Mr. Meryon. At all events, 
 the experiment of his being thrown thus on these 
 persons, could last only half a year : — on the third 
 of August, Lady Lynford was to be of age, and, 
 as near that time as possible, she was to return to 
 St. Emeril's, to be met by her tenantry on the 
 boundary of her estate, and conducted to her home 
 in the style of ancient times. — Mr. Meryon was to 
 be ready to receive her : the usual festivities were 
 then to take place ; and he was to resume his situ- 
 ation with her, and keep it as long as she had power 
 over herself. 
 
 * Farewell, farewell! — God in Heaven pro- 
 tect you — my dear child/ — whispered Mr. Me- 
 ryon, as he passed her ladyship's chamber, to go 
 to that which he occupied — ' I hope and trust you 
 are sound asleep — if my watching would guard 
 
HERAL1XE. 233 
 
 you, gladly would I forego half my sleep, while 
 you are absent from me.' 
 
 He went indeed to bed ; but his mind was tot) 
 much occupied to allow him to compose himsel* 
 immediately. 
 
 ' I have not said half enough to guard her/ 
 said he to himself, ' in some material points — 
 there is one which I cannot too much enforce — 
 she will not set out very early : I must have ano- 
 ther talk to her/ 
 
 Lady Lynford slept sweetly, and dreamt agree- 
 ably — she rose early, and certainly her feelings 
 were of a high description, when passing through 
 the hall to the breakfast-parlour, she saw her bag- 
 gage arranged in such a manner, as showed the 
 importance of herself and her movements. — But 
 a wish that the parting was over, darted across 
 this agreeable sensation — the atoning pleasure was, 
 however, too near at hand, to suffer this seriously 
 to distress her. 
 
 Breakfast was ready for her at the appointed 
 moment, and Mr. Meryon partook it, or made as 
 if he partook it, with her. He wished to say 
 a few words to her — he wished to make them few ; 
 —for, even at the last moment, he was tender in 
 the use of power — he was not ready to speak, 
 though prepared — he wished to impress — he 
 feared to disgust — or even to abate enjoyment. 
 
234 HEltALINE. 
 
 He seemed going to begin — his ward looked 
 attentive — her attention courted him — ' I will not 
 preach/ said he, c I do not wish to abate your plea- 
 sure — I wish to secure it to you — none can be safe 
 in enjoyment or firm in its foundation, on which 
 we cannot ask the blessing of Heaven. — Do not 
 then, my dear child, while you drink of the river 
 forget the fountain. As to prudence, your parti- 
 cular situation calls on me to bring forcibly to 
 your recollection, the important clause in my 
 lord's will — and my particular situatiou allows me 
 to ask a promise of you, the observance of which 
 may, I hope, tend to preserve you from evil. — 
 With regard to your own situation, circumspec- 
 tion is not all that is necessary — you must not, if 
 you would do right, refer yourself to the time 
 when circumspection will be necessary — to keep 
 yourself free from reproach, and indeed, in com- 
 mon justice and equity towards others, you must 
 take care that it be immediately known, that you 
 are to marry no man who was not born within the 
 four seas — let the penalty be declared, that no 
 one may be mis-led — let it be your first care to 
 impress on Lady Drumcannon, the predicament 
 in which you are placed : I have warned her in 
 this letter which you will give her, but this may 
 not be sufficient. 
 
 ' Now with regard to the consideration which 
 
HERALINE. ( S3j 
 
 I now solicit for myself, solely with a view to 
 your security, the only promise I ask, is the ab- 
 sence of all disguise with me — do not suffer your- 
 self, when afar off, to begin to be reserved towards 
 me ; have no concealments, but those becoming 
 your sex — and then you will never find it difficult 
 to be ingenuous ; but T tell you fairly, Lady Lyn- 
 ford, that if once you begin concealment, when 
 I am not near you to disperse it, you will, in a 
 short time, find yourself in a labyrinth, from 
 which you may wish to escape when you may not 
 be able. — 1 trust I have never forfeited, or even 
 ever discouraged your confidence; — and, I believe 
 I may without presumption say, that if the sin- 
 cerest love, the most lively interest, and an anxiety, 
 all but parental, can deserve it — I am entitled to 
 it.' — He took out his handkerchief — turned away 
 on his chair, and with his elbow over the back of 
 it, remained silent. 
 
 Lady Lynford could not speak — at the very 
 moment of his exhortation she felt that she was 
 disobeying him— she had the miniature in her 
 watch-pocket — and she dared not own it — be- 
 cause she had done exactly what he warned her 
 against — she had begun to be secret. 
 
 Struck by the close application of his advice, 
 she would have given the world to have stood clear 
 to herself — but in vain she wished. — What could 
 
236 HERALINE. 
 
 »he do ? her rapid thoughts told her that it was 
 impossible to relinquish the picture, and her value 
 for it told her it would be expected — the car- 
 riage was at the bottom of the steps. 
 
 ' And, after all, of what consequence was this 
 picture ? — and whose was it ? It was a picture to 
 which she had merely taken a fancy — and her fa- 
 ther had himself told her that it was the portrait of 
 one long since dead. Beside, she had secreted it 
 from Mr. Meryon at first ; and now, what could 
 she say ? ' 
 
 The query with which she concluded her solilo- 
 quy, was honest : — not so the previous reasoning. 
 She had withdrawn all credit from Lord Lynford's 
 assertions — she no longer believed it the picture of 
 the Pretender, or even an imaginary portrait. She 
 felt that it was that of some one whom she was 
 tyrannically forbidden to love, without any reason 
 being assigned : and this persuasion, though she 
 was compelled to keep it smothered, still continued 
 to give zest to a trifle, whetted her curiosity, and 
 made that energetic, which, without it, might have 
 slept till it expired. 
 
 She would have given any thing but the pic- 
 ture, to have had time for five minutes' further de- 
 bate with herself; but it was not just then to be 
 obtained, without some very abrupt proceeding, 
 which she saw might excite suspicion. Almost 
 
HERA LINE. 237 
 
 off her guard, and about to be ingenuous, she 
 felt for the picture. — ' I do not care,' said she to 
 herself, ' he shall see it, and know all — I will not 
 suffer so again.' — She was resolved — but she only 
 brought out her watch, and told herself what it 
 told her. — ' I shall leave him in displeasure,' said 
 she to herself; l he will think the worse of me — I 
 have no time now to be reconciled to him — I 
 have no time to explain — but I shall be away only 
 six months ; and when I come back, I will tell 
 him all.' 
 
 Was there any thing in her countenance that 
 betrayed her ? — If there was, it could not betray 
 her to Mr. Meryon's observation ; for he did not 
 look towards her. — Was there any thing in her 
 voice that betrayed her ? — No ; she did not audibly 
 speak. — Was there any thing in her silence that be- 
 trayed her? — If there was, it wasonly because silence 
 in emotion was unusual with her, but it did betray 
 her, and Mr. Meryon looked up ; — she tried to 
 smile — smiles were not unnatural to her ; but the 
 smile of this moment was of a peculiar description 
 — it struck him as not merely a smile forced 
 through the counteraction of the moment — it wa* 
 expressive of embarrassment, if not of more. 
 
 She felt herself watched — she started up, drew 
 on her glove, rang the bell, desired Mrs. Parr to 
 be ready immediately, shook Mr. Meryou's hand, 
 2 
 
23S HERALINE. 
 
 and seated herself in the carriage before Mrs. Parr 
 could come to her. — The chariot-door once shut, 
 she was profuse in kissing her hand to her guar- 
 dian, and in all that dumb show could do ; and 
 she left him, under the portico from which the 
 steps descended, whispering to himself, ' I am 
 confident she is practising some deception — 'tis un- 
 like her — I may be mistaken — I wish I may be.'- — 
 ' But I feel it here, in full conviction,' resumed 
 he, striking his breast as he crossed the hall to the 
 room from which she had departed. — ' Well ! —her 
 first letter will perhaps explain something — I will 
 not accuse — I may be wrong ; and an error of this 
 kind might ruin her temper and mind — it is an un- 
 pleasant surmise — I hope it was only the disturb- 
 ance of the moment — God bless her and keep 
 her ! for she is a fine creature, and if she falls into 
 good hands, she may be safe — otherwise ' 
 
 Mr. Meryon, pensive as he might foresee he 
 must be after this parting, and more anxious than 
 he had foreseen cause to be, removed to his par- 
 sonage-house before his hour of dinner ; and St. 
 Emeril's Court was deserted, just when a depart- 
 ing mild winter was leading in the infant-spring of 
 the west, to charm, to allure, and to detain. 
 
 But even stronger pretensions than ' dear St. 
 Emeril's ' could make, would have been silenced, 
 had they obtruded themselves on the ear of its 
 
HERALINE. 23<9 
 
 mistress on her quitting it. Her prospect was 
 sufficiently occupying to excuse her ; but her re- 
 flections in the outset of her journey were absorb- 
 ing ; and sinking back in the carriage, she was of- 
 fended during the first half-hour, when Mrs. Parr 
 informed her of the persons who were collected 
 about the park-gate and on the road to see the last 
 of her. That her magnificent ladyship should be 
 out of temper, never excited the wonder or the cu- 
 riosity of her dependent — nay, it had long ceased to 
 call up her tender solicitude — indulgence of na- 
 ture, and the self-care of interest, made great allow- 
 ance for a superior being so exposed to the vexation 
 of disappointment, when forced to see, even in com- 
 mon cases, that her wishes could not alter the na- 
 ture of things, and that the world was not made 
 for her alone. The causes of complaint which 
 these accidents afforded Mrs. Parr, were neither 
 frequent nor lasting — she was well paid for tolera- 
 tion ; and, just now, a little peevishness was very 
 allowable. 
 
 At the eud of the first stage, the baroness was 
 to dispense with the service of her own horses, as 
 not suited to the road or to London : every thing 
 was prepared for her on her way; and a young 
 princess going to share a throne, could hardly have 
 required more observance or adulation than she 
 received. Mrs. Parr was only the more obs<c- 
 
240 HERA LIKE. 
 
 quious, as more in view. — The half of the journey 
 passed, there was no strife between the attractions 
 of the two ends — Mrs. Parr was again smiled on ; 
 and ' Thank God here we are!' were sounds to 
 which the heavy knocker of the Grosvenor-square- 
 house played a deep bass, while the depressed 
 lever of the bell produced a melodioui repetitio» 
 in a higher octave. 
 
11ERALINE. 24 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Servants had preceded the baroness; and good 
 tires, and a well-lighted stair-case, afforded an aspect 
 of comfort and, at least, artificial cheerfulness. Her 
 new waiting-woman was in attendance ; and even 
 Mrs. Parr's solicitude for her appearance, was re- 
 moved, as soon as she came in sight. The anxious 
 aunt had written to her, page after page, on the 
 importance of the post she had procured for her, 
 and her own concern in maintaining herself in it ; 
 and there had been no parsimony of * You must ' 
 — and ' I advise you by all means' — to put her in 
 the right way. — That the young woman, at the first 
 private conference with her well-intentioned rela- 
 tion, said frankly, ' Dear aunt, if I had not deter- 
 mined not to mind half you said, 1 should never 
 have got on in learning what I had to do' — would 
 not have conveyed to Goody Parr, any idea that it 
 was possible to say too much, or induced her, on 
 any subsequent and similar occasion, to spare her 
 labour. 
 
 The house had not improved by being nearly 
 uninhabited. — It was long since it had been an ob- 
 ject of attention ; and, compared with the high order 
 
 VOL. 1. M 
 
242 HERALINE. 
 
 of St. Emeril's Court, even its grandeur was mor- 
 tifying, when Lady Lynford looked round on its 
 dirty silk-hangings, and smelt soot and smoke in 
 every thing she approached. — She sate down to 
 her dinner in the style in which she had travelled, 
 that is to say, permitting Mrs. Parr to take the 
 bottom of the table and spare her the trouble of 
 helping herself. 
 
 Her first concern on rising from table, was to 
 order one of her men to announce her arrival to 
 Lady Drumcannon, whom she described as living 
 at the next house. — The man returned with ' Sir 
 Somebody Something's compliments — he was 
 happy to hear her ladyship was safely arrived, but 
 had not the honour of her acquaintance.' — The na- 
 rural conclusion was, that she had made a mistake 
 between two next-doors — The man returned from 
 a second embassy, saying that ' his Grace and the 
 duchess were not yet come from Bath/ — This 
 was the first embarrassment ; and Mrs. Parr was 
 ready to run out of the house to learn how it arose : 
 but fortunately, the great event had already reached 
 the quarter in which it needed to be known, and 
 before a plan of proceeding could be settled, a 
 message came from Lady Drumcannon, stating 
 the continuance of her ' bad cold,' and promising 
 that Miss Wyerley would pay her respects to the 
 baroness, early in the morning. As no answer was 
 
HERALINE. 243 
 
 required, though it was a message of the usual 
 description on such an occasion, — to get any thing 
 out of the servant who brought it, unless his per- 
 son had been known, and he could have been over- 
 taken, without his pursuers being able to guess to 
 which hand he turned, was impossible. Lady 
 Lynford therefore was compelled to rest all her 
 hopes on the promised visit, and, in effect, to wait 
 on the movements of this contemned substitute of 
 Lady Drumcannon's. 
 
 As neither the baroness nor Mrs. Parr was a 
 rustic novice in London, her ladyship was not 
 impatient to go out next morning, nor obliged to 
 part from Mrs. Parr to gratify any subordinate 
 curiosity of hers. 
 
 The young lady's dress was the matter of first 
 importance ; and Lady Lynford did not doubt 
 that, till she could engage horses, Lady Drum- 
 cannon would accommodate her with the use of her 
 carriage, even if her indisposition deprived her of 
 the advantage of consulting her. All uneasiness 
 on the not immediately finding the viscountess 
 where she was supposed to reside, was forgotten ; 
 and Mrs. Parr, who showed her good sense in 
 feeling that she was utterly unfit for the office 
 assigned her, if it required to know any thing that 
 she had not practised in Devonshire, felt already 
 a sort of prophetic friendship for Miss Wyerley, 
 M 2 
 
244 HERALINE. 
 
 in the hope that her talents would supply her own 
 deficiencies. 
 
 In the small conversation between Lady Lyn- 
 ford and Mrs. Parr while awaiting the arrival of 
 this mirror of utility, it had been matter of ques 
 tkm whether either of them recollected the fea- 
 tures or person of Lord Drumcannon, whose 
 death the baroness had ascertained before she left 
 home — but all doubt vanished when the lively 
 Miss Wyerley entered : what he had been, was then 
 immediately called to mind; and many queries, 
 that it was as well not to bring forward, were 
 answered. The lady was not young, nor was she, 
 in the eyes of her whom she came to serve, very 
 prepossessing ; but Mrs. Parr, because her manners 
 did not set her at a distance, and because she was 
 very primly drest, was immediately captivated, 
 and thought her ' a very nice person.' She did not 
 exactly tell Lady Lynford that now she saw the 
 model on which she might have been better formed, 
 but, under the encouragement afforded her by 
 Miss Wyerley 's abundant condescensions, she did 
 little short of showing which of the two ladies 
 was the most to her taste. She got as far, at the 
 first opportunity, as repeated commendations of 
 Miss Wyerley for ' having no pride,' which the 
 baroness, who had, in the first five minutes, gauged 
 her understanding and her principles of action, 
 
HERALINE. 245 
 
 instantly met with a sarcastic acquiescence, that 
 made poor Goody Parr at least keep her admira- 
 tion to herself. 
 
 In this first visit, however, there was too much 
 business to be done, to waste time on speculations. 
 Lady Drumcannon's change of residence was ex- 
 plained ; and Miss Wyerley seemed surprised that 
 it should be news to l her la'aship and her friend 
 Mrs. Parr, that her la'aship had removed to a 
 house just round the corner — It was so near that 
 her la'aship still called it the square — It was cer- 
 tainly but a small concern, compared with the 
 house in which she had lived in my lord's time, 
 but it was a very lady-like pretty bijou, and in an 
 excellent situation ; for nothing could go in or out 
 of the square that way, or to the parks, without 
 her seeing it : — and then it was so very convenient 
 for her la'aship's friends, that her la'aship got taken 
 out to air, most days — only just now, indeed, her 
 bad cold — but that would soon be gone — when the 
 weather mended.' 
 
 Lady Lynford, a little off her guard, and feeling 
 in some measure betrayed into circumstances of 
 which she ought to have been apprised, looked at 
 Mrs. Parr, who, with uncommon prudence, 
 turned aside to avoid the appeal. The silence, how- 
 ever, which followed Miss Wyerley 's speech, seem- 
 ed to call on the speaker to speak on — at least, 
 M 3 
 
246 HERALINE. 
 
 it told her that her hearers were pausing. She 
 resumed : ' I dare say your la'aship expected to 
 find her la'aship where she was, but at the death 
 of my lord, she, somehow, did not care for so 
 large a house, you know, just for herself and me, 
 you know — but your la'aship will find her living 
 in a very genteel pretty style. She has her carriage 
 —a very nice comfortable carriage; but she found 
 horses and coachmen a great trouble — and she can 
 always hire ; for we have an excellent mews just 
 by; and she patronizes the man — If your la'aship, 
 or you, Mrs. Parr, want horses at any time — you 
 
 have only just to send — and in ten minutes ' 
 
 Mrs. Parr began to fidget and looked frighten- 
 ed. The non est invent a, when Lady Drum- 
 cannon was sought for, had, in her imagination, 
 already set four post-horses, attached to the carriage 
 that had brought them, with their heads towards 
 the west. — A retrograde-movement was not, at 
 this time, the first wish of her heart ; and her gra- 
 titude was almost piety when she was again free 
 from alarm ; but now, degrading revelations came 
 so fast — the all-together of Miss Wyerley, how- 
 ever it might suit her, was, she clearly saw, so 
 unpleasant to the baroness; and Lady Di umcannon, 
 under the detail of her deputy, seemed so ill-chosen 
 a chaperon, that she could scarcely expect Lady 
 Lynford to accept her officiousness — for good 
 
HERALINE. 247 
 
 offices such performances could hardly be called. 
 — But Mrs Parr, interested as she was in gentle 
 proceedings, could not feel disappointed when she 
 perceived the baroness draw up in a style she well 
 understood, and heard her decline availing herself 
 of this resource — * horses/ she said, ' were be- 
 spoke, and she could defer her purchases till they 
 arrived/ 
 
 The peeress's spirit could not quite content itself 
 with this cool reply. — She could not forbear com- 
 menting on the great alteration that must have 
 taken place in Lady Drumcannon's mode of living, 
 and expressing her fear that, under this change, 
 such a charge as that of introducing her, must be 
 very inconvenient — ' and — and — and — indeed un- 
 suitable/ — 
 
 Miss Wyerley, perhaps fearing something worse 
 might be coming, began to explain away — but 
 Lady Lynford, though not half her age, was not 
 to be so put down. 
 
 She went on to say that ' she well remembered, 
 when she was last in town, that the viscountess had 
 lived much in the world — and to no one who did 
 not, she was certain, would her father have con- 
 signed her— ^she remembered the resort of morn- 
 ing visitors and the phalanxed carriages which she 
 had seen, when she went out for, or returned from, 
 her exercise in the Parks or Kensington Gardens, 
 M 4 
 
248 HERALINE. 
 
 or her visits to the nursery-grounds in the King's 
 Road. Her ladyship had taken her to the chapel- 
 royal, and there her acquaintance seemed universal 
 — she went very frequently to court — and she really 
 had hoped to find her — and she was sure her father 
 had the same ideas — she had hoped to find her 
 going on in the same way — If she was not, she felt 
 that she herself must be at a sad loss; and she 
 really knew not how she could remain in town,' 
 
 This was going a step too far for Goody 
 Parr's toleration, considering too the interests of 
 her young niece ; and she now joined Miss Wyer- 
 ley in assurances that the change of residence could 
 make no difference in the viscountess's power of 
 executing the office she had taken on herself. — 
 The word ' purchases ' still rang in the officious 
 spinster's ear, and she endeavoured to lead back to 
 it, as the safer subject of discussion. 
 
 Modes of life affect modes of thinking ; and 
 those of Miss Wyerley were exactly consentaneous. 
 She was of base origin on the one side, and of 
 low origin on the other; and as she was dependent 
 on the viscountess for every thing beyond the neces- 
 saries of life, and had a very acute relish of its 
 superfluities, it was her duty to herself, her in- 
 terest, and her sole business, to be agreeable, an 
 indispensibility so strongly impressed on her recol- 
 lection, that it rendered her any thing but what 
 
HERALINE. 249 
 
 she aimed at being, and resolved itself into an in- 
 cessant avoidance of silence and stillness. She was 
 therefore insufferably civil, full of her own prac- 
 tice and opinions ; and now, when in points that 
 were within her reach, she might have got credit, 
 she could not forbear egotising, and bringing 
 forward her own paltry economy, as experience 
 suited to the liberal manner in which Lady Lynford 
 was to be drest.— Having never been used to af- 
 fluence — for she had been associated with her prin- 
 cipal, only on the death of Lord Drumcannon, — 
 the sight of it filled her mind, and the hope of, in 
 some degree, sharing in it, animated her heart, if 
 that be the seat of covetousness. — She was out of 
 her wits when she found a vacancy into which 
 some artificer who would be grateful to her, might 
 be recommended. — She characterized herself as a 
 bold beggar — She repeated the bons mots of cap- 
 tains and colonels who threatened to have her 
 taken up — and she hinted the excuse for her per- 
 severance, in the smart answers she returned them, 
 when she asked * what poor spinsters could do/ 
 
 In the corky humour of her spirits, she was 
 almost on the point of departing, without deliver, 
 sng the message which was the principal feature 
 of her embassy. Totally insensible to the impro- 
 priety into which she was every moment plunging 
 deeper, she affected to make a ludicrous solemnity 
 Ml 
 
250 HERAL1NE. 
 
 of this commission, which she prefaced by a pane 
 gyric on Lady Drumcannon's excellent constitution, 
 describing it as in its highest vigour, save and except 
 the unfortunate cold which confined her, and, ' she 
 was sorry to say, made her a little deaf — but, if any 
 body did but come a little near to her, she heajrd 
 very well — it was what she had never before been 
 subject to ; but it might be a little upon the rheu- 
 matic, for that morning she had complained of a 
 pain in her poor knee, which, on the whole, she 
 thought a good sign ; and this, she hoped, would 
 excuse the liberty she was requested to take, in 
 asking Mrs. Parr and dear Lady Lynford to come, 
 in the sociable way, and take their tea that even- 
 ing with her la'aship — when their humble servant 
 would play mistress of the ceremonies. Lady 
 Lynford could come in her nice new chair, 
 which she saw standing in the hall — so convenient ! 
 — she had just popped her head in, at the very 
 moment it was brought in, and she did take the 
 liberty of asking the men to let her have a sit-down 
 in it, as she was an intimate friend, she said, of the 
 lady — so there she sat down, and looked quite like 
 the baroness herself — quite grand — and the cushion 
 was so nice and soft — she believed, by the feel, it 
 was all eider-down — but as she was saying' — for 
 Lady Lynford's forehead was growing very cloudy 
 — l could the ladies oblige her la'aship?' 
 
HERALINE. 25 1 
 
 Mrs. Parr, who had endured to the utmost, was 
 now almost ready to put her hand before the chat- 
 terer's mouth. — Concluding that Lady Lynford 
 would not comply with so indecorous a request, she 
 wished to spare her the condescension of excusing 
 herself; but Lady Lynford would not be excus- 
 ed ; she accepted the invitation, as the shortest 
 method of satisfying herself on some points very 
 requisite to be understood, before she wrote to her 
 guardian, whom she had warned not to expect a 
 letter till she had seen her chaperon. 
 
 m 6 
 
252 HERALIN£, 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 Once rid of this nuisance, Lady Lynford sat down 
 to begin writing to Mr. Meryon, having previously 
 determined, in this case, and well would it have 
 been, if she had firmly resolved and kept her reso- 
 lution in all cases, that she would not, by any error 
 or negligence in the first instance, accumulate to 
 herself vexation and repentance. She would teli 
 him every thing now from the beginning — she 
 would have no concealments — and she would ex- 
 onerate herself from all responsibility, by taking 
 no one step without his sanction : — it might occa- 
 sion her some trouble in writing; but regularly 
 kept up every day, she could form a journal with 
 little loss of time — the first moment after break- 
 fast should be devoted to this satisfactory duty — 
 and she would begin now, that she might be ready 
 to proceed with regularity and without recapitula- 
 tion. 
 
 * Where should she begin?' — Why, of course, 
 from the moment of parting. — ' Not a little ear- 
 lier?' — said conscience. 'Odear!' answered the 
 writer — ' Of what use would it now be to go back 
 to things past? — my narrative is to be of occur- 
 rences in my absence ; and really, now that I am 
 
HERALINE. <253 
 
 at such a distance that I cannot immediately know 
 what he thinks, or judge myself, from his looks, 
 how my confession affects him, it is only putting 
 myself in an ague for no purpose. At a future 
 time, if I wish to have it to say that he has always 
 had my perfect confidence, I can tell him of this 
 foolish business, which, after all, is just nothing. 
 What have I to tell bat what he knows already t 
 that those people — the De Quintes — showed me 
 a picture as in their own possession, which was 
 procured from my father's cabinet, and said it was 
 that of a young French nobleman, when it was, on 
 my father's assertion, that of the young Pretender, 
 or, at best, an imaginary portrait — for, as to my 
 persuasion on the subject, that rests entirely with 
 myself, and I am sure would not be received in 
 evidence one way or the other. — And what could 
 he say to this ? — Only, " Very well, my dear." If, 
 indeed, I were to tell him, that this picture is to 
 me life and love — and that I can be content to end 
 my existence in this sweet attachment alone — that 
 I will, at least, never suffer any man to marry me, 
 whose character of mind, as I see it here expressed 
 in the countenance, does not as tenderly meet my 
 own ideas of happiness : — were I to tell him all this, 
 which I believe is the truth, and which I am afraid 
 is the truth which I dread his knowing — were I, 
 indeed, to volunteer all this, it might make him 
 4 
 
2.54 HERALINE. 
 
 anxious about me ; and that would be cruel, wton 
 I am at such a distance. — And as to being laughed 
 at, or ridiculed, or, as I should expect, compared 
 to that wild-goose man in the tales I used to read, 
 who fell in love with a dead princess — I could 
 not endure that ; — therefore, on the whole, I think, 
 I had better be quiet : — " Study to be quiet," was a 
 precept he used, dear soul ! to impress very often 
 on the St. Emerilians ; — and as I am one of them, 
 I may take the advantage of obedience in this 
 point/ 
 
 A little time had been lost in the deliberation ; 
 but it was of importance to be circumspect at this 
 moment ; and it was worth while to wait for the 
 satisfaction it produced. Much, indeed, was not 
 gained in information or conviction. Those who 
 reason with Dumby for an opponent, or who talk, 
 as did the deceased earl on oue occasion, with the 
 same personage for an auditor, may be made more 
 obstinate and more confident, but seldom more 
 candid, or more enlightened. Lady Lynford, con- 
 sequently, having received no contradiction to her 
 arguments, was more confirmed in their justness ; 
 and though she felt some repugnance to using the 
 implements which she had set in order for begin 
 ning to write, yet looking at her watch, she felt the 
 necessity of exertion, and compelled herself to 
 begin. 
 
HERALINE. 955 
 
 She tried to write gaily, and either her feeling 
 or the sense of what she ought to hate felt, made 
 her, in language peculiarly coaxing, tell her guar- 
 dian how unpleasant had been to her the increase 
 of distance in her journey — how much she wished 
 him with her — and how happy she must be to re- 
 turn to him. The events of her un-eventful pro- 
 gress resolved themselves into the alternations of 
 stopping and proceeding ; and London, at present, 
 afforded no subject but the surprise occasioned by 
 Lady Drumcannon's remove, and the amusement 
 forced upon her by Miss Wyerley's oddities, which 
 she brought forward in luxuriance, as if to hide 
 the general barrenness of her page. To gain a 
 little praise under the consciousness that she de- 
 served blame, she condescended to boast of her 
 good taste, in deciding on turning over to Goody 
 Parr, the office of summoner to dress-makers, mil- 
 liners, and shoe-makers, still preserving to herself 
 the pleasure of making a respectful distinction, by 
 writing, herself, to the masters from whose in- 
 struction she hoped for improvement. She knew 
 well that this would please the old man, who had 
 great and due consideration for those possessing 
 intellect, and who were compelled to forego its 
 pleasures that they might live upon its wear and 
 tear. She could endure an overplus-paragraph ex- 
 horting her to do that which she meant to do, if 
 
656 HERALINE. 
 
 she had but the comfort of seeing dear Meryon 
 pleased with her— or, in truer language, if she 
 could but hope herself unsuspected :-— it was, but 
 for this dictate of worldly prudence, rather be- 
 neath the high tone of Baroness Lynford's just 
 pretensions, to resort to clap-traps, self-puffings, 
 and plaudit-begging. 
 
 Drest very fitly for such an occasion, and at the 
 hour which she had learnt would best suit Lady 
 Drumcannon's cold, Lady Lynford went to her ; 
 and notwithstanding all the moderating influence 
 of Miss Wyerley's hints, she could not but feel 
 surprised at finding her chair set down, not in a 
 hall in any degree resembling that of her own 
 house, but in a wainscotted passage so narrow as 
 to require nice steerage. Her man had announced 
 her in the pitch suited to echoing flights of stairs 
 — for at St. Emeril's there was never rusticity 
 or relaxation of manners — the court there gave the 
 tone ; and what was allowed and done there, was 
 rule — consequently every thing was done in the best 
 manner. 
 
 But now, instead of the respectful silence, in- 
 terrupted only by the alacrity of feet on her ap- 
 proach, she heard the vulgar reply of ' Very well,' 
 when her title was comprehended, and the still 
 more vulgar request of a small voice, ' Please 
 just let a me go by, afore you let's the lady out , 
 
HERALIXE. 257 
 
 or I can't get by.' — A dirty candlestick was taken 
 from a table; and she stood on a damp mat, while 
 the foot-boy, who had then scarcely got into his 
 livery-coat, with the cape turned half down, and 
 his cuffs turned up, proceeded before her. She 
 heard herself proclaimed, as l My lady ; ' and 
 Miss Wyerley'3 reply of ' Lord ! look at your 
 coat ! what a figure V was audible. The lad now 
 forgot his office in his own concern, and in vindi- 
 cation of his appearance, began to say, that ' he 
 was just toasting the muffin, and so had slipt 
 his coat-sleeves up.' — Then ensued a remonstrance 
 on the impropriety of toasting the muffin so soon, 
 and a prediction that it would be spoiled. This 
 requiring a denial, Lady Lynford stood a fair 
 chance of hearing warning to leave the place given 
 and accepted ; but Miss Wyerley's sense of pro- 
 priety was victorious ; and the messenger was sent 
 back to desire her to walk up. Unconnected with 
 this sordidness, she could have laughed — at liberty 
 to retreat from it, she could have resented the 
 being subjected to it : but, in her present circum- 
 stances, she felt indignant, not merely at what she 
 was enduring, but at the will which enforced her 
 submission to it. 
 
 Setting her features, and more anxious to in- 
 spire awe than she would have been on a fair 
 ground, she entered loftily the small dingy ill- 
 
258 HERALINE. 
 
 lighted drawing-room, expecting to see the lady 
 herself; but perceiving nothing that looked human 
 except Miss Wyerley, she was going to take the seat 
 pointed out to her ; when instantly feeling the ex- 
 treme closeness of the apartment, she moved to- 
 wards the door, Miss Wyerley following her and 
 chattering acquiescences with increased familia- 
 rity. 
 
 The seats being arranged, and the candles on 
 the table snuffed, with a forbidding nod to the 
 footboy, who would have performed the same 
 good office for two finger's-lengths over the fire, 
 Miss Wyerley was at leisure to account for, and 
 Lady Lynford to understand, the absence of the 
 viscountess — but this was not the subject exactly 
 uppermost in the mind of the one. She began 
 indeed, but it was in a tone of admiration, habitual 
 to her when she descried any thing to be coveted. 
 
 1 Why, my dear Lady L. what a pretty stripe 
 you have got on ! Is that a Devonshire bargain ? 
 — from Exeter I suppose — I believe there are very 
 good shops in that town. — But upon my word, it 
 was not necessary to be so quite in gala, as 1 
 say, to-night — any thing would have done for 
 Lady D. and I — we are great economists — for / 
 say that they who wear their best every day, will 
 never have a best for Sundays — and now, once for 
 all, my dear, take it for a standing rule, that any 
 
HERAL1NE. 259 
 
 thing will do for us when alone : — on party-nights, 
 indeed, it is a different thing, but then we will let 
 you know, of course. But shan't we see your 
 nice friend Mrs. Parr ? — that very nice woman — 
 very nice indeed — I suppose a person as has seen 
 better days, poor thing ! ' 
 
 ' She must have had better luck than mortals 
 in general/ replied Lady Lynford stingingty — ' if 
 she ever did see better/ 
 
 When we mean to provoke, it is sometimes as 
 well not to be understood. — The baroness was 
 justly offended at being turned down to the de- 
 spicable dependent on her chaperon, and could, 
 at the moment, have said any thing that would 
 have given vent to her bitterness ; but happening 
 to express herself in terms not quite in a straight- 
 forward direction, her auditor could only pause, 
 as if to ask herself what this hypothetical condi- 
 tionally meant. 
 
 She probably gave up the difficult construc- 
 tion — for she went on to ask what was Mrs. Parr's 
 stipend. 
 
 There are people who will worm out what 
 they want to know, and there are some who can 
 point-blank ask any thing they do not know — Miss 
 Wyerley had both powers. 
 
 Lady Lynford, in the most daunting way, look- 
 ed her full in the face, and hoped to affront her 
 
260 HERALINE. 
 
 by a stigmatising gratification of her inquisitive- 
 ness. She seemed almost ready to express her 
 surprise at being thus interrogated — but she had 
 not space. 
 
 ' A very pretty sum indeed,' answered Miss 
 Wyerley, ' and board and lodging, and her wash- 
 ing, and, I dare say, a fire in her own room. — A 
 very pretty income — such as, I am sure, if I could 
 hear of such a thing, i" should be very glad of — 
 for one ought to do something to save in these 
 times — and, I dare say, a handsome provision on 
 leaving : — a very pretty thing indeed/ 
 
 Making a very sudden pause in her chattering, 
 she jumped up and went to something which the 
 baroness had not yet been able perfectly to make 
 out, as she sate at a distance from the fire, near 
 which in a dark recess, bearing the appearance 
 of a closet laid into the room, this shapeless mass 
 was deposited. 
 
 Miss Wyerley, at the moment removing a large 
 dirty shawl from the heap, discovered it to be 
 a huge black leather easy-chair, in which was 
 .sunk, rather than seated or lying, a very old corpu- 
 lent woman in deshabille-mourning, not even her 
 cap, neckerchief, perruque, and scarcely her face, 
 affording a ray of reflected light. As she stirred 
 into existence, Miss Wyerley snatched forward, 
 and placed beside her, a small table on which lay 
 
HERALIN'E. 261 
 
 an ear-trumpet and a handkerchief — and bawling 
 out a request to know ' if she might ring for tea,' 
 and subjoining to it the information that ( dear Lady 
 L. was arrived ;' gave the baroness, at the same 
 time, to understand that this personage was the 
 lady whom she came to visit. 
 
 Rising and approaching the unfolding heap, 
 which had yawned out the permission desired, 
 Lady Lynford said to Miss Wyerley, ' Why did 
 you not tell me that this was Lady Drumcan- 
 non ?' 
 
 1 O dear me ! 1 am always in the wrong box,' 
 replied she — ' what! didn't you know her? — She 
 was only just taking her nice little nap — I thought 
 every body in London had known Lady D. — but 
 I forgot quite/ 
 
 While the baroness was standing before her, 
 th$ poor old soul was made to comprehend what 
 she had to do and say. Tea came ; and it was 
 then evident that conversation could not be at- 
 tempted ; for Miss Wyerley was in too high busi- 
 ness, and too loud jingle of cups and spoons, to 
 speak or listen ; and the ancient viscountess's deaf- 
 ness, that evening, was perfect. A violent stran- 
 gling cough came whenever she attempted to break 
 through a raven-hoarseness, and ' More sugar' — 
 ' Where's my muffin?' — ' Bring me the cream- 
 ewer — I'll put it in myself' — were the longest 
 
262 HERALINE. 
 
 sentences her impeded utterance permitted. — Miss 
 Wyerley's prate must, of necessity, be endured, with 
 no other alleviation than her calls to move a foot- 
 stool, or her evolutions among the candles ; and the 
 visit ended with an interpreted delivery of Mr. 
 Meryon's letter, and with no other new discovery, 
 except that the designated chaperon was as little 
 able to stand as to hear. 
 
 Before the baroness retired to rest, she added 
 to the letter which she had begun to Mr. Meryon, 
 a description of the sordidness she had encountered 
 in her introductory visit : — she could not now laugh 
 at it — she saw it in all its disgusting inconveni- 
 ences, and foresaw no small uneasiness to herself 
 from the ill-judged appointment to such an office, 
 of a person so inefficient and so unfit. Mrs. Parr 
 could only listen and echo — she was not a woman 
 of suggestion and expedient, and rather felt sorrow 
 and alarm on this occasion, connected with her own 
 concerns, than sympathy in those of her distin° 
 guished charge. 
 
HERALINE. 263 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 A friendly ' run-in,' or ' step-in/ from Miss 
 Wyerley, next morning, from which Lady Lyn- 
 ford excused herself, by sending Mrs. Parr to hear 
 what ' the odious creature' had to say, put in her 
 power a fresh exertion of annoyance. Inquiring 
 how the morning was disposed of, and hearing that 
 the baroness was to be waited on by various per- 
 sons, her sagacity told her, that some of these must 
 be of a description admitting of her interference. 
 Soon getting out of Goody Parr all she wanted to 
 know, she contrived to give the most interesting of 
 these the meeting, and with intolerable imperti- 
 nence and presumption, professed herself now ab- 
 solutely wanted as moderator between vender and 
 purchaser. She was so afraid to trust people not 
 used to London, if ever so high — she was an old 
 practitioner — nay, she wished she had been a little 
 let into dear Lady Lynford's plans, — and, if she 
 had had her horses, she could have put her in a 
 better way — but those same horses — aye, there 
 was the thing ! ' 
 
 Nothing civil would answer the purpose of 
 controlling such offensive vivacity. — The baroness 
 
£64 HERALIXE. 
 
 condescended to say repeatedly, 'You are too 
 good — you take too much trouble. — We really 
 can manage such trifles/ 
 
 Catching at the concluding word, she began to 
 discuss the relative importance of trifles ; and as if 
 Lady Lynford was using delicacy in the conceal- 
 ment of natural foible, she kindly informed her 
 that l variety in young people, and rouge on them? 
 were two things which she always liked to see.' 
 
 There was an axiomatic terseness, and a happy 
 antithesis in this sentiment, which, perhaps, gave 
 it, to the person uttering it, the zest of novel wis- 
 dom ; but the thing had been said before, and by 
 one of her own sex, who had lived long enough to 
 know better : — neither the folly nor the immorality 
 of it, was therefore Miss Wyerley's exclusive pro- 
 perty, though the uttering left her little better than 
 the coiner. 
 
 It was beneath Lady Lynford to lay siege to 
 an enemy entrenched in a mud-fortress. She 
 only replied, by quoting her own opinion of her- 
 self, that she was too proud to be vain. — ' I am 
 very proud, I confess,' said she, intending by this 
 condescension to intimidate — ' it may meet its cure 
 in time,' added she sighing, as if at the very mo- 
 ment feeling degradation. * Perhaps so,' said 
 Miss Wyerley, with appropriate absurdity. — 
 1 But,' continued she — seeing even Mrs. Parr 
 
HERALTNE. 265 
 
 smile, and feeling that she must get off this hollow 
 ground instantly—- 4 that same guardian of yours 
 — some queer old creature, I take for granted — 
 't was such a letter he wrote to Lady D. about you 
 — all about I can't tell what, but all sorts of good- 
 ness.' 
 
 The milliner was introduced, and glancing at 
 the lady whom she was to serve, she put on man- 
 ners so very respectful, so proper to meet those of 
 Lady Lynford, that Miss Wyerley thought herself 
 bound, in common compassion, to use all her 
 softening facilitations, and suffered her good inten- 
 tions to lead her into an assurance to the well- 
 behaved gentlewoman, that ' dear Lady L. would 
 not eat her.' 
 
 The baroness's colouring answered all pur- 
 poses ; and now a new astonishment seized the of- 
 ficious help-mate. When she saw Lady Lynford 
 easily suited in her choice, perfectly able to give 
 her orders, and not condescending to haggle for 
 price, she could be silent no longer — she began 
 to remonstrate ; but she was not listened to. In- 
 stead of replying to her, Lady Lynford talked 
 across her ; and as if to silence her, and make one 
 general settlement, she said to her milliner—' You 
 have worked for me before, while I have been at 
 a distance — you will soon see my taste, now I am 
 near — and I do not wish to change, if I am satis- 
 VOL. t. N 
 
266 HERALINE. 
 
 fied.— I must have the best materials, and the 
 best fashion — you must be punctual — and my bill 
 must be sent with every completed order. As 1 
 pay ready money, and never ask abatement, I expect 
 to be charged a fair price — and, for your own 
 sake, remember that I am now a minor, and that 
 where once my confidence is forfeited, I never can 
 restore it.' 
 
 Miss Wyerley confessed she ' never, in all her 
 life, did hear or see such a way of going to market.' 
 — She would have dragged ' her la'aship ' aside, 
 ' to tell her la'aship, that she would be ruined on 
 this plan ' — but i her la'aship ' had neither ears to 
 listen nor elbows to be plucked. — With her stately- 
 tread, she left the room ; and between the attrac- 
 tions of band-boxes, and the duty which she fan- 
 cied incumbent on her, the poor officious soul was 
 at a loss to decide whether she should stay with the 
 milliner, or retreat with the baroness. She con- 
 trived to do both ; and having satisfied first her 
 small curiosity, and tried without success to re- 
 commend herself to notice and a bargain, by as- 
 suming the merit of directing Lady Lynford, she 
 joined her, in time to ask her ' who taught her to 
 give orders to such people.' 
 
 ? My guardian ' — answered the baroness in a 
 tone of comic simplicity — l the queer old creature, 
 as you call Mr. Meryon.' 
 
HERALINE. 267 
 
 ' H ow did he ever learn to bespeak bonnets, 
 and such things ? ' asked Miss Wyerley. 
 
 i He never learnt/ said Lady Lynford in a 
 meek tone, as if ready to be crushed, but at the 
 same moment rising from the seat on which she 
 was sitting, and looking any way, except toward 
 Miss Wyerley, she repeated with ineffable con- 
 tempt — ' He never learnt indeed to bespeak bon- 
 nets, but having a mind that comprehends great 
 things, it includes small ones. — He has laid down 
 for me honourable rules of proceeding, and I am 
 not naturally inclined to any other.' 
 
 1 O dear ! ' exclaimed Miss Wyerley, as if af- 
 frighted — ' dear Lady L. you quite puzzle my poor 
 brains — I am no philosopheress, nor blue-stock- 
 ing — pray explain yourself in plain English, or I 
 shall go wild.' 
 
 If Lady Lynford laughed at this absurdity, it 
 was not because it amused her. The little she 
 wanted of allowance to decide on her own judg~ 
 ment, did not incapacitate her from forming a very 
 correct opinion of all that vulgar declamation 
 which assists ignorance and effrontery, by decrying 
 
 what is in itself valuable. Many must have 
 
 been the female minds which have been kept in the 
 trammels of nonsense, and consigned to the in- 
 anities of dress and cards, on the discouragement 
 given to pursuits of more than merely moral ira- 
 N 2 
 
l 26$ HERALINE. 
 
 portance, by the prostituted word ' philosophy,' 
 and the odious indelicate vulgarism of ' blue- 
 stocking/ Against female pedantry — against in- 
 solent pretensions in the inferior sex, to rival their 
 masters — against pert conceit and obtruded wis- 
 dom, too much can never be said — no mortifica- 
 tion can be too strong an opposition — but to brand 
 with degrading sarcasm, the industry of those who 
 neglect no duty, and whom affluence leaves at lei- 
 sure to improve their faculties — to give notice, 
 when a few elegant persons are invited together, 
 that it is 'a blue-stocking meeting,' is oftener the 
 indulgence of malice than of any better feeling, 
 and can have no other tendency than to drive the 
 younger part of society, like the small fry of a 
 fishery, into the net of unstatutable meshes, from 
 which every law in defence of morals and man- 
 ners, ought to preserve them. 
 
 No one could feel this more justly than the 
 Baroness Lynford. She appreciated highly her 
 own advantages ; and rendered thoroughly aware 
 of what she owed to the De Quintes, by the supe- 
 rior additions Mr. Meryon had made to it, it was 
 no part of her intention to descend from her al- 
 titude in her subsequent modes of life. She had 
 ceased long from juvenile attempts to astonish : 
 she understood too well what she had attained, to 
 measure height with giants. She meant to use 
 
HEttAUNE. 269 
 
 her advantages to encourage, to patronize, and to 
 reward ; and perhaps to preserve in its fullest ex- 
 tent, the power to do this, was, next to the proxi- 
 mate feeling of repelling obtrusion, the most lively 
 stimulus to her ardent mind. 
 
 Obeying Miss Wyerley's demand of an ex- 
 planation, evidently with a view to place herself 
 still farther out of her reach, she said, ' I will tell 
 you what my good guardian would have said, had 
 I asked him about my bonnet. He would have 
 said, " Have a new bonnet, and let it be handsome, 
 in compliance with the precept, to provide things 
 honest in the sight of all men." ' 
 
 Lady Lynford knew perfectly at what stair 
 the poor woman would stumble — she therefore 
 stopt to watch her in full sprawl of misconception, 
 and was not disappointed. 
 
 ' Yes, I understand — buy a thing and pay for it 
 • — and then it is your own — that is honest — and, as 
 I say, there *s no other way of being honest — for, as 
 to taking people's goods and never paying for them, 
 as I say, people may just as well go at once upon 
 the highway.' 
 
 ' Why, you do not suppose, I hope, that by 
 honest, the apostle meant, in this place, just.' 
 
 1 O ! no, to be sure — but what did he mean 
 then?' 
 
 ' You may well ask,' Lady Lynford could have 
 N 3 
 
270 HERALINE. 
 
 said — for her ideas of her new friend's honesty 
 were not raised by her reply of ' O ! no, to be 
 sure/ — But she used forbearance on principle 
 here, and mildly said, l By honest } here I am to 
 understand decent, becoming! — 
 
 1 Aye, becoming — I am always for the becom- 
 ing — though some people say the fashionable is 
 better than the becoming/ 
 
 'This injunction, he would say, makes it a 
 point of conscience, in my situation to be drest 
 handsomely. — And he would say, 1 must not drive 
 people to abate in their price, because I am to be 
 liberal after my power : and even in just expect- 
 ations he would forbid me to be too strict, be- 
 cause it was to guard against this extremity of 
 right, that the Jews were forbidden to glean the 
 corners of their fields — thus, you see, out of my 
 bonnet he would make a lesson. — Now, as to my 
 care for myself, in which you seem to think me so 
 remiss — I shall soon find out when I am imposed 
 on ; and to that, I shall no more readily submit, 
 than you would. — Punctuality I have a right to 
 demand, because I shall observe it; — and as to 
 paying ready money, I could bring you half a 
 dozen strong arguments — one is enough — it is 
 doing as, in a change of places, I should wish 
 others to do by me. — If I had to pay others, I 
 should expect to be paid j— if I were not, I could 
 
HERALINE. 27l 
 
 not carry on business. I told her I was under age 
 — perhaps — 1 believe — for the great pleasure of 
 being candid/ 
 
 Miss Wyerley's every-day genius could have 
 interrupted the baroness in many of her pauses — 
 but she had just now a sort of holy day- feeling which 
 restrained her ; and she was so charmed with what 
 she heard— it was such novelty and such delight to 
 her, to hear good language delivered in a fine voice 
 and dignified attitude, that though perhaps she 
 comprehended little of the deduction, she was in 
 raptures with the sounds, and in her admiration, 
 stopt but just short of begging i her la'aship' to say 
 it over again — or at least to favour dear Lady D. 
 with a repetition of it, as soon as the departing of 
 her cold restored her power of hearing. 
 
 1 dear me ! now we shall have another charm- 
 ing scene,' said she, when the still more important 
 personage, the dress-maker, was announced, and, 
 at the same time, the mercer attended with goods 
 adapted to the highest excitation of envy and 
 covetousness in the breasts of this world's younger 
 daughters — ' Well, I must just come and hear what 
 she will say now — 1 dare say something finer still ; 
 for gowns are better than bonnets to talk about.' 
 
 The first surprise was that ' her la'aship ' was not 
 fond of pink, and nothing else — that she did not 
 like the showiest things best, and that she consider- 
 N 4 
 
272 HERALINE. 
 
 ed things at a distance/— Here it was almost 
 hopeless to explain — the taste must have been 
 given, to be understood. — The mercer compre- 
 hended ; and that must suffice.— But in directions 
 for make and fashion, Miss Wyerley, with all her 
 admiration, could not trust the baroness entirely 
 —she must indeed beg for ' a little of the smart — 
 she was such an advocate for a little smartness — 
 a pretty contrast — a light fashion — a thing with an 
 air/ — It was impossible to get on till she was 
 silenced. 
 
 ' Wherever fashion allows me a choice/ said 
 the baroness, * I prefer the simplest style — such as 
 painters like — I do not love frittered ornament or 
 fanciful petitesse — but I would not be picturesque 
 at the expense of propriety — For court, 1 will be 
 superb, without ostentation — in public, I will be 
 splendid — for all lower occasions I will be deco- 
 rous, delicate, and, at all times, exquisitely neat/ 
 
 Miss Wyerley now in exultation clapped her 
 hands, and shouted ' Bravo! bravo! ' and so ended 
 her ecstatic treat, and she could then, as she said> 
 ' makeshift to tear herself away, to be in time for 
 dear Lady D/s rising. — Interviews with instructors 
 were not in her line — she had no vote in art or sci- 
 ence : — drawing was a demand on patience which she 
 could not endure — her singing and dancing days 
 were, as she observed, over ; and languages, in the 
 
HERA LINE. 273 
 
 very mention, brought back the grammars and dic- 
 tionaries of her boarding-school, to her galled re- 
 membrance. 
 
 The next visit to Lady Drumcannon was made 
 by daylight ; and her cold having abated, and the 
 rheumatic affection which had so increased her 
 other disabilities, having subsided, she again drest, 
 and with the help of a little crutch-headed stick, 
 toddled about her apartments, giving great hopes 
 that, by the time when Lady Lynford's equi- 
 page was in fit order, and her dress in readiness, 
 she should be able to execute her office decently. 
 She appeared so fond of it, that nothing was to be 
 apprehended from her want of inclination ; and 
 the baroness told her guardian, that * though nothing 
 could make the six months pleasant, she saw no 
 obstacle to the fulfilment of the purpose attached 
 to them. Lady Drumcannon was determined on 
 a busy spring; and by an arrangement which 
 should substitute the house in Grovesnor-square for 
 the more frugal abode in the adjoining street, she 
 might enjoy all the advantages of London intro- 
 duction and society.' 
 
 N O 
 
274 HERALINE. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 1 he baroness's horses and carriage were in order 
 — her ladyship was, even to Miss Wyerley's satisfac- 
 tion, well drest; and, with a very proper feeling, she 
 made her entree in this department of life at her 
 parish-church, and in her family-pew. Lady 
 Drumcannon had offered herself — ' seldom indeed, 
 as she observed, ' she ventured to risque a church 
 ■ — but yet, on this occasion, she certainly would — 
 and Miss Wyerley was, she knew, quite and al- 
 ways at her service.' — -But the incurred risque was 
 declined, and the officiousness repressed, by the 
 baroness's firm resolution to be accompanied by 
 no one but Mrs. Parr. 
 
 Perhaps this Sunday was the prime day of Lady 
 Lynford's youth, in worthiness. Mr. Meryon had 
 s&it her to London with a halo of goodness round 
 her — the world had not yet touched her: her judg- 
 ment, though not matured, was clear and unso- 
 phisticated — she had a strong perception of good, 
 a natural abhorrence of evil — which by excellent 
 management had been rescued from the obliterat- 
 ing influence that had endangered them— she had 
 every motive to do right, no temptation to do 
 
HERALINE. 275 
 
 wrong ; and even her very faults were convertible 
 into advantages, if well directed. 
 
 With great good taste as well as laudable feel- 
 ing, she avoided all extreme in this her first step — 
 she did not affect humility, by exposing herself to 
 public gaze, in walking to church — she went as 
 became her. Her deportment was dignified to- 
 wards the world, submissive to her Creator — per- 
 haps a little complacent towards herself— but this, 
 under such peculiar circumstances, might be for- 
 given. 
 
 Had Goody Pair been a woman of cultivated 
 mind, or even of that common good sense which 
 so often puts to shame and discomfiture, artificial 
 cultivation, there was excuse for any little self- 
 gratulation which she might have felt in attending 
 on such an occasion, her whom she had had the 
 privilege of teaching that there was a superior 
 Power to be worshipped. — Goody, indeed, felt 
 disposed to cry — but she could not exactly tell at 
 what ; and the disposition seemed, even to her own 
 perceptions, inconsistent with the occasion, when 
 1 the dear creature looked so well, so handsome, and 
 all her new clothes fitted her so very nicely V 
 
 Established now in her form of life at home, 
 and only waiting Lady Drumcannon's perfect re- 
 covery to take her station amongst the first persons 
 in the kingdom, she stood, in every point indeed, 
 
 N<5 
 
276 HERALINE. 
 
 an enviable creature. The impulse given to her 
 mind by good habits, continued ; and she devoted 
 the first half-hour of the day to her religious duties, 
 the second to exercise on foot, if the weather ad- 
 mitted of it — her first hours after breakfast to her 
 accomplishments ; and was then at leisure to receive 
 the visits of those who were now young candidates 
 for the world's best gifts, but who had been the 
 early companions of her childhood. She had soon 
 a torrent of morning-calls, invitations, and atten- 
 tions ; but the homage of St. James's was the first 
 point ; and the drawing-rooms then being fixed and 
 frequent, nothing was wanting but the ability of 
 Lady Drumcannon, who was already well enough to 
 have her little evening-parties at home, and by dint 
 of rouge and trumpet and stick, looked, and listen- 
 ed, and shuffled about very tolerably. 
 
 And now that gentle negotiator of others' af- 
 fairs, Miss Wyerley, had the pleasure of announ- 
 cing to her dear Lady L. that * the point-lappets 
 were looked out, and that by the next Thursday 
 se'nnight, which was the first drawing-room, she 
 must be prepared, after which ceremony she must 
 look on herself as completely launched in the 
 vortex of dissipation, as dear Lady D. loved 
 gaiety to her heart.' 
 
 Lady Lynford's days were sufficiently eventful 
 to make her letters to her guardian very amusing — - 
 
HElt ALINE. 277 
 
 she filled her sheet rapidly, and sent it off : his re- 
 plies were such as made the breaking his seal a 
 matter of impatience — he commended — he encou- 
 raged — he exhorted ; — aud he returned with affec- 
 tionate warmth, all her longing for the day that was 
 to end their separation. 
 
 Of Lady Drumcannon she spoke, without dis- 
 guise, her genuine opinion, which every day grew 
 more and more unfavourable, as increased ac- 
 quaintance unveiled the crafty finessing of a poverty 
 which the baroness was almost tempted to think ex- 
 aggerated in representation, if not wholly feigned : 
 her contrivances to get carried about — her spunging 
 for dinners — her paltry address in avoiding neces- 
 sary expense — and her indulgence in favourite ex- 
 penses, all tended to undermine a character that, 
 though never claiming much respect, might have 
 ' dwelt in decencies,' if she would have been quiet. 
 
 But the most disgusting circumstance to the ba- 
 roness in this necessary intimacy, was her incessant 
 exposure to meeting a man of a very low clerical 
 order, who considered himself as Lady Drumcan- 
 non's domestic chaplain, and on whom the sun of 
 her piety shone with undivided warmth. He had 
 been recommended to her by the care and assiduity 
 of good Miss Wyerley, who thought that, ' that 
 nice young man the reverend Mr. Bray, would 
 be a nice person to officiate to her and dear Lady 
 
278 HERALINE. 
 
 D. when they could not get to chapel' — that is to 
 say, when nobody's coach had spare corners ; — a 
 little dark third room, therefore, on the drawing- 
 room floor, was fitted up after Miss Wyerley's 
 taste, ' into a nice little chapel/ and, with no small 
 deviation from decency, and almost a mockery of 
 religion which nothing but ignorance could ex- 
 cuse, appropriated occasionally to the purpose of 
 divine worship — at other times, it was hung 
 round with gowns and petticoats. 
 
 The convenience of such an establishment 
 soon recommended it to frequent use; and the re- 
 verend Mr. Bray read the service of the church 
 and preached, every Sunday, at an hour convenient 
 to the duty of a small curacy which he held, a 
 few miles from London. Occasional prayers and 
 edifying lectures were volunteered on week-days ; 
 and having submitted once to hear him, Lady 
 Lynford was enabled to represent his natural en- 
 dowments, his acquired learning, and his spiritual 
 doctrine, as of the very lowest description. His 
 knowledge of his own interest indeed was far, very 
 far, from contemptible; and if shrewdness and 
 cunning could have passed with Lady Lynford for 
 knowledge and wisdom, he might have imposed 
 on her ; but every day increased her dislike to him 
 and her suspicion of him ; and the devotion of the 
 viscountess, and the fawning sycophancy of her 
 
HERALINE. 2/9 
 
 dependant, instead of raising their idol in her es- 
 timation, brought them both down still lower 
 in it. 
 
 Had Lady Lynford seen any advantage in this 
 substitution for the public honour due to the Al- 
 mighty, she might have considered it as a pitiable 
 resource ; — but she knew that the old lady slept 
 at her devotions; and she saw that she could go, if 
 any body would take her, to morning-amuse- 
 ments, which lasted as long, and exposed her to as 
 much risque of catching cold, as any church. In 
 her fondness for carriage-exercise, she would have 
 gone the round of her apothecary or physician. 
 She fastened herself upon all the shopping and 
 marketing ladies of her acquaintance, and, excepting 
 places not of free admission, there was no door 
 which she could not open to hear or see that 
 which would help off with an hour. Then, as to 
 the effect produced on her moral character and 
 private practice : — nothing good could be expected 
 from the exhortation of a teacher so shackled : — 
 his preaching was extempore, and it was no very 
 culpable suspicion if the baroness was half con- 
 vinced that Miss Wyerley gave hints of expedient 
 subjects, and warned him against such as circum- 
 stances made unsuitable. At least, the very strong 
 dose of ' conversion,' and the denunciation against 
 those whom his reasoning did not convert, which 
 
? SO HERA LINE. 
 
 characterized the one sermon she had submitted to 
 hear, left room to conjecture, that her company 
 had been expected. 
 
 r Ilie distinction, if intended, was lost on her. 
 Could she, or any one of a mind at all cultivated, 
 sit with patience to hear, in defence of religious 
 ignorance, that ' empty vessels were best prepared 
 to receive large communications ' — or those on 
 w horn he laid on thick, that common charge of the 
 vulgar, pride, characterized as behaving to others, 
 ' as if they were not worthy to be named in the 
 same day with themselves?' — No exaggeration is 
 here used : this is language to which, by degrees, and 
 by an insensible departure from the established 
 church, persons higher in rank than old cormorant 
 Drumcannon, as high-minded as the baroness, and 
 as learned as her guardian, may, by debasing their 
 faculties, familiarize their ears. 
 
 Lady Drumcannon being now nearly in her 
 usual state of wellness — for health, does not ex- 
 press her mode of existence — Lady Lynford saw 
 her, what she really was, and was as intimately ac- 
 quainted with her occupations, as the season of the 
 year permitted. She breakfasted in bed, rose late, 
 was long in dressing, took refreshment, * got taken 
 out,' or received visitors, and murdered time till she 
 was to dress for dinner : — sleep and cards, if no- 
 thing better than Lady Lynford offered, led her on 
 
HERALINE. 281 
 
 to bed-time, unless Mr. Bray's official charities 
 interposed. A back-parlour and the adjoining 
 closet were given up to him for bed-room and 
 study ; and neither his books nor his bed were in 
 danger of injury for want of his presence. But 
 when Lady Lynford, who was not particularly 
 prone to reflection, but whose sagacity frequently 
 overleapt all the intermediate deduction of a me- 
 ditative mind, and pounced upon a latent truth, 
 asked herself what was the visible effect produced 
 on the old lady's principles or practice, by this 
 parody on a religious establishment, she could 
 hardly imagine, that the subtraction of it, had it 
 occurred, would have been perceived. Selfish, 
 lazy, gluttonous, censorious, and pleading poverty 
 whenever she apprehended any design on her purse, 
 she yet talked of virtues as if she practised them, 
 and without any feeling nearer to Christian charity, 
 than a disposition to annihilate the distinctions be- 
 tween worth and worthlessness, and to apologize 
 for the profligate and licentious, she presumed to 
 hold herself up as an example of informed opinion. 
 It might have been thought, that Mr. Bray's 
 attendance would at least have rescued the Sunday 
 from disgrace ; but this was a mistake in which the 
 baroness was not suffered to repose ; for, on her cha- 
 ritably offering to devote a Sunday evening to the 
 viscountess, her prime-minister was driven to be in- 
 genuous, by saying, ' But, perhaps, my dear Lady L. 
 
282 HERA LINE. 
 
 with your strict notions, if poor Lady D. should 
 want her little picquette, to keep her awake, for 
 Sunday is often a long day with us, — you might 
 not like it, — and, as I say, what would that queer 
 friend of yours, as I shall always call him, say, if 
 you looked at the knave of hearts on a Sunday ?— 
 we don't mind it — but, in the country, and so far 
 off, T know it is another thing. — Poor Lady D. 
 is a very good sort of religious woman : she has 
 a great deal of religion — I don't know any body 
 that has more — indeed, she was quite noticed last 
 year at the Octagon at Bath— stayed sacrament, 
 and every thing ;-— but still, you know, she must 
 have her way ; and so, I believe, have most 
 people/ 
 
 'The cross, embroidered on a leprous garment ! ' 
 thought Lady Lynford, in silence, while Miss 
 Wyerley was shaking fingers to depart. — ' What- 
 ever may be my faults or my errors, Great God! 
 defend me from this pestilential sin of living in the 
 base indulgences of the world, and boasting my- 
 self thy servant : — when I offend thee, let me for- 
 get thee — but never, never let me dare to say, I 
 know thee, fear thee, love thee, while my heart is 
 brutalized by low vices !' 
 
 The very frequent intercourse, which, of neces- 
 sity, subsisted between the houses of the viscount- 
 ess and baroness, rendered the intimacy of weeks 
 
HEHAL1NE. 283 
 
 as informing as that of so many months ; and Lady 
 Lynford, not without some increase of her habitual 
 contempt for Goody Parr, saw the strengthening 
 friendship that had rooted itself in her mind to- 
 wards Miss Wyerley. There was a similarity in 
 their situation of second-rank personages, which 
 produced sympathy : they could talk to each other 
 without any painful sense of disparity. Mrs. 
 Parr could brag of the confidential situation she 
 had, for years, held at St. Emeril's Court, and the 
 high appreciation in which she had stood with the 
 late earl ; and Miss Wyerley could interest still 
 more deeply, by representing what ought to have 
 been her situation, had not the late viscount been 
 a man rather of promises than performances. A 
 fine field was opened for the pathetic, in the sor- 
 rows of her injured mother; and Mrs. Parr, by 
 patient listening, purchased the right to be heard, 
 when she talked a little at large of her father's 
 property, of the goodly land of Canaan in which 
 she had been reared, and the garden of Eden, from 
 which her father's death had exiled her. With that 
 love of liberty which slavery keeps alive, Miss 
 Wyerley would take opportunities of private inter- 
 course with Mrs. Parr, while their principals were 
 occupied ; and each now congratulated herself on 
 having, at last, found a sincere friend. 
 
 But not even the discovery of this underplot in 
 
284 HERALINE. 
 
 the drama of her own life, could induce the baron- 
 ess to forbear her cutting sarcasms against the 
 viscountess and her dependant. She cared not 
 how far they went; and, when once in possession 
 of the loves of Goody Parr and Miss Wyerley, in 
 all their fond extent, she inflicted, without mercy, 
 on the former, all that ridicule and contempt could 
 make her feel. But she had borne too much and 
 too long to wince now; and though the predi- 
 lection for the miniature-picture was sufficiently 
 understood to have been made use of in self-de- 
 fence, she prudently, as to herself, though not very 
 honestly in her official capacity, heard all, saw all, 
 and felt all, and yet kept silence. — A firm, gentle 
 appeal to Mr. Meryon, stating the merit of her 
 endurance under this abatement of perfect respect, 
 might — or it might not — have saved some un- 
 easiness. 
 
 Lady Lynford's letters to Mr. Meryon were 
 always duly and affectionately answered ; and they 
 showed how little necessary is the bustle of life to 
 the supply of the mind. She felt ashamed of her 
 hurried chronicles, and her rapid succession of 
 facts and images, when she read his continuous 
 paragraph — and saw it, without the least departure 
 from what seemed necessary, brought to a close so 
 melodious, that it might have claimed the praise of 
 oratory. — ' Why cannot I write like dear M, ?' she 
 
HERALIXE. 285 
 
 would say — ' O ! why is not my mind sweetly tuned 
 like his ? — why are not my thoughts as calm, as 
 heavenly ? — May my last end, whenever it comes, 
 be like what his will be! — but then I must think 
 —and think betimes. — I do not much love to 
 think — but I can do without it — perhaps the dis- 
 position will come in time: — it is a wide world 
 before me/ 
 
 In his last letter, having reported his proceed- 
 ings in some of her affairs, preparatory to her 
 coming of age, he spoke with kind feelings of the 
 sudden death of his curate, Mr. Holby, whose life 
 had been too precarious to make the event a sur- 
 prise ; and as at present he had no need of assist- 
 ance, and the widow and her little daughter were 
 content to remain where they were, he thankfully 
 acknowledged, that his domestic comforts would 
 not be diminished materially. 
 
 To this communication, Lady Lynford was 
 immediately replying, urged by that kindness of 
 regard, which made whatever affected her guar- 
 dian's situation, important to her. — She was writing, 
 with more than even her wonted expedition, when 
 her drawing-master was announced; and, always 
 respectful in her manners towards those whose 
 abilities she used, she begged his patience while 
 she concluded her letter. To beguile his time of 
 waiting, and, perhaps, to gain a little applause, 
 
286 HERALINE. 
 
 seeing the copy which she had made of the minia- 
 ture-picture in a corner of her writing-table, she 
 put it into his hand, avowing it her own work. 
 He was very liberal in his commendation, and ex- 
 pressed some surprise at her never having spoken of 
 her proficiency in this delicate branch of his art ; 
 but when, to keep curiosity at bay, she told him 
 that it was the personage known in England by the 
 name of the young Pretender, he shook his head, 
 saying, ' No, no — this is not the Pretender — I 
 know the pictures of him perfectly well. Whoever 
 it is, the subject must have been fine; and the 
 picture is remarkably well painted, and does your 
 ladyship the highest credit. — But surely,' added 
 he, ' your ladyship should not keep such an orna- 
 ment in your writing-table — in the way in which it 
 is now secured, it might be put into a frame, and 
 it should hang up in your boudoir. Hang it out 
 of the reach of the sun — and if you are afraid for 
 your colours, put a little green silk curtain before 
 it — it can come to no harm/ 
 
 And here occurred another inconvenience at- 
 tendant on her departure from habitual ingenu- 
 ousness. She would have rejoiced in telling Mr. 
 Meryon how highly any performance of hers had 
 been praised, because she knew it would have 
 given him pleasure ; — but, having begun with con- 
 cealment, she was forced to go on : and painfully, 
 
HERALINE. 287 
 
 when, as now, her natural wish was so thwarted, 
 did she feel the incipient verification of his parting 
 prediction. — 1 1 am, indeed,' said she, l getting into 
 a labyrinth — but I cannot now help it/ 
 
 Her drawing-master's suggestion had flattered 
 and gratified her; and in a few days, this pre- 
 tender, whoever he was, was hung up safely in a 
 small room which she kept exclusively to herself, 
 and, in fitting up which, her principal aim was to 
 have a retreat from the impertinence of Miss 
 Wyerley. 
 
 The first appointment for her presentation at 
 court, Lady Drumcannon had been obliged to 
 defer ; but the Monday preceding the important 
 Thursday, arrived without bringing any danger of a 
 second delay, but what arose from Lady Lyn- 
 ford's having a slight cold, caught, not at church, 
 or by any fair exposure, but in the stove-heat of 
 the viscountess's drawing-room. That she might 
 be recovered by the Thursday, she submitted to 
 take a little more than her usual care, and there- 
 fore resolved to confine herself to the boudoir. 
 
 The day turning out wet, she thought herself 
 tolerably safe from intrusion. She gave orders to 
 be excused from admitting visitors, on the plea of 
 her cold, and she hoped that a note to Lady Drum- 
 cannon, would stand instead of a visit to her, and, 
 together with the pouring rain, stave off Miss Wy- 
 2 
 
288 HKRAL1NE. 
 
 erley : but there is neither unfit day nor unfit 
 weather in the calendar of some people, and the 
 very hint that she wished to be left alone, brought 
 Miss Wyerley. Affecting a jocular surprise which 
 must be agreeable, she only begged to be told 
 where ' her dear la'aship ' was, and then on tiptoe, 
 as if fearing the stone-stairs should creak with her 
 weight, she softly opened the door of the room, 
 and putting in her face with the archness of a 
 Gupid hiding his bow, she left Mrs. Parr, who 
 was just quitting the room, to close the door, and 
 seated herself in a chair opposite the baroness's, 
 with the emphatical sentence, ' Well, here I am 
 come — and a fine wet figure I am ! ' 
 
 Nothing could be more disagreeable to Lady 
 Lynford than the effrontery of this utter want of 
 all attention to her wishes or welfare ; and she was 
 not a little inclined to bid her standoff, in consider- 
 ation of the indisposition, to nurse which she had 
 secluded herself — but now a noisy admiration was 
 added to a determined purpose of keeping her 
 ground ; and having never before been admitted 
 into this apartment, which of course she vulgarized 
 and made guilty of profanation, by calling it * the 
 Sanctum Sanctorum/ she was all astonishment 
 and exclamation. 
 
 No terms were strong enough to express her 
 raptures in seeing what was intended to be seen ; 
 4 
 
HERALINE. 289 
 
 but had the objects been infinite in number and 
 unrivalled in value, they must all have yielded, in 
 interest, to that which she could not see. The little 
 green silk curtain caught her eye, and here was an 
 attraction stronger than any thing evident could 
 offer. 
 
 Lady Lynford, under the influence of her in- 
 disposition, was not less irritable than usual ; and 
 under the additional provocation of this violent in- 
 trusion, it would have been a stretch of her self- 
 command hardly to be asked of her, had she 
 treated her tormentor merely with silent contempt. 
 Yet, under the improved discipline of her later 
 years, she might have accomplished this seeming 
 victory, would Miss Wyerley only have been quiet 
 -*-but quiet she could never be ; and her inquisi- 
 tiveness once excited, she was disposed to run any 
 risque for its satisfaction. 
 
 To this violation of all decorum, the baroness 
 was determined not to submit. She rose, and ex- 
 tended her arm as a barrier against the intruder, 
 saying, firmly and authoritatively, that, ' though 
 the question was one of perfect indifference, she 
 saw that a stand must somewhere be made against 
 the grossest ill-manners she had ever been exposed 
 to/ — Silencing all the subterfuges of her oppo- 
 nent, and sneering at all the affectations of gawky 
 ignorance and youthful innocence, which she now 
 
 vol. I. o 
 
290 HERALINE. 
 
 assumed, she proceeded to plain truths; and as 
 she warmed, not condescending to veil her anger 
 iu wit and sarcasm, she uttered her genuine feel- 
 ing of that indiscretion, which by consigning her 
 to the temporary protection of a superannuated 
 woman, had eventually turned her over to a gro- 
 velling dependant, whose insolence was every day 
 growing more and more intolerable. She had 
 too much the advantage in truth and power, to 
 have any thing to apprehend from a reply. None 
 was attempted, but by passionate tears ; and when 
 these began to flow, she ordered the fountain to 
 seat herself in the chair nearest the door, and to 
 stir at her peril, unless to go out of the house for 
 ever. 
 
 There was now no resource but in hysterics — 
 to go was never to return — to remain passive was 
 to sign her own condemnation ; and she was too 
 much galled to seek the healing of forgiveness im- 
 mediately. Lady Lynford's nerves were very firm ; 
 and the generosity of her nature did not include 
 any weakness of compassion. When the kicking 
 and squeaking began, she rang the bell, and or- 
 dered the servant who answered it, to send Mrs. 
 Parr.— It seemed the best course she could pur- 
 sue ; it was more considerate to the sex of the of- 
 fender than ordering the footmen to show her out ; 
 and to endure her company on such terms, was not 
 
HERALINE. 291 
 
 to be expected of any one who had an option. — 
 But, alas ! a worse step the young peeress could 
 scarcely have taken. 
 
 Mrs. Parr was never wanting in obedient ala- 
 crity. As she eutered the room, looking anxiously 
 round, as if hearing indistinctly something alarm- 
 ing, and seeing Miss Wyerley in such rueful plight, 
 her feelings were divided between compassion for 
 her seeming suffering, and concern for Lady Lyn- 
 ford's exposure to an unpleasant accident. — Look- 
 ing first to the baroness for her commands, or for 
 explanation, she received her orders to remove 
 Miss Wyerley, who had, she said, ' most unpardon- 
 ably affronted her.' — * I only/ cried the culprit — 
 * I only just asked to look at that beautiful picture 
 with the curtain before it — I'm sure I did not 
 mean to do wrong or give offence — but 1 suppose 
 it is some great secret, since I must n't see it.' 
 
 ' It 15 a great secret,' said Lady Lynford 
 tauntingly, ' and one into which you are never likely 
 to be let: — I will tell you this for your satisfaction 
 —it is a beautiful miniature of my own painting 
 — beautiful — beautiful — and it is of a man too — 
 and a young man, and a beautiful man — and you 
 shall not see it — so be gone, if you please — Mrs. 
 Parr, do take her away, for she has made my head 
 ache worse than it did before.' 
 
 Mrs. Parr had no choice of behaviour in the 
 o 2 
 
Q9Q HERALINE. 
 
 execution of this order. To have laid additional 
 opprobrium on the culprit, would only have ren- 
 dered it more difficult to herself, and more dis- 
 tressing to her principal. She therefore coaxed, 
 and nodded, and winked, and answered for the 
 good intentions of both parties, at the same time, 
 and with laudable propriety, seeming to give her 
 whole weight to the support of Lady Lynford's 
 dignity and right. Some little concession she in- 
 duced Miss Wyerley to make, to save herself 
 from a sentence of banishment, which, to accele- 
 rate her retreat, the baroness accepted, with no- 
 thing more than contempt and disdain. 
 
 Left alone, and as her anger cooled, she could 
 not but foresee the probable consequences of this 
 small disturbance. What she had said to Miss 
 Wyerley she could not suppose she would conceal 
 from Lady Drumcannon ; and as, even if fairly re- 
 peated, it contained expressions which she must 
 have despised any one for pardoning, she con- 
 sidered their connexion as drawing to its close in 
 the most violent way. Having exhausted her 
 an<*er, and not inclined a second time to disturb 
 herself, she could immediately decide on the most 
 perfect coolness in any subsequent proceeding; 
 and had she had only her own tastes to consult, 
 **lad would she have been to renounce all inter- 
 
HERALINE. 293 
 
 course with two such personages as the vis- 
 countess and her dependant. 
 
 But the next situation in which she saw her- 
 self, was that of writing to Mr. Meryon on the 
 subject— and what must she then say was the proxi- 
 mate cause of this rupture ? 
 
 Spirited up by her recent provocation, and not 
 having yet come to that recoil of feverishness 
 which brings dejection, she saw in this accident the 
 means of ridding herself of the one uneasiness that 
 oppressed her. She had only to make light of the 
 matter— to say, as if now just recollecting the un- 
 important circumstance, that having hung up in her 
 boudoir a copy, which, years before, she had made 
 of the picture used to impose upon her, she would 
 not submit it to the impertinent scrutiny of Miss 
 Wyerley ; and thus advantage might be taken of 
 an accident, which seemed to have occurred on 
 purpose. 
 
 She kept quiet all the remainder of the day, 
 dined where she was, did not dress, and at Mrs. 
 Parr's earnest persuasion, in consideration of the 
 approaching Thursday, retired to rest, three hours 
 before her usual time. 
 
 Now what advantage did Mrs. Parr make of 
 
 this early retirement ? — Why, she invited Miss 
 
 Wyerley, who was at home and alone, and not 
 
 very gay in spirits, to come and sit with her in the 
 
 o 3 
 
294 HERALINE. 
 
 breakfast-parlour ; and in the course of the visit, 
 knowing that the baroness, if awake, could not 
 hear what passed in the boudoir, she gratified the 
 poor woman with the sight of ' the beautiful mi- 
 niature/ and told her all she could tell — that is to 
 say, all she knew or had heard, or could suppose, of 
 the picture itself, and the baroness's attachment to 
 it. — The good office was not without return — Miss 
 Wyerley happened to have some reciprocity in her 
 power, and could tell her that which made it al- 
 most incumbent on her, to reveal the weak and 
 little short of treacherous compliance into which 
 she had suffered her indiscretion to lead her. 
 
HERALINE. 295 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Mrs. Parr's solicitude for Lady Lynford's health, 
 naturally carried her to her bed-side, as soon as she 
 rang her bell in the morning. Her cold was per- 
 haps a little impeded in its retreat, by the disturb- 
 ance of her mind ; but still it was not important 
 enough to excite fears for the Thursday — neither 
 did its stupifying effect prevent her ladyship's per- 
 ceiving signs of unusual uneasiness, twinkling 
 amongst the uncharacterized features of Goody 
 Parr — ' What is the matter with you ? ' said the 
 baroness — ' you look, Goody, just now, very 
 much as I remember your doing, when you and I 
 were contending for the sceptre, or rather when I 
 had seized it, and you did not know how to get it 
 back again.' 
 
 Goody Parr tried to smile, but it was the re- 
 sistance of sunshine against a thunder-storm. 
 
 * I hope you are not concerning yourself in my 
 yesterday's skirmish with that most contemptible 
 of all reptiles: — I tell youf airly, Goody — I will go 
 back to St. Emeril's, and wait there till I can intro- 
 duce myself, rather than I will again, for an hour, 
 submit to that wretch — or I believe I may say, to 
 o4 
 
9.96 HERALINE. 
 
 the old scarabaus of a viscountess — I dare say the 
 old woman will be heinously offended — and so she 
 may well be, if she has a spark of decent sense ;— as 
 to the other, I should not wonder if she popt out of 
 the tea-pot when I go to breakfast, and was ready 
 with one of her fine orations of " My dear," and 
 " Dear me." — She is capable of any thing.' 
 
 ' Poor thing!' sighed out Mrs. Parr. 
 
 ' Poor thing ?' repeated Lady Lynford in a 
 very different tone — ' if you begin poor-thinging 
 her, take care of yourself, Goody. — You would 
 look rather foolish, if I were to set off for St. 
 Emeril's without you, and leave you to stay here 
 till my birth-day, and then send you word that I 
 wanted no more of your services — I dare say my 
 father's will leaves me as much liberty as that.' 
 
 Mrs. Parr bit her lips — either she saw that 
 it was no time for contradiction, or she was not, 
 just then, in spirits to contradict. Submission was 
 the safest path, and this for the present she took. 
 
 But however accustomed to it, she could not 
 long pursue it. Having been employed, part of 
 the morning, in affairs of which the baroness de- 
 sired to avoid all cognisance, she rushed into the 
 boudoir where Lady Lynford was beguiling her 
 cold with the happy resource of needle-work, and 
 dashing down on her knees, in the middle of the 
 carpet, she sobbed out the most contrite entreaties 
 
HERALINE. %97 
 
 for forgiveness. — Lady Lynford could have laugh- 
 ed ; but she put by her mirth to satisfy her cu- 
 riosity. 
 
 Broken sentences, sufficient to have made up a 
 tolerably long speech, concluded with a confession 
 that she had shown the picture to Miss Wyerley. 
 
 In the most impetuous of Baroness Lyn ford's 
 days, Mrs. Parr had never seen her indignation so 
 excited ; and that she had attracted it towards her- 
 self, was an overwhelming aggravation of propor- 
 tionate terror. The poor woman might have been 
 expected to do any thing desperate, under her pre- 
 sent necessary feeling — but she did nothing. She 
 had risen from her supplicating posture, when she 
 had made her confession, and now she stood, with 
 tolerable firmness and with a countenance that 
 seemed to say, ' Rage on — I am prepared for 
 every thing/ 
 
 4 And I suppose, from this time, I am then to 
 look on you, Mrs. Parr, as the friend of this ob- 
 ject of my abhorrence— if you can have acted in 
 this manner, any confidence of mine must have 
 been entirely misplaced — I cannot retract what I 
 have given, however I may repent it — but to give 
 no more, is in my own power — henceforward, I 
 shall regard you, and you must regard yourself, as 
 in a very different situation with respect to me.— 
 You may be upper-housekeeper, overseer, any 
 o b 
 
5298 HERALINE. 
 
 thing you please in a subordinate capacity, but 
 never my friend, nor ever my companion when I 
 can rid myself of you.' 
 
 ' As your ladyship pleases — I can bear all this, 
 and much more, for your sake, Lady Lynford. > 
 
 ( My sake ? it is for your own sake — you have 
 been taking lessons from that piece of washed lea- 
 ther, your friend Miss Wyerley. — Are you not 
 ashamed of imitating what you know I so heartily 
 despise?' 
 
 c I do not imitate her-— I am thinking only of 
 your ladyship/ 
 
 1 My ladyship ? you had better think of your- 
 self, and ask where you shall hide your stupid 
 head six months hence; for you may be assured 
 Mr. Meryon shall know the fidelity of your ser- 
 vice to me/ 
 
 The baroness paused — Mrs. Parr waited, as if 
 to know whether she meant to proceed. Finding 
 she did not continue to speak, the poor woman 
 seemed almost, by the very act of shaking herself, 
 to shake off her fears, and then with unaccountable 
 composure said : — 
 
 ' Lady Lynford, I need no reproaches, no 
 hard expressions, to make me sensible of my own 
 wants, or of my good fortune in having been so 
 long permitted to attend you : — I have confessed 
 myself wrong — I know I have done wrong — I have 
 2 
 
HERALINE. 2$9 
 
 been led aside from my duty by the pleasure of 
 having what I thought a friend — but though I de- 
 serve all you have said or can say, my heart does 
 not sink : — I have told you the truth — and the truth 
 gives me the courage to tell you — and I hope, 
 without any disrespect, that you never will again 
 repeat the words with which you have tried to 
 wound me, nor will you ever disclose to Mr. 
 Meryon the fault I have been guilty of — no, not 
 even if I were to make it ten times greater : — leave 
 me as you threaten — turn me out of your house 
 this hour — I will submit, if I may first speak ten 
 words/ 
 
 i Say then/ said her ladyship in a tone of com- 
 mand. 
 
 ' If I refused till you entreated me/ replied 
 Mrs. Parr, ' I believe I should be justified.' 
 
 * I shall not ask you again.' 
 
 Goody Parr had hitherto sustained her part 
 in the dialogue well — and often she had flattered 
 those most interested in her useful qualities, that, 
 at length, her good sense had reached a point from 
 which it could not slip back — but she never failed 
 to smear her neatest performances with some awk- 
 ward brandishing of her brush ; and now all her 
 accurate outlines and broad lights were run into 
 one muddled mass, by a flood of tears which she 
 shed on the shoulder of her dear charge, while, in 
 06 
 
300 HERALINE. 
 
 the most ungraceful attitude and manner, not at all 
 like that in which she had pleaded her cause, sh© 
 sobbed out — ( Miss Wyerley — knows — she knows 
 whose — the the the miniature-picture is.' 
 
 ' You do not say so ! ' — said Lady Lynford, 
 hoping to hear more, but not suffering herself to 
 ask for it. 
 
 It was now Goody's turn to be coy — she began 
 aloud to bewail herself, at the moment when she 
 knew she had less cause for it than ever; and under 
 the semblance of the most excessive agitation, 
 and as if fearing some crushing stroke, she glided 
 out of the apartment, leaving the baroness to re- 
 peat and ruminate on the few words she had made 
 the most conspicuous in her declaration. 
 
 Liberty to think without interruption was, in 
 the present juncture, so valuable, that Lady Lyn- 
 ford contented herself in solitude. — She gave or- 
 ders to be excused from all visitors — and then 
 calling back the servant who had taken the com- 
 mission, she qualified her command by saying — 
 < Except indeed, of course, Miss Wyerley.' — 
 She did not look in the glass when she had said 
 this. 
 
 Repeating to herself Mrs. Parr's words, she 
 did not consider them as admitting of any cer- 
 tainty, that Goody herself knew whose the picture 
 was. This decision spared her the pain of recall- 
 
HERALINE. 301 
 
 jng her immediately ; but not able long to rest in 
 this inaction, she, after having wondered many 
 times at her long absence, sent for her, and had the 
 satisfaction of hearing that she was gone to Miss 
 Wyerley. — The circumstance did not now excite 
 any displeasure. 
 
 On Mrs. Parr's return, being informed that 
 the baroness had asked for her, she presented her- 
 self in an attitude compounded of childish pettish- 
 neas and abject submission, out of which however 
 she was presently thrown by Lady Lynford's saying 
 in a tone of good humour, ' Come, Goody, we 
 must put by our grievances till another opportu- 
 nity, and now think seriously of this Thursday of 
 ours — all my habiliments are, I believe, in readi- 
 ness — do you know any thing of Lady Drumcan- 
 non's plans of decoration? — have you seen any 
 thing ? for I know you have been there/ 
 
 * I have been certainly there, I shall not attempt 
 to deny it — I left word that I was gone there — I 
 had no concealment — I thought indeed it was ne- 
 cessary to go and see what they were doing— and 
 now, upon my word, I must say I very much 
 question whether the old lady thinks about Thurs- 
 day.' 
 
 ' Then Miss Wyerley has told her what I 
 said.' 
 
 4 I dare say she has — but yet I must say, that 
 
309, HERAL1NE. 
 
 if Lady Drumcannon takes advantage of it, /shall 
 believe she is very glad of the excuse — I do not 
 believe she has any thing ready but the point-lap- 
 pets and an old hoop, and a pair of shoes that 
 look as if they came out of the tombs — at least I 
 have seen nothing else — I just ventured to ask 
 Miss Wyerley what colour my lady would go in — 
 She did not seem to know exactly — but I think at 
 last she said purple.' 
 
 Lady Lynford shouted, but she was not dis- 
 posed to distress her informant, who proceeded 
 with revived courage. — l Nobody can dislike the 
 old lady more than I do — but as for Miss Wyerley, 
 I really pity her ; for I think she is a poor, unpro- 
 vided, ill-used creature — like- ' 
 
 ' Like yourself,' — said Lady Lynford smiling 
 — ' but come, Goody, do not brood over trifles 
 when we must consider. — You know my general 
 good will towards you, though, I confess, I am 
 sometimes rather abominable. — But how shall we 
 get at the viscountess's real intentions ? I should 
 not like to be jilted at the last minute ; and you 
 rather shake my confidence in my presentation, 
 even now. — -As for my cold, I will not have it 
 thought on ; but, somehow or other, you must get 
 me information. I do not like to send, after what 
 has passed ; but could you not volunteer one of 
 your interviews with your friend Miss Wyerley, and 
 
HERALIN£. 303 
 
 on those hints that I give you, procure me the in- 
 formation which you know I want ? ' 
 
 As the want of sound judgment is no bar to the 
 possession of sagacity, any more than the want of 
 pretension is a barrier against presumption, Mrs. 
 Parr might understand that, in this requisite in- 
 formation which she was ordered to obtain, was 
 included whatever she could learn, not only about 
 the court-dress but the miniature. Glad at any 
 rate to dispel the cloud that had enveloped her, 
 and clearly seeing which way the baroness's ideas 
 led, she repeated nothing more of what had already 
 passed with Miss Wyerley, but setting out on a new 
 embassy, brought back a most favourable report 
 of the viscountess's disposition and readiness, with 
 a very conciliating message from the lady in dis- 
 grace, which obtained credit, as it intimated that 
 she had confined the knowledge of her suffering to 
 her own bosom. — Lady Lynford felt this as an 
 escape, and was almost ready to fancy herself 
 obliged to the person whom of all others she most 
 despised. — O ! what will not our petty interests 
 render us ? — our great and real interests never 
 demand half the sacrifices we voluntarily make to 
 those which it is least commendable to consult. — 
 Her ladyship condescended to intimate that she 
 should think no more of what had occurred, but 
 that Miss Wyerley would be received by her as 
 
304 HERALINE. 
 
 heretofore — nor was even the entrte of the bou- 
 doir mentioned as a point not to be conceded. 
 
 Here were now four persons in a very pe- 
 culiar situation of confidence — Lady Lynford was 
 confidential, for her own purposes, with Mrs. Parr 
 — Mrs. Parr, under this novel influence of fancy- 
 friendship, unwittingly betrayed the baroness to 
 Miss Wyerley, who again, with a view to her 
 own advantage, reported some things to the vis- 
 countess. — Opportunity had not yet occurred for 
 taking Mr. Bray into the council, or he would 
 have made a fifth ; but no one of these persons 
 gave the smallest return of confidence.' — Lady 
 Drumcannon did not trust Miss Wyerley with the 
 least part of what her reports produced in her 
 mind. — Miss Wyerley communicated to Mrs. 
 Parr only as much as she felt necessary to her own 
 furtherance; and Mrs. Parr, in her great concern 
 to promote the indulgence of her 6 dear charge/ 
 was particularly desirous to conceal from her, every 
 thing that carried the appearance of design. 
 
 Time, not to be recovered, had already been 
 lost in the baroness's introduction ; and she was 
 living comparatively in obscurity. Her father had 
 been grievously mis-led in his choice of a chaperon, 
 and merely by not calculating on the possibility, 
 that, while he was preserving his existence in the 
 extremity of the island, there might be changes 
 
HERALINE. 305 
 
 taking place in the interior, which, made obvious 
 to him, would have given another direction to his 
 plans. — His lordship had remembered Lady 
 Drumcannon a very pretty young woman, claiming 
 the distinction of ' smart and lively/ rather than 
 of any attributes more substantial : her black eyes 
 were too sparkling to admit of any question as to 
 the language they spoke ; and a well-turned ankle 
 apologized for any vanity of exhibition. Had 
 his lordship been at that time in the mood to 
 marry, he would most probably have allowed this 
 lady a place among the candidates for his heart 
 or his honours ; and she might have been the 
 mother of Lady Heraline Beltravers ; but if he 
 did deliberate, he for once did it too long ; and 
 she bestowed her person and her very considerable 
 fortune, as if on purpose to mortify all who had 
 aspired to her, on the least worthy of her suitors, 
 the profligate son of a poor Irish peer, who, after 
 having spent whatever he could lay hold on, and 
 infringed on her jointure, was reduced to a life-in- 
 come which expired with him. Nothing during 
 the time of Lord Lynford's knowledge of this 
 lady, appeared to him to render her a bad choice for 
 the purpose. In his eyes, her want of principle 
 was good nature, carried, perhaps now and then, 
 a little too far. Having been distinguished as a 
 dancer, he pronounced her elegant ; and singing 
 
3()fj HERA LINE. 
 
 very agreeably by ear, he considered her as accom- 
 plished ; but her great recommendation was, that 
 she saw all the company in London, and was, he 
 imagined, still a coveted chaperon. 
 
 Disappointed and out of humour, as many 
 young women would have felt on the delay of her 
 public entry into the world, the baroness deserved 
 commendation for making the best of an untoward 
 circumstance. She had not indeed tasted the 
 sweets of what is called pleasure, sufficiently to 
 withdraw her lips in disgust from that which she did 
 not find unpalatable : — she had not yet arrived at 
 the period when custom and fashion were to tell 
 her what to think and feel, and when she was to 
 judge, not ' by her own use/ but l by others' eyes' 
 —she was content, at present, to make use of her 
 own ; and her industrious pursuits leaving her no 
 lagging hours, she did not know that she was not 
 one of the most enviable of mortals. 
 
 Lady Lynford had not wanted for society. 
 Having yet no decided taste for public amuse- 
 ments, she could, without regret, forego them for 
 the sake of making her appearance at them, under 
 the designation of l the young baroness presented 
 last Thursday.' Her mornings had their inter- 
 course ; and she met and entertained her young 
 associates and their relatives, quite as often as it 
 was agreeable to her to sacrifice her evenings. Hi- 
 
HERALINE. 307 
 
 therto she had behaved very passably well to the 
 old viscountess : she had f dined her ' occasionally, 
 had sent her chair to fetch her, and had aired her 
 in the parks ; but now things must, in some way, 
 alter — her presentation must take place in less 
 than two days, or Lady Drumcannon declare off: 
 — if all went on well, she was at the acme of her 
 maiden glory ; — if obstacles intervened — she had 
 thought with great composure of the return to St. 
 Emeril's ; but now indeed there was some little 
 power of detention in this hint respecting the 
 miniature ; and till the effect of it was ascertained, 
 there was no danger of fresh offence being given 
 to any one who stood within the entail of this in- 
 terest. 
 
 The whole of Tuesday passed without any 
 communication between the houses of Drumcan- 
 non and Lynford ; and the baroness's sense of her 
 own dignity, determined her to let Wednesday 
 noon arrive, ere she stirred in the final arrange- 
 ments for the morrow. Her men had their new 
 clothes, and she meant to be conveyed in her chair, 
 following that of Lady Drumcannon, which was 
 to be fetched for the occasion, from the chair- 
 maker's, where, for want of stabling on her own 
 domain, it stood at livery. 
 
 At so early an hour however on Wednesday, as 
 to prove to all who knew the old lady's habits of 
 
308 HERALINE. 
 
 life, that this business of writing had been trans- 
 acted the night before, Lady Lynford received a 
 note from the viscountess, ending with a feigned 
 pretext of hurry at the moment, and regretting, 
 that ' she could not, just then, spare Miss W. or 
 hope for a leisure moment herself in the forenoon. 
 She felt the necessity of a meeting previous to the 
 agreeable affair of the morrow ; but as she could 
 not ask her ladyship to venture out at this crisis, 
 she was compelled to offer herself to partake just 
 what her table afforded, at her usual dinner-hour, 
 or at any earlier hour that her indisposition (which 
 she hoped to hear was entirely gone off), made 
 more advisable/ — ' Here is integrity/ said the 
 baroness, as she read on through the uudrilled 
 ranks of illegible calligraphy — ' she has not a 
 morning she can call her own, and yet she will 
 dine with me, whenever 1 please : — lies are very 
 slender bodies ; they show themselves from very 
 narrow crevices. — Well ! never mind — I shall be 
 glad to see her — and I will be gracious, and name 
 her sweet companion/ 
 
 In this acquiescing spirit, the baroness wrote 
 her more than polite reply, and, without much 
 stomaching, ' hoped Miss Wyerley's occupations 
 did not extend beyond the dinner-hour which her 
 cold, now very nearly well, did not oblige her 
 to make earlier than usual. Her chair should 
 
HERALINE. 309 
 
 attend Lady Drumcannon at the last minute, 
 that she might not encroach too much on her 
 
 The viscountess came, but no Miss Wyerley 
 — civil intimations, however, indicated that she 
 accepted the honour though not the pleasure, 
 which an accompanying gesticulation from the 
 old lady's head, gave the baroness to under- 
 stand rested rather with her than with the party 
 herself. 
 
 A very delicate dinner gratified and distracted 
 the viscountess — her eyes once sparkling, now did 
 their utmost, in the lower exertion of twinkling — 
 she looked into — nay, she almost bowed into 
 every dish, distressed, when soup and fish were out 
 of question, to decide on the disposition of her 
 palate towards fricandeau or patty, en attendant 
 the game, and the promised delights of pastry. 
 Lady Lynford did the honours of her table with 
 more than usual grace — every thing in her house 
 was done as it should be ; and she had some ge- 
 nuine feeling about her, when her guest, almost 
 under the influence of the excellent cordial wines 
 which had, years before, taken possession of the 
 spacious cellars, looked at her, aud with tremu- 
 lous lips said, ' This puts me in mind of my best 
 days at next door/ — * Poor soul ! ' whispered the 
 
310 HERA LINE. 
 
 baroness with an involuntary shudder — ' Lady 
 Drumcannon, take half a glass more of the Con- 
 stantia — it will do you good. — Send half a dozen 
 pints to Lady Drumcannon to-morrow morning/ 
 said she, sotto voce, to the butler. 
 
HERALINE. 311 
 
 CHAPTER XXV, 
 
 1 he recent indisposition afforded an excellent 
 reason for making the snug boudoir the withdraw- 
 ing-room after dinner. — Lady Lynford, herself, 
 assisted the viscountess and her crutch-headed stick 
 up the stair-case, and placed her most comfortably 
 on a sofa, near the fire, exactly in such a situation 
 as to make her notice the little green silk curtain 
 — but in vain — the full-fed faculties were now in- 
 clined to repose, and she was scarcely accommo- 
 dated in her seat, before the falling back of her 
 heavy head, and the consequent separation of her 
 jaws, might have afforded hopes of easy plunder — 
 had there been aught to steal, — to a tooth-drawer. 
 — This was time lost; but Lady Lynford could 
 wait — she took a book ; but was presently inter- 
 rupted by a sudden start from her companion, 
 with the question, ' Ha ! does any body want me ? ' 
 — Being assured that she was not wanted — and, 
 not even now, could the baroness repress a wicked 
 emphasis in her reply — she again, most audibly, 
 relapsed into her former indulgence. 
 
 But, alas ! it soon became matter of cruel ne- 
 cessity to disturb her. — A note was brought from 
 
3 1 2 HERALINE. 
 
 her house, requiring an immediate answer. — Lady 
 Lynford very gently roused her — but this was 
 doing little towards conveying to her apprehension 
 what she had to understand. — She could not, for 
 some time, get her eyes asunder ; and, when this 
 was partially accomplished, she had left spectacles, 
 and the glass she wore round her neck, at home. 
 — There was no resource. — Let the billet contain 
 what it would, Lady Lynford must read it, if it 
 was to be read. — The task was neither long nor 
 difficult :— the despatch ran in these words : 
 
 • My dearest Lady D. 
 
 ' I am so surprised, I can hardly hold 
 my pen. — Your favourite, Col. W., is just come 
 in — he must see you ; but he has but an hour to 
 stay. — Can you come home, or can you let him 
 come to you ? My kind compliments to the baron- 
 ess. 
 
 ' Yours, 
 
 < H. W.' 
 
 There could be no question, in such a case, 
 what was proper to be done — and Lady Lynford 
 was, of all persons, the least likely to seek an an- 
 swer to such a question. She said every thing 
 proper to her visitor, and then calling her upper 
 man-servant, she charged him with a very polite 
 
HERALINE. 313 
 
 request to Lady Drumcannon's friend, that he 
 would take the trouble of coming there to her. 
 
 Knowing as well what was due to herself as 
 to others, when the door opened for the admission 
 of the stranger, she withdrew by one in the op- 
 posite corner, and remained in the apartment 
 which she used, in general, as her morning sitting- 
 room. — She stirred up the fire to give her the 
 light she wanted ; and, ringing for Mrs. Parr, de- 
 sired her to find out, without bringing her at all 
 forward to a stranger, whether Lady Drumcan- 
 non's friend had dined, and, if he had not, to do 
 whatever was proper, in the best way the time ad- 
 mitted of. 
 
 Mrs. Parr's comprehension did not seem at 
 its brightest ; but she was, at length, made to un- 
 derstand, and went away to obey. — She presently 
 returned, saying, ' she had, herself, made the in- 
 quiry of the gentleman — that he had dined at a 
 coffee-house, but would be happy to take coffee 
 with her ladyship, at her own time/ 
 
 ' I do not know that I quite like this/ said the 
 baroness. — l What sort of a man i3 it, Goody V 
 
 1 By what little I saw/ said Mrs. Parr, i rather 
 a middle-aged, genteel-looking sort of person — he 
 might, indeed, be any thing, for what I saw of him 
 — for I never look at men — I seldom know one 
 from another.' 
 
 vol. I. p 
 
314 HERA LINE. 
 
 Lady Lynford might perhaps smile : — but, to 
 secure herself against impropriety, she said, * I will 
 go, because, not to go, looks awkward ; but I will 
 have you, Goody, with me — so order the coffee to 
 be sent in, in about twenty minutes, and let me be 
 called when it is ready ; and, do you come and sit 
 here, and go in with me. — I am not so fond of the 
 lady, as to be very fond of her associates. — I see 
 too many of them — many more than I shall suffer 
 to visit me.' 
 
 The morrow furnished sufficient conversation 
 for the short interval ; and, when informed that 
 the coffee was going in, her ladyship rose, and the 
 door being thrown open before her, she entered 
 the boudoir , with rather too high sense of her own 
 consequence to aim at producing any sensation. 
 Mrs. Parr followed ; and they found the stranger- 
 gentleman seated on the sofa, by Lady Drumcan- 
 non, endeavouring to make her hear his detail of 
 some great exertion of speed. The old lady in- 
 troduced him as Colonel Wanston, a very particu- 
 larly deserving favourite of hers : the colonel 
 bowed to his own eulogy ; and Lady Lynford 
 assumed a distant politeness. 
 
 The coffee came, and assisted in the introduc- 
 tion of the visitor, by calling forth his gratitude for 
 the very welcome refreshment. Mrs. Parr, in her 
 professed want of observation, had not given him 
 
HERALINE. 315 
 
 hiidue : he was, perhaps, thirty-five years of age, 
 or somewhat more ; but, to Lady Lynford's appre- 
 hension, he appeared by far the handsomest man 
 she had ever seen : his manners were rather re- 
 served than affectedly prepossessing — his enuncia- 
 tion was deliberate ; and there was a peculiarity of 
 pause, as if to recollect himself, whenever he re- 
 plied to what was said : there was a gravity of 
 character about him tending to inspire respect; 
 and as he appeared to have kept good company, 
 had seen much, and related well, he soon proved 
 an agreeable conversationist. 
 
 Maps were brought in, to enable him to de- 
 scribe to Lady Lynford, a route, by which he 
 had travelled, on recent service. The necessity of 
 looking at the same thing, obliged the baroness to 
 admit him near her ; and she had scarcely done so, 
 when poor Lady Drumcannon made sad faces, 
 and looking piteously towards Mrs. Parr, begged 
 to be assisted out of the room. — f A tea-spoonful 
 of brandy would remove her spasm ; ' but at pre- 
 sent it was, i O dear ! O dear ! very sharp/ 
 
 Lady Lynford rose, and would have followed ; 
 but the attitude of the viscountess forbidding this^ 
 she said to Mrs. Parr, — t Send for your niece ; 
 and let her take care of Lady Drumcannon ; but, 
 do you come back here/ 
 
 Mrs. Parr's movement said, 'I will,' and 
 p2 
 
316 HEKALINE. 
 
 Lady Lynford was again sitting down, the colonel, 
 with nice propriety, retreating to an increased dis- 
 tance, when, in the little bustle of moving, Lady 
 Lynford perceived that the green silk curtain, be- 
 fore her miniature, was undrawn — she had not 
 left it so, when she quitted the boudoir ; and she 
 felt disturbed by the discovery. 
 
 Mrs. Parr did not return immediately : the 
 time of her absence admitted of the colonel's say- 
 ing, very respectfully, yet with the perfect air of 
 the world, ' Lady Lynford, I wish the state of so- 
 ciety admitted of being ingenuous, without being 
 indecorous — but, as it does not, and we must take 
 things as they are, dissimulation becomes, some- 
 times, an imposed necessity ; and, under this ne- 
 cessity, I am at present, I confess, acting/ 
 
 The baroness felt uneasy : she rose. The 
 colonel made way for her, as if to pass. 
 
 ' Have no apprehension/ he said — ' For the 
 world, I would not detain you — go to Lady 
 Drumcannon ; but, as you go, listen to me, while 
 I point to that exquisite work of your pencil, that 
 honoured miniature, and claim it as the likeness of 
 what I once was.' 
 
 1 The accidental likeness, I presume/ said 
 Lady Lynford, endeavouring to sustain herself. 
 
 1 No, on my honour — the miniature, from 
 which you took the trouble to copy this, was ex- 
 
HERALINE. 317 
 
 pressly painted while 1 was made to sit for it— I 
 can produce to you a duplicate, only varying in 
 the colour of the dress -my mother, who excelled 
 in this art, painted this, and many more.' 
 
 1 How came my father to have it ? ' said Lady 
 Lynford. 
 
 ' That, your ladyship is more likely to know 
 than I am. From what Lady Drumcannon tells 
 me, Lord Lynford appears to me, not to have 
 known whose it really was. She says, he called 
 it the young Pretender. — Now, certainly, I never 
 had any pretensions to be so called ; therefore I 
 must conclude, that he purchased it accidentally, 
 and might be imposed on — an auctioneer must 
 have known that, as the likeness of an obscure in- 
 dividual, he had less chance of a good price than 
 if he gave it a great name — he might see some 
 representative of an old Jacobite stock, among the 
 bidders, and hope to kindle sparks of loyalty to the 
 exiled family. This I can affirm, that it must 
 have passed through an intermediate hand or two 
 to have come to sale — my fond mother painted 
 me often, but it was uniformly for presents — her 
 situation in life did not admit of any thing merce- 
 nary ; and it is very probable, that the heir of 
 some friend, to whom she gave it, having no value 
 for it, might dispose of it with other effects — 
 nothing more likely — the fine collection of minia- 
 P 3 
 
318 HERALINE. 
 
 tures at Strawberry-hill, must have been got to- 
 gether in the same way — and libraries are often 
 possessed of the finest copies of books, through 
 the same failure of interest. 
 
 Lady Lynford listened, and was convinced. — 
 She had not yet moved her eyes from the objects 
 that lay beneath them, but now she ventured to 
 look up, comparing, by a momentary glance, the 
 now confirmed features of him who had been 
 talking to her, with those which she had so fixed 
 in her memory. — There was no contradiction, 
 though there was no positive resemblance. — 
 Allowance made for the progress of time, — the 
 commanding person and fine style of features 
 before her, might be the fulfilment of the promise 
 given in the beautiful miniature. 
 
 ' And now/ continued Colonel Wanston, re- 
 tiring still farther, ' your ladyship will permit me 
 to leave you, with the satisfaction of thinking that 
 this singular accident does not place a barrier 
 against me, in the common acceptation you would 
 otherwise give to a stranger. Its effect upon me 
 can only be an increase of that profound respect 
 which your exalted rank and peculiar situation 
 must inspire, and which, I own, is very much in- 
 creased by the honour I have had in being obliged 
 to your hospitality, and being admitted even to this 
 short personal acquaintance. If that delicate 
 
hkralinjl. 319 
 
 jealousy of your own dignity, which I am con- 
 fident you must feel, prompts you to command 
 perfect silence on this occurrence, suffer me to 
 anticipate you, by assuring you, on my honour, 
 as a gentleman and a British soldier, that it shall 
 never pass my lips, nor shall it ever encourage me 
 to do more than make my bow if we meet this 
 spring, as we may do very much, in the same so- 
 ciety. — I fear I have a little disturbed you ; but I 
 could not go away from your house under such a 
 cloud of dissimulation, and especially as I was 
 told, you were curious to know whose the picture 
 was. My time, just now, in London, is very 
 short, or 1 should make a point of inquiring at 
 your door to-morrow, before I quit town — my 
 only possible moment would be that when, I hear, 
 you must be at the drawing-room — I am no draw- 
 ing-room man — levees I am obliged to attend 
 — but drawing-rooms I detest — they exhibit the 
 
 worst side of human nature.' - 
 
 The colonel was almost at the door, and 
 Lady Lynford was recollecting the bell, when 
 Mrs. Parr entered, looking rather ruefully, and 
 said that poor Lady Drumcannon had found her- 
 self so ill, that she had begged to go home, and 
 was just then put into the chair. — She had desired 
 Lady Lynford might be told that she hoped to be 
 P 4 
 
320 HERALINE. 
 
 able to go with her the next day, but she should 
 hear very early in the morning. 
 
 f Then,' said the colonel, l there is a possibility 
 that your ladyship's engagement may be deferred. 
 — I shall certainly take my chance.' 
 
 The baroness, even now, could behave with 
 propriety. Standing near a table, and somewhat 
 propped by the pressure of her right-hand fingers 
 on it, she, in silence, made one of her most grace- 
 ful curtsies. Mrs. Parr roused the attention of 
 the hall-servants ; and the colonel saying that ' he 
 should call at Lady Drumcannon's, where he had 
 ordered his chariot to wait/ took his leave, in a 
 manner equally decorous. 
 
 Perhaps Mrs. Parr might feel that it required 
 more courage to enter the room again, when the 
 baroness had had time to think, than to remain 
 there while she was under the influence of this 
 visit. Whatever her ideas — or whether she had any 
 or none — she remained — and, of course, made her 
 first speech the common inquiry of such a mind, 
 under such appearances — ' What 's the matter I — 
 What can be the matter ? ' 
 
 ' You know very well,' said the baroness, in a 
 deep grave tone — ' what is the matter — it is your 
 own doing — and indeed, Mrs. Parr ' 
 
 This was stage-direction enough for Goody. — 
 She removed her dear charge from the stooping 
 
HERALINE. 32 1 
 
 posture in which she was sitting, leaning her 
 elbows on the table, covering her forehead with 
 her hands-— and drawing her back on the sofa, be- 
 gan her palliating narrative. — ' She had, indeed, 
 unthinkingly, done what she now was grieved for : 
 — she certainly had shown the picture to Miss 
 Wyerley — but this she had already confessed — this 
 was no new crime — and how was she to guess 
 that poor Miss Wyerley knew the person ? — and 
 how could she foresee that she would tell Lady 
 Drumcannon, and that Lady Drumcannon would 
 contrive all this? — She had not a head for such 
 contrivers — people who knew more of London 
 ought to be sent to take care of young people 
 there. — She was a plain person, not used to things 
 of this kind — she meant well, aud she supposed 
 every body else did the same. — She could not but 
 say she wished there was somebody else to take 
 part of her anxious charge — it was too much for 
 her ; and if she was not to be trusted, she wished 
 Mr. Meryon to be spoken to.' 
 
 Such a proceeding was not, just now, in the 
 circuit of Lady Lynford's intentions. She conde- 
 scended to soothe Goody, and then begged to be 
 left alone. 
 
 Not to think on what had occurred, or to 
 p 5 
 
322 HERALINE. 
 
 think even on the probably-to-be-repeated disap- 
 pointment of the morrow, in preference to it, was 
 impossible ; — and not to think on it with interest, 
 would have been to be proof against that which had 
 its claims ; but the state of Lady Lynford 's mind 
 was not that of any other female so circumstanced. 
 Against captivation by person — against much that 
 would have mis-led others — against all vulgar 
 pouncing upon an object with a resolution to obtain 
 it by the process of a steeple-hunt, she was armed 
 by pride and sedateness. If neither the tutelage of 
 her childhood nor the better discipline of her for- 
 warder years, had given her experience of the 
 world, her natural elevation of rank and the in- 
 culcation of regard to it, had made her cautious. — 
 She was not one in a crowd — she had not to wind 
 her way amongst a concourse, where only one in 
 many might be of lower height than herself, and 
 where, consequently, she could see her way only 
 a few paces before her. She stood high ; and she 
 had a comprehensive power of vision ; she knew 
 her own worth, and she was not inclined to lower 
 the agio of it. 
 
 But still, - however informed her mind, there 
 was much to be done which did not occur in the 
 every-day practice of the world. Though little 
 disposed to fall in love, or hastily to make use of 
 her power of choosing to whom she should resign 
 
HERAL1NE. 323 
 
 her independent superiority, she had imbibed a 
 prepossession not instantly to be conquered or to 
 be converted into an uninteresting reality. She 
 might have seen, and seen often, the person from 
 whom she had just parted, without feeling that any 
 wish would be gratified, or her probable happiness 
 made certain, by an union with him ; but to the 
 mimature her heart still clung ; and she felt it al- 
 most the demand of a renunciation to give up her 
 ideal attachment, merely because, if continued to 
 the picture, it must be the right of the original. 
 
 She now found how vain is that persuasion, that 
 on the attainment of some one object, happiness 
 must ensue ! — Often had she said, ' I would give 
 the world to know the person here represented ! '— ~ 
 The longing was now indeed satisfied ; but it 
 seemed only to have waked her from a soothing 
 dream. 
 
 If there was any thing which propitiated her 
 in what had just passed, it was the dignified candour 
 with which she had been treated. The superior 
 age of Colonel Wanston gave him the authority 
 almost of a being of the former generation. He 
 did not appear at all a man to be aimed at by any 
 woman ; all finessing — all blandishment — all the 
 gold or silver-pointed missiles of love, would 
 have been, as far as she could judge, blunted on 
 the shield of his natural character. In short, he 
 p6 
 
324 HERALINE. 
 
 seemed as proud as herself, and able to show him- 
 self as haughty ; and for this conviction, she had 
 exchanged the sweet delirium of her fostered pre- 
 possession. 
 
 Every circumstance respecting the purpose of 
 her introduction to London, having awaited the 
 event fixed for the morrow, there had been little 
 talk, amongst the party, on that completion of her 
 destiny dependent on her matrimonial choice. 
 She was not a young woman to be joked with in 
 any way. Even Miss Wyerley's ignorant wit, 
 half a frown would send to the antipodes ; and Lady 
 Drumcannon, in conversing on the prohibition in 
 Lord Lynford's will, never got farther than an ob- 
 servation, that the best security against infringing it, 
 lay in seeking a husband for her, amongst people 
 too low to emigrate, and too poor to afford the 
 chance of an heir born out of their own cabins. 
 
 Recollecting this never-to-be-forgotten call on 
 circumspection, Mrs. Parr, as she obeyed the ba- 
 roness's desire to be left alone, and construed it 
 her own way, might have been heard to whisper to 
 herself, ' Well ! the worst come to the worst, 
 there is no danger here ; for his name is a pure 
 English one — I will answer for it, he did not even 
 come in with the Conqueror — little as I know — 
 for I know there is not a W in any language but 
 English/ 
 
HERALTNE. 325 
 
 For the sake of still more perfect solitude, 
 Lady Lynford went to bed an hour before her 
 time ; and, under the plea of fatigue, evaded ques- 
 tions put to her, as she was undressing, by her wo- 
 man, as to the next day's toilette. But her bed was 
 a place of less repose than her boudoir. Colonel 
 Wanston's expressions came up, as it were, on a 
 wheel of memory — she arrayed them — she re- 
 peated them — she conned and construed them — 
 and her opinion of his candour was not lessened. — 
 What he meant, indeed, by stigmatizing the royal 
 drawing-room, which, under the then dynasty, she 
 had conceived to be the rallying-point of national 
 virtue, she could not understand : — but a future 
 accident might explain this. 
 
 ' What should she now do with the miniature ?' 
 was a question — 'she almost wished she had never 
 — no, she did not wish that neither — but it was 
 indelicate to continue it where it was, now she 
 knew the original to be existing — it might lead to 
 suppositions which she should resent as unjust and 
 unfounded. — Yet, to remove the picture was un- 
 gracious, and almost an expression of contempt — 
 it might, too, draw on her the very suspicion which 
 she was endeavouring to shun — it might be sup- 
 posed she was not indifferent enough to the origi- 
 nal, to trust herself in its company/ 
 
 Mr. Meryon was foitunately not recollected 
 
3£6 H£RALIN£. 
 
 just now; or here would have been another 
 question. 
 
 There never shone out of the heavens at this 
 early season of a genial spring, a finer sun than 
 that which rose on the morning of this great day 
 * of note and preparation.' The baroness had 
 slept from two till six, and was refreshed; and 
 when her woman attended her, and let in on her 
 chamber the lovely light, she did not feel very 
 apathetical as to her duties : she flattered herself 
 that Lady Drumcannon's indisposition must have 
 subsided under the necessary fasting of sleep ; and 
 she began to talk confidently of the affairs of the 
 dressing-room. No warning of disappointment 
 had come round the corner at nine o'clock : — she 
 thought all safe, and suffered her hair to be put 
 in training for its best arrangement. 
 
 Not choosing, however, to trust entirely to the 
 general construction of silence, in rising from her 
 breakfast, she ordered an inquiry to be made at 
 Lady Drumcannon's door, and presently learnt 
 that her ladyship was too ill even to be spoken to, 
 and that there was no chance of her leaving her 
 room that day, nor for many days to come. 
 
 Lady Lynford will be forgiven by all who do 
 not demand too much of human nature, if her 
 sympathy in the viscountess's illness was merged 
 
HERALINE. 327 
 
 in her vexation for her own disappointment. The 
 inconsiderate rudeness of not only making her 
 wait, but, even at last, obliging her to fetch her 
 mortification, was no small provocation ; and her 
 expression of it stopt her messenger in his delivery 
 of the reply. Waiting for a pause, he added, that 
 Colonel Wanston was breakfasting at Lady Drum- 
 cannon's, that he was then going to the Horse- 
 guards ; but, that at three o'clock, if her ladyship 
 was kept at home by this accident, he would do 
 himself the honour of paying his respects to her. — 
 Lady Lynford did not repeat her expressions of 
 anger — but, on the other hand, she sent no reply, 
 though the man seemed to expect it. 
 
 ' Well then,' said she to Mrs. Parr, who came 
 in, indignant at this new disappointment, l I sup- 
 pose I must wait till the next drawing-room — but 
 positively, if this old woman is not ready by that 
 time, I shall desire her to turn me over to some- 
 body else — verily I shall want summer-clothes, or 
 be old-fashioned.' 
 
 She did not, through the whole morning, send 
 any inquiry after the viscountess — she was too 
 angry — Miss Wyerley did not step in, nor was she 
 wished for : affairs were now out of her hands. 
 
 Not knowing what else to do, the baroness or- 
 dered her groom and her horse, and changing her 
 dress, went amongst the nurses and children, and 
 
328 HERAL1NE. 
 
 early health-seekers, in the parks, telling every one 
 who accosted her, of her cruel disappointment, 
 and her determined resolution : — lamentation for 
 the former, particularly l as it was to be a most 
 brilliant drawing-room,' was ready on the tongue 
 of each who heard her ; and her resolution was 
 made more resolute, by the approbation it met 
 with from the sympathizers. She did not hear 
 Lady Ann, in her affectionate parting, tell her 
 younger sister, that ' Heaven must have heard her 
 prayers, and interposed in her behalf — that now 
 she might venture to the drawing-room, without 
 fear of being eclipsed entirely by that paragon of 
 grandeur,' — nor did she listen to an old earl's re- 
 gret, that, ' by the next drawing-room, his son 
 must join his ship.' 
 
 She took her airing ; but it did not hold out till 
 near three o'clock. She changed her dress, went 
 through the boudoir into her morning-room, and 
 there sitting down, she read, or tried to do it. — She 
 was in debt to Mr. Meryon ; but ' she could 
 write to him at any time — she must, indeed, tell 
 him how she was circumstanced, and take his ad- 
 vice — she would do nothing without it — on that she 
 was determined.' 
 
 Not till half-past three did the colonel come 
 — but then he did come, in much apprehension 
 for ' his poor old friend Lady Drumcannon, who 
 
HERALINE. 329 
 
 remained very ill, and whom he should make a 
 point of watching through this alarming attack, 
 let what would be the consequence to himself.' 
 
 There was no occasion for Mrs. Parr's pre- 
 sence in a morning-visit, and especially in one from 
 a friend of Lady Drumcannon's — the introduction 
 spoke for itself — therefore she was not called. — 
 The colonel could amuse very well for half an 
 hour, and in a way that could not be misconstrued. 
 He wanted books to elucidate his remarks; and 
 her upper man-servant was intelligent, and used to 
 fetch what she wanted. Of course there was, 
 this day, no interruption from lessons ; and the 
 time passed agreeably and rapidly. The baroness 
 was sufficiently put at ease, to ask the colonel, what 
 placed the royal drawing-room under his anathe- 
 ma — and he answered, ' I will tell you ingenu- 
 ously, as I always will any thing you do me the 
 honour to ask me. If I had a daughter to in- 
 troduce, it should not be at court, because I con- 
 sider it as imposing some connexions, and preclu- 
 ding others equally desirable. — You see only one 
 part of the nobility at St. James's — with all these, 
 as the drawing-room is, I confess, to the honour 
 of its mistress, kept as pure as it can be, you are 
 drawn in to acquaintance — and in your case, Lady 
 Lynford, you may be assured, that every soul who 
 has son, brother, cousin, nephew, or god-son, will 
 
330 HERALINE. 
 
 seize upon you as lawful prize : — whether you like 
 or dislike these people, you must be on certain 
 terms ; and were you to know them ever so dis- 
 agreeable in private, you must, because they are 
 received at St. James's, receive them yourself.— 
 Now what, I will ask you, whose integrity I per- 
 ceive the world has not hurt — what say you to the 
 remaining sincerity any one can hope to possess, 
 after seven years' intercourse of this kind, when? 
 without a choice in your own associations, you 
 have been, all that time, acting in precisely the same 
 way to a set of people, half of whom you may 
 despise on knowing them ? If you like to keep an 
 assembly-room, and to be the mere lady-president 
 of a house of reception, go to court, and you may 
 have plenty of custom ; — but if you would have 
 select friendships, make your own society, uninflu- 
 enced by all prescription.' 
 
 Lady Lynford's experience did not warrant her 
 to contradict this ; but she replied, ' Still it is, I 
 conceive, a necessary form — I hope, at some time 
 or other, to see foreign countries ; and, to be in 
 the best society abroad, I must have been pre- 
 sented/ 
 
 * True/ said the colonel ; l but it is always 
 time enough for that, when you are going ; and de- 
 ferred in this way, it protects you from the evil I 
 describe/ 
 
HERALINE. 333 
 
 Her ladyship now spoke again of Lady Drum- 
 cannon — she called her ' poor soul/ and said she 
 should be anxious to know how she was in the 
 evening. — She even thought herself fortunate that 
 the attack did not occur later — she might have 
 been seized at the drawing-room ; or even if after 
 it, she should have been fearful that the exertion 
 made for her, had occasioned it. 
 
53 2 HERA LINE. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 Colonel Wanston, in the most friendly manner, 
 confined himself to London for the next ten days, 
 during which the viscountess was invisible, and 
 Miss Wyerley never left her. He came, at some 
 part or other of every day, to make his report to 
 Lady Lynford, who bore her anxiety for the sick 
 viscountess, without injury to her powers of pleas- 
 ing. She did not omit writing to Mr. Meryon — 
 she detailed her recent disappointment — she de- 
 scribed every thing that could be described ; — but 
 as to Colonel Wanston, she had not quite settled 
 what she should do — she would see a little farther. 
 — In general, she sketched the outline of every 
 new acquaintance, ' but one she surely might omit 
 occasionally — it would be impossible to continue 
 telling an old man every thing that occurred — she 
 almost wished she had not begun upon that plan ; 
 but still, dear Meryon deserved every thing from 
 her.' 
 
 At length, the old lady's complaints gave way, 
 
HERA LI XE. 333 
 
 and she was declared convalescent. The colonel 
 hastened from town ; and Lady Lynford was not 
 displeased to receive a message from Miss Wyerley, 
 expressive of Lady Drumcannon's wish to see 
 her. 
 
 The episode of the illness, most fortunately, had 
 so broken in on the common narrative of affairs, 
 that there was no immediate necessity of adverting 
 to any thing unpleasant. The invalid required 
 consideration, and was not to be questioned as to 
 the little drama that had formed the under-plot to 
 her confinement. Miss Wyerley, though looking 
 considerably foolish, in her first interview with the 
 baroness, contrived, by setting chairs, and by every 
 form of officiousness, to fence or deafen herself 
 against what she merited. Her duties performed, 
 Lady Drumcannon, with more than her usual 
 cloud of brow, expressed a wish for her absence, 
 in words little less peremptory than an order to be 
 gone ; and then, when alone with the baroness, 
 after lamenting the dear price at which she paid 
 for her nice dinner, in the fees of her physician, 
 and the probable bill of her apothecary, she began 
 to speak confidentially on the subject of Colonel 
 Wanston, in the form of a warning to Lady Lyn- 
 ford. She told her that, without having had any 
 direct communication with the colonel, she could 
 
334 HERALINE. 
 
 not but apprehend, from the manner in which he 
 spoke of his visits, that he was most incautiously 
 suffering his peace of mind to be interested in this 
 new acquaintance — that, for the Indies, she would 
 not have to answer for being the cause of any- 
 thing serious ; and therefore she must beg her dear 
 baroness to act very decidedly in considering their 
 acquaintance as a mere temporary thing, beginning 
 with her unfortunate illness and ending with it. It 
 was impossible that Mr. Meryon, or any of her 
 friends, could approve such a connexion for her. 
 The colonel was sixteen years older than she was : 
 he was in the army, and he had risen, and must rise, 
 rapidly : he had a small private fortune and good 
 connexions, but could, in no way, be a fit match 
 for her. ' In one point indeed, my dear,' said she, 
 1 I could recommend him to you ; you would be 
 sure of him for an Englishman ; for I believe he 
 might be born in the uext street : at least he is re- 
 gistered at St. George's — but you may meet witk 
 thousands with this requisite. All I wish is to 
 cut the matter short ; for I cannot bear my fa- 
 vourites to be made uneasy — it is of no conse- 
 quence to you, my dear baroness ; but to Wan- 
 ston it might prove a serious disappointment, if 
 suffered to go on — he is a grave rharacter ; and I 
 have often noticed that those who seem the moit 
 
HKUAL1NE. S3 5 
 
 proof against tender affections, let them take more 
 hold on them than more lively people.' 
 
 Lady Lynford could listen and comprehend, 
 and show that she did so by her manner ; but to 
 reply, unless she meant those in the adjoining 
 houses to share her confidence, would have been 
 very indiscreet : the conversation therefore could 
 not last long. Miss Wyerley was called in to spin 
 about the room in some of her juvenile alacrities i 
 and having now recovered her courage, and hearing 
 Lady Drumcannon name Colonel Wanston, she at 
 once broke the ice, under which she had been kept 
 down by Lady Lynford's freezing power ; and ask- 
 ing the baroness if she ' did not think him a most 
 charming man,' talked of ' days of yore, when he 
 and she were called the two inseparables.' 
 
 This was not to be borne. Miss Wyerley was 
 every moment growing more odious ; and some 
 change of feeling in the baroness, seemed to 
 render her pretensions to intimacy with Colonel 
 Wanston an uupardonable presumption. When 
 she asked herself why she felt so, she could only 
 resolve it into the immeasurable distance between 
 the distinction of his accomplished mind, and the 
 pert vulgarity of Miss Wyerley's — she could not 
 bring herself to probe deeper. 
 
 But returning home from her visit, her sensa- 
 tions were still more distressing. She considsrtd 
 2 
 
336 HERALINE. 
 
 Lady Drumcannon as assuming a right to direct 
 her, which never having been called out, she did 
 not know could exist. And she felt that, if she 
 gave way to this, her boasted independence, and 
 every privilege connected with it, was gone — 
 while, by attempting to oppose her, she took upon 
 herself a responsibility far too weighty for her 
 management. 
 
 She was now, indeed, alone ; and, after the 
 agreeable excitation of the daily call to which she 
 had quickly become habituated, she felt that she 
 was so.— Instead of betaking herself to any em- 
 ployment, though various means of pleasant occu- 
 pation lay around her, she sunk into a chair in 
 complete listlessness. She moved away from the 
 reach of a large pier-glass : she sate looking at the 
 fire, without seeing it ; and, when she withdrew 
 her eyes from it, she began to think she had been 
 asleep and dreaming. But this deception did not 
 long protect her from the wounding thorns with 
 which her path seemed bordered — she would 
 now gladly have exchanged, for her former blind 
 uncertainty, the feeling of terror on this committal 
 to her own judgment, of remorse for the conceal- 
 ment that opposed her application for help, and 
 of something little short of disgrace in the choice 
 her heart seemed making for her. At one mo- 
 ment, she decided on quitting London and flying 
 2 
 
HERALINE. 337 
 
 to her tried friend for shelter and defence against 
 herself. — At the next, she was contriving how to 
 erase all that had passed from the page of her 
 history, and to reinstate herself, without the pain 
 of such a confession, in her declining dignity. All 
 was confusion and uncertainty. 
 
 Excusing herself from an evening-engagement, 
 she ate her un-relished dinner with Mrs. Parr, 
 and began to feel still more decided on flight. It 
 was not a frequent state of mind with the baron- 
 ess, to be afraid of speaking to her dependant ; but, 
 in this instance, it required a little preluding to in- 
 form Goody of her determination ; and disliking 
 her still more than ever for this necessity, she be^ 
 gan, in the least conciliating way, with sentences 
 that said tauntingly, ' I suppose I need not tell 
 you this* — and ' you must, if ever so stupid, know 
 that? — Mrs. Parr, in the least resenting manner, 
 seemed to say, ' I am just able, stupid as I am, to 
 comprehend this* — and * I have a faint glimmering 
 of that; 1 — but when ' her dear charge' got so far as 
 to say, * I am so miserable here, that I would give 
 the world to be at home in Devonshire — I must 
 go back to St. Emeril's to be near Mr. Meryon; 
 for, as to yo u, you are nobody, nay, worse than 
 nobody, by way of protection. — O ! how I wish 
 dear Meryon had come with me! — J will not 
 stay here:' — Then, Mrs. Parr could speak out, an4 
 
 vol. i. Q 
 
338 HERALINE. 
 
 array a host of objections to so violent a proceed- 
 ing. She had even enough of the equity-lawyer, 
 to question whether the tenour of Lord Lynford's 
 will, admitted of this return to Devonshire. ' In 
 her opinion, and, as far as she recollected, there 
 was no option named — her ladyship was to reside 
 in London six months, and two were not yet ex- 
 pired ; and, as to any thing uncomfortable about 
 the picture, she could not see that there was any 
 cause for fretting — the thing was explained — it 
 was all over, and there was no need to say any 
 thing more, about such a trifle/ 
 
 Had the baroness proposed any thing short of 
 this Spartan self-denial, Mrs. Parr might have be- 
 stowed a second thought ere she had replied ; but, 
 as the measure was presented to her consideration, 
 it had not two sides, and, therefore, she had no 
 cause for hesitation. Her mind was undergoing 
 still a greater transmutation than that of ' her dear 
 charge;* but, as its features were smaller, their 
 expression was less evident. Her little cunning 
 had been able to conceal from the natural acumen 
 of the baroness, a small affair of her own concern, 
 which, with the early determination that might 
 have been supposed to belong rather to a great 
 character, and the manoeuvring which the inexpe- 
 rienced often take for the operation of wisdom, 
 she was now bringing to a most important crisis. — 
 
HERAUNE. 339 
 
 Such a process is not worth the detail : she had 
 angled, if not for the heart, at least for the seat 
 of worldly prudence, in Lady Drumcannon's no- 
 minal chaplain, Mr. Bray; and, having first join- 
 ed in all the expressions of contempt and dislike 
 uttered by her principal — after affecting a tenacity 
 to orthodoxy, far beyond Lady Lynford's profes- 
 sion of duty to the established church — after hav- 
 ing sheltered herself, on all attempts at discussion, 
 in her reliance on 'good Mr. Meryon's doctrines/ 
 she had first sunk, indeed, into a lower tone of 
 conviction, and then into something little more 
 defensive than silence — but, internally, she had 
 ended all debate, by a process equivalent to mixing 
 the cards to hide a lost game — she had suffered 
 the proximate object to obscure the light of which 
 she boasted ; and, if she did not adopt the vagrant 
 tenets of Mr. Bray, she bade her own hold their 
 tongues while she listened. — The affair was, at 
 this time, in prosperous train : Miss Wyerley 
 afforded the facilities of meeting : the baroness's 
 employments and engagements left Mrs. Parr 
 many hours to herself ; and when she had attends 
 ed Lady Lvnford in her carriage, to some little 
 party of young persons, where the lady of the 
 house, on request, took on herself the duty of 
 Lady Drumcannon, she knew, that till the hour 
 when the carriage was again ordered, she was safe. 
 Q2 
 
340 HERALINE. 
 
 The servants did not betray her, and she was too 
 prudeut to betray herself. 
 
 She had never before had any thing in the 
 shape of a lover ; nor could this representative of 
 that character, have come within her reach, but 
 for his inferiority to his own station. Whenever 
 Lady Lynford was the most severe on his mean- 
 ness of person, the sordidness of his habits or the 
 poverty of his mind, she lent another round to the 
 ladder, by which Goody Parr was mounting to 
 matrimonial consequence ; and, ' Very well : he 
 will do for me/ — were the words in which she 
 silently replied to these disparaging contumelies. 
 
 For any thing that had the appearance of be- 
 traying her trust in the opposition she now pre- 
 sumed to make to Lady Lynford's commendable 
 inclination, she thought herself justified by what 
 she called ' her anxiety for the happiness of her 
 dear charge/ Wounded by Cupid herself, she 
 saw, in imagination, the blood flowing from the 
 wounds he inflicted on others. When she found 
 the baroness musing or uneasy, she sighed, and told 
 herself that she knew too well, by fatal experience, 
 what she was now undergoing. That she should 
 be hostile, therefore, to Colonel Wanston, whom 
 she knew * her dear charge' pre -disposed to love, 
 was not, justly, to be expected of her; espe- 
 cially as the conniving at a foolish action, in her 
 
HERALINE. 34 1 
 
 superior, was the readiest mean to save herself 
 from her sarcastic censure : — and, as there was no 
 danger of sinning against the law laid down, and 
 she saw no reason for restraining Lady Lynford 
 from conferring a benefit, her conscience did not 
 give her, at present, any very loud warning to be 
 cautious. 
 
 When we are told, that ' evil communications 
 corrupt good manners/ and yet continue to com- 
 municate with evil, perhaps we make a large al- 
 lowance for the little resemblance which the world 
 now bears to what it was, at the time when the 
 observation was modern. But the character of 
 truth does not vary with modes and habits ; and 
 though instances may be adduced to prove that 
 evil communications do not always obviously cor- 
 rupt good manners, nothing can prove that the 
 moral sense is not injured by them ; and, like the 
 faults in painting, in music, in style of writing, the 
 evil, however imperceptible to the uninformed, 
 will be striking to the apprehensions of those who 
 have made what is right, their study and their aim. 
 Nothing was less probable than that a mind such 
 as Lady Lynford's, should suffer itself to be in- 
 fluenced to its detriment, by suggestions from Mrs. 
 Parr. Had Goody revealed to her, her own little 
 romantic contingency, she could, even now, have 
 given her advice against which there could be no 
 Q3 
 
342 HERA LINE. 
 
 appeal ; but, at this moment, her own uncomfort- 
 able feelings laid her open to any quack-prescrip- 
 tion for her relief; and when she had heard the 
 reply to her proposal, departing from her natural 
 integrity of judgment, she argued with herself, that, 
 if the person placed over her, did not start at what 
 disturbed her, she herself had no cause to be 
 alarmed. 
 
 But, attempting to be at ease in a new situa- 
 tion, did not restore Lady Lynford to the enjoy- 
 ment from which it had removed her. — She lost 
 her industry — she was indifferent as to exercise or 
 amusement. She saw the next drawing-room-day 
 go by, and did not regret that Lady Drumcannon 
 was still unable to attend her : — she made no pro- 
 posal, as she had said she would do, for the ap- 
 pointment of a vice-chaperon : — and now, in de- 
 spair and apathy, she suffered herself to be smug- 
 gled into public, when she fancied dissipation 
 might afford relief from the oppression of her 
 spirits. Her attentions to the old viscountess 
 were redoubled, and obtained her credit. She 
 spent evening after evening with her and Miss 
 Wyerley, and even saw no offence in the jargon of 
 Mr. Bray — for from these persons alone, could 
 she hear of Colonel Wanston. — She understood 
 that he was detained out of London on duty ; but, 
 at length, hopes were given of his return, and the 
 
HERALINE. 343 
 
 day was fixed when he was again to shine the 
 luminary of two houses. 
 
 Not a syllable had ever escaped the baroness's 
 lips expressive of the uneasiness of her mind. If 
 it betrayed itself, it was through the medium of 
 her complexion, the relaxation of her activity, and 
 the languor of her deportment. Fearful of making- 
 it perceptible, yet unable to make a vigorous effort 
 against it, she resorted to disingenuous pretexts; 
 and even in writing to Mr. Meryon, she laid a 
 stress on the increased imbecility of Lady Drum- 
 cannon, which, if he asked himself a question as to 
 his ward's probable welfare, was to account for 
 any change in her style, which might make it less 
 matter of confident security to his affectionate 
 solicitude. 
 
 The colonel arrived, and then a new order of 
 things took place. — He came to make his acknow- 
 ledgments to the baroness, for * the great attention 
 Lady Drumcannon had experienced from her, in 
 her frequent visits and meritorious sacrifices of 
 pleasure, to politeness and friendship — in her oblig- 
 ing care to anticipate the wishes of her recovering 
 appetite, and the accommodation she experienced 
 in the frequent use of her carriage/ — This was all 
 safe ground ; but when, Mrs. Parr being called 
 out of the room, he proceeded to substantiate his 
 Q4 
 
344 HERALINE. 
 
 claim to credit on the business of the miniature, 
 by producing, indeed, a duplicate of the portrait 
 which she had copied, in which every variation 
 was an advantage, and the superiority of the artist 
 over the copyist was almost humiliating ; — nothing 
 but Mr. Meryon's presence — for the ghost of her 
 father could not be expected to rise in broad day- 
 light — and, perhaps, not even this, could have 
 arrested the headlong penchant. If the colonel 
 was aware of his hopeful prospect, he did not 
 make any irregular exertion to secure it : he seem- 
 ed rather to declare off: he told his age, his nar- 
 row means, his confined views in life — he seemed 
 to fear that his profession might be a lure — he 
 could not be responsible for his own endeavours 
 in it — it did not suit his choice — at least, 'the 
 youthful impulse that gave it its charm, was dead : 
 — and to retire from a world, of which, having no 
 stake in it, he was almost weary — to purchase a 
 small farm, and turn his sword into a plough-share, 
 was, at times, when he was most vexed with the 
 corruption of mankind, his most ardent wish.' 
 
 The baroness did not tell him that there were 
 plough-shares in abundance at St. Emerii's with- 
 out resorting to this expedient. 
 
 No more talk now, of drawing-rooms or court- 
 equipments — the form was given up, the narcotic 
 influence of the colonel's antipathy combining 
 
HERALINE. 345 
 
 with the viscountess's impossibilities. Days, now 
 made more valuable because their number must be 
 few, followed, without any exertion to use or enjoy 
 them, beyond what a sickly vitiated taste prompt- 
 ed ; and of any thing better there was no hope, 
 unless some more decisive movement should ad- 
 mit of a reference to Mr. Meryon, the expecta- 
 tion from whose good nature, was now become 
 little short of presumption that he would betray 
 his trust. 
 
 Without any eclat — without surprise or harts- 
 horn, the matter came to its issue ; and Lady 
 Lynford, when she recollected the most interesting 
 of the colonel's visits, found that the sum-total of 
 their conversation on her part, amounted to an 
 acceptance of him, and an undertaking to bestow 
 her hand on him, whenever he could procure the 
 consent of her guardian, without which, while a 
 minor, she must not marry, and, in her present 
 disposition, fancied she would, at no period, even 
 when exonerated from his guardianship, zeish to 
 marry. 
 
 But here occurred an obstacle. It was, at 
 least for a time, necessary that the colonel's pro- 
 ceedings in this affair should be kept as private as 
 possible. There was a certain young lady whom 
 I^ady Lynford met at Lady Drumcannon's and at 
 Q5 
 
346 HERALINE. 
 
 other places, who, she was told, nourished a most 
 unfortunate passion for Colonel Wanston, and to 
 which some circumstances, such as he could not 
 overlook, forbade his making any return. — She 
 had immense wealth, was very beautiful, and 
 though not nobly born, was respectably connected ; 
 but she was so nearly an idiot, that the goodness 
 of her choice in bestowing her affections, stood 
 single in her debts to common sense. — Whenever 
 she met Colonel Wanston, her persecution of him 
 was evident; and that it was prompted and en- 
 couraged, nothing indicated. — It, however, claim- 
 ed, and met from him on whom this distinction 
 was bestowed, a very gentlemanly consideration : 
 he soothed the poor foolish girl ; and, in his distant 
 arrangements with the baroness, said decidedly 
 that, • on no account, should her imbecile mind be 
 wounded with reports that must preclude her 
 childish hopes. He knew that, in a few months, 
 when she too would be of age, she would be re- 
 moved to the farthest part of Scotland — that 
 there she would soon forget him, and he should 
 feel at liberty to think of his own unmerited good 
 fortune, which, highly as he must prize it, he 
 could not purchase at the risque of what this poor 
 Ophelia might do, under feelings of disappoint- 
 ment/ 
 
HERALINE. 347 
 
 Lady Lynford had made no sacrifice of the 
 generous feelings of her nature, when she struck 
 out of the path of prudence and injured the polish 
 of her integrity. She applauded the kind com- 
 passion of Colonel Wanston — she encouraged it — 
 she acquiesced in the measure of profound secrecy; 
 — and she felt that this necessity allowed her to 
 postpone the awful appeal to Mr. Meryon. 
 
 The secret, however, could not be hermetically 
 sealed, so as to prevent the viscountess, her de- 
 pendant, and Mrs. Parr, from inhaling some of its 
 particles ; and, as no one of these persons had any 
 purpose to serve by pretending ignorance, the first 
 opportunity was taken to release Lady Lynford 
 from the restraints of caution before her friends. 
 Her attention distracted — every avenue to new 
 ideas choked up with the effervescence of those 
 she had fostered, it was vain to pay masters for 
 attendance, or to attempt to be industrious for 
 them. The colonel had no wish for her shining : 
 he had no taste for her pursuits : the visits of in- 
 structors might cross on his — and they were there- 
 fore dismissed, and every thing that told they had 
 been employed, was put out of sight. The loss 
 of amusement was made up by the vicissitudes 
 which her situation afforded. Colonel Wanston 
 was about to be fixed on duty, twelve miles from 
 Q6 
 
348 HKRAL1NE. 
 
 town, and must remain so till the middle of July : 
 his opportunities, therefore, of seeing her, were 
 sufficiently precarious to give zest to her gratifi- 
 cations ; and if the fever consequent on this over- 
 excited state of nerves, wore her, still it was fever, 
 and supported her with itself. 
 
HERALINE. S49 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 J HE first advantage which Mrs. Parr made of 
 the baroness's step down from her ' bright meri- 
 dian/ was to unfetter herself by a declaration of 
 her own interesting affaire de cazur : she had the 
 precaution to engage the viscountess to divulge it 
 for her ; but, not even the respect due to the chan- 
 nel through which the information came, nor even 
 the recollection of what she herself was doin"\ 
 could repress the bitterness of Lady Lyn ford's 
 irony. The lady had, about ten years, the start of 
 the gentleman in the race of life. She was tall, 
 and now, by dint of care and good living, bulky. 
 He was little, meagre, long-necked, as if nursed 
 in a neck-swing, had short legs, made somewhat 
 shorter by too early pedestrianism, and in his 
 visage bore marks of that sportive discipline of 
 the jocose, which, by the smart stroke of a 
 heavy hand, at once flattens, and gives an up- 
 ward direction to an infant's features. In every 
 point of comparison, no two persons could less 
 resemble each other than this incomparable pair. 
 — Mrs. Parr's all-pellucid neatness was to as- 
 
55 HERA LINE. 
 
 sociate with a man to whom nothing could give 
 cleanliness of appearance, and whose use of snuff 
 seemed to justify him in his disregard of it. In 
 her situation, she had acquired habits of liberality, 
 which, even on a small scale of expense, would 
 have shown themselves gracefully. Mr. Bray 
 was, indeed, little inclined to spare ; but his own 
 indulgences were made commensurate with his 
 means. The early fetters put on Mrs. Parr's man- 
 ners, had made her, though not polite, civil, — and 
 the necessary regard to her own interests, had 
 given her an emulation of the good opinion of 
 others. Mr. Bray, inconsiderate and unfeeling, 
 a clown by nature, and rendered vain and authori- 
 tative by vulgar applause, had no regards for society : 
 he asserted, contradicted, equivocated, and, when 
 quite at a loss in argument, and at the mercy of 
 his opponent, he would look round him, for some 
 one on whom he might, by nods, winks, and 
 shrugs, impress the conviction of his superiority. — 
 His various ways of being disgusting and odious, 
 must have been seen to be understood. — The 
 baroness concluded her degrading badinage, with 
 * You take him, Goody, as you would do a dama- 
 ged velvet; because, if it were not damaged, it 
 would not come within reach of your purse, and 
 you must then be velvetless. — Be advised: con- 
 
HERALINE. 35 1 
 
 aider how little you know of the man's previous 
 life or his natural temper— you may be deceived, 
 to the ruin of your comfort and your respecta- 
 bility. — You must suppose you see the best of 
 the man, because, if his interest allures him, it is 
 of importance to gain your approbation. Let 
 him follow you to St. Emerirs — L will make the 
 creature welcome ; and then you may consult 
 your friends — you may have the benefit of Mr. 
 Meryon's opinion, and you will be safe and feel 
 yourself safe.' 
 
 If circumstances, as in the French % Proverbe9,' 
 were significations by movements, Lady Lynford 
 might have heard the * Nosce teipsum ' of the 
 sage, in the words, ' Colonel Wanston, my lady/ 
 when the door was thrown back, and he was in- 
 troduced. 
 
 He was yet with her ; and she was fearing he 
 was about to depart, when a letter was brought her 
 from Mr. Meryon. She threw it aside carelessly, 
 without breaking the seal, unwilling to give the 
 colonel a reason for shortening the little time he 
 could bestow on her, and not having now that 
 painful impatience to get at the contents of her 
 guardian's letters, which she had felt when they 
 were in all their vigour of interesting and amusing. 
 The languor that ensued on her feeling herself 
 
352 HERALINE. 
 
 again alone, made her forget that she had not read 
 it : — to get rid of this languor, she went out on 
 horseback — on her return, she made visits — she 
 was engaged to dinner and for the evening ; and, 
 even the next day at noon, the letter remained un- 
 opened. It was then found and taken up; and 
 with a feeling very nearly of reluctance, she un- 
 folded it. It was nothing of obvious importance 
 — a very short letter, written in haste, merely saying 
 that, on the next day after its reaching her, she 
 might expect a visitor who he ardently wished 
 might prove acceptable to her. — ' He is coming ! 
 — he is coming himself! — he has heard all ! He is 
 coming, I am certain,' said she, as she rang tht 
 bell to inquire for Mrs. Parr. 
 
 Poor Goody, when informed of this warning, 
 having no choice of opinion where Lady Lynford 
 appeared possessed of such extraordinary sagacity, 
 could only answer ' Yes ' and ' No.' Necessary 
 as it was to consider many points of prudence, 
 under this threatened pleasure, nothing was yet 
 arranged, when the faint roll of a carriage driving 
 to the door, as it could be heard in the back-apart- 
 ments of the house, and then the more distinct 
 volubility of the knocker, seemed to preclude all 
 circumspection, and to throw every thing most var 
 luable, at the capricious mercy of chance. 
 
HERALINE. 355 
 
 What Mr. Meryon might have thought, had 
 he entered, and seen colours, little less strongly 
 contrasted than those of York and Lancaster, on 
 the cheeks of the two females, must be supposed : 
 he would scarcely have recognised his ward, under 
 the glowing mantle which his expected approach 
 cast over her — Mrs. Parr he might have called to 
 mind, with a due allowance for her having just 
 risen from her grave. 
 
 But it was not, after all, Mr. Meryon who en- 
 tered, or who was the visitor of whose coming 
 the baroness had been apprised. — It was the Earl 
 of Winch more. 
 
 It was not her ladyship's frolic at this moment 
 to be saucy. She recollected indeed the former 
 incipient treaty, which his lordship's mother had 
 endeavoured to open for him in his absence ; but 
 with this, she considered him as having no con- 
 cern. She had known him as a boy and a lad; 
 and her present situation freeing her from all 
 doubt and embarrassment, she meant to atone 
 to herself for her fright, by the enjoyment of per- 
 fect ease. She made her surprise appear of the 
 most gratifying kind, and condescended to say that 
 she was glad to see him. 
 
 But when to the usual questions, and as usual 
 answers, there succeeded a dead pause — a pause 
 that said no more than other pauses, yet seemed 
 
354 HERALINE. 
 
 to say all that all others ever had said — when her 
 eye crost on Lord Winchmore's, and she saw his 
 directed to her, as if to ask if he might venture 
 to speak — O ! what would she not have given to 
 escape ! 
 
 ' Lady Lynford,' said his lordship, ' I shall 
 ruin my cause by want of power to plead it — May 
 I hope that Mr. Meryon ? Not a word of en- 
 couragement ? — Bid me be silent, Lady Lynford, 
 and then, perhaps, I could proceed — Not a word : 
 — I must then at a risque ' 
 
 He paused — then resumed — ' You know, my 
 dearest madam — no, I should say you do not 
 know, that T have now attained the age to which 
 my father postponed my majority. — I arrived only 
 last week in England. My wish is not now merely 
 to settle, but to settle in the way that will, under 
 Providence, ensure happiness : — I naturally look 
 to you, when this wish most urges me to think of 
 fixing my affections : — I am no Adonis — I am no 
 despot. — If I could win your good opinion, I should 
 hope you would never have reason to wish you 
 had not bestowed it. — On my situation I will say 
 nothing, but that, had it not justified my present 
 
 proceeding, I would have been silent. Not a 
 
 word! — Then I must and may proceed. You 
 know my mother — do you not think such a 
 woman would prove an invaluable friend ? — The 
 
HERALINE. 355 
 
 just opinion the world entertains of her, gives her 
 an advantage of situation peculiar to herself — she 
 is prepared to receive you with open arms and the 
 warmest heart — I left her in Dorsetshire, when I 
 had scarcely seen her ; and I have had an inter- 
 view with your excellent guardian. I came on di- 
 rectly hither ; but on a moment's notice, my dear 
 mother, who is still, you know, comparatively a 
 young woman, will be in London, if you honour 
 her by wishing it/ 
 
 ' Lady Winchmore is too kind — and your lord- 
 ship is ' ' But,' added her ladyship, rising and 
 
 turning aside — ' I can accept no such proposals/ 
 
 \ No such proposals, Lady Lynford i ' 
 
 1 No, my lord, no such proposals. 1 mean 
 what I say — or, at least, I generally say what I 
 mean/ 
 
 ' But what mean you, my good lady, by 
 such?' 
 
 ' Why, I will tell you fairly/ said her lady- 
 ship, endeavouring to turn the comtdie lar- 
 moyante into farce : * I mean that I cannot ac- 
 cept such proposals, because it is my odd humour, 
 not to choose to marry a man even of my own 
 rank, and much less, of any above me. — My re- 
 venues, you know very well, would be a drop in 
 the ocean to such a man as you, and such a match 
 would be as much in the common way of pro- 
 
356 HERALINK. 
 
 ceeding, as that between a banker and a mer- 
 chant's daughter, Mr. with his 3000/. a year, and 
 Miss with her 30,000/. down — I believe that 
 would be pretty nearly our proportion ; for I 
 take for granted that your lordship's rent-roll is 
 of about double the value of my humble posses- 
 sions. — Now, I need not tell you, that I have a 
 great deal of pride — much more pride than vanity. — 
 If I were vain, I should accept your lordship and 
 all your many good things ; and were I Heraline 
 Beltravers with half a dozen boy-brothers, I would 
 do it, for the sake of indulging my small vanity — 
 but, as I am circumstanced, I must think first of 
 my great pride ; and this, to tell you honestly the 
 truth, would be much better pleased if I married 
 some little tidy half-pay captain, who must owe 
 all, but bread and cheese and his watch-string, to 
 my bounty, and therefore would be on his knees, 
 night and morning, to thank me for my wealth.— 
 Now do not be affronted, my dear lord — you will 
 easily find some other countess — I could tell you 
 of half a dozen — but— alas — me — you cannot, 
 cannot have.' 
 
 His lordship took his hat, bowed, and, saying 
 in a choked voice — ' I beg your ladyship's pardon, 
 1 was mistaken,' went hastily down stairs, calling 
 for his servants himself. 
 
 ' What an escape !' said the baroness to her- 
 
HERALINE. 357 
 
 •elf — but shame and confusion followed her self- 
 congratulation — she put her hands before her face, 
 — < But what will he tell Mr. Meryon ? — O ! I 
 should have thought of that — I wish I had asked 
 his address — 1 could have sent him a note to shade 
 off a little of what I said. — But what is there I 
 can do ! — Why, I must write to dear Meryon — 
 What shall I say ? the less the better.* 
 
 Ah ! indeed the less the better, if all was to 
 be in the same style of bravado. — There are cases 
 so bad, that they oblige us to choose what is simply 
 bad, as what is best. But these cases are not often 
 made for us — we generally make them for our- 
 selves. 
 
 Delay, under such excitement, was torture. 
 She instantly replied to Mr. Meryon's billet- 
 letter. 
 
 1 My dearest Sir, 
 
 i Lord W. has been here, and will 
 give you a strange report of my reception of him. 
 — You will think me mad or foolish — but I am 
 neither — I am not going to abuse him. — The 
 man is in himself very well — he says he is no 
 Adonis ; and this I grant. — He talked very ab- 
 surdly, almost foolishly — and seemed desperately 
 at a loss — but I believe this was my fault; for 
 you know I can disconcert very tolerably, when I 
 
358 HLRALINE. 
 
 choose it. — But he had the absurdity to talk of 
 his mother, and that set me en herisson, remem- 
 bering her former proceedings — so I played mad 
 or foolish — which \ou please — to drive him away 
 — and succeeded quite to my satisfaction. — Do 
 not send any more to offer themselves — and do 
 not believe half that Lord VV. tells you: you have 
 
 the truth from 
 
 ' Yours in haste, 
 
 < h. l: 
 
 The transaction would not bear a retrospect. 
 Something was to be overcome when it rose to 
 remembrance; but her ladyship consoled herself 
 with thinking that she had, however violently, ex- 
 tricated herself from an embarrassing situation — 
 so embarrassing, that it requires some ingenuity to 
 devise a way of escape, so effectual as that prepos- 
 terous one which she had taken. 
 
 * I am a little advancing in poor Meryon's la- 
 byrinth,' said she to herself, when she determined 
 to dismiss the subject finally from her thoughts. 
 1 Never mind — I must submit to go on just now — 
 I cannot go back — and at worst, I am strong enough 
 to break through, if I cauuot find my w ay out — I 
 will tell no human being what was the subject of 
 this visit — there is no occasion — I shall tell Goody 
 it was matter of compliment. — She will believe 
 me, even were I to tell her that his lordship was 
 
HEHAL1NE. 359 
 
 turned shoemaker, and came to solicit the honour 
 of my custom.' 
 
 But for the delusion in which the baroness 
 had hooded her natural discernment, she must al- 
 most have repented that she had given such ' a 
 hostage to Fortune,' as that connected with the 
 disposal of her heart. The colonel must go ; and 
 how were her days to be endured without him ? 
 Pursuits renounced because no longer interesting, 
 could not be resumed with energy : — London was 
 growing odious. The society to which she was 
 most accustomed, was flavourless ; and there was 
 a halo of concealment collecting round her, which 
 made her almost shun strangers. She did not carry 
 her head, by some inches, as high as a few weeks 
 before ; and those who were afraid of her, and 
 who formed no small proportion of those who 
 knew her, had begun to talk of her improved af- 
 fability, because she did not look in the face those 
 to whom she was speaking. 
 
 Her correspondence with her guardian had, in 
 many days, produced only one letter from him, to 
 which she had very briefly replied. His had been 
 written when it might be supposed he had again 
 seen Lord Winchmore, and heard from him what 
 had passed. 
 
 Entering on the subject, he said : l I cannot 
 
360 HERALINE. 
 
 express to you my mortification on this abrupt 
 dismission. Far be it from me, to presume to 
 direct you, in your important choice of the man 
 with whom you may pass a long life — may it be a 
 happy one ! — But, my dearest child, what have you 
 rejected ? or rather what have you not rejected ? 
 God grant you may never have cause to repent ! 
 — I will make all allowances for the waywardness 
 of taste in such a matter — I know the eye must 
 be won to gain the heart, unless the reason has 
 told the heart not to trust to the eye : — but still, 
 surely you have been precipitate ! — Lord Winch- 
 more might not acquit himself to perfection — he 
 might be too much interested — many a man ap- 
 pears to a disadvantage at such a moment — and I 
 can very easily suppose, on my knowledge of 
 what you can do, what you might do to embarrass 
 him. 
 
 ' I do not think Lord W. has told me the worst 
 — I do not think he mould tell such a worst ; and in 
 truth, I think you have drawn a more disgraceful 
 likeness of yourself, than any one else would have 
 done ; but if your reply was, only in substance, 
 what you state it to have been, it calls for correc- 
 tion. I will take it as he represents it : he says he 
 finds you prefer marrying beneath your rank, for 
 the pleasure of being generous. — Romantic ! — non- 
 sense !— diametrically opposite to your natural 
 
HERALINE. 36 1 
 
 character and your former opinions — and an inti- 
 mation which once getting abroad, might cost you 
 dear. 
 
 1 If you say that it was merely the first plea 
 that came into your head, to make a disagreeable 
 man desist — and, as I hope I shall hear, that it is 
 as foreign as ever from your sentiments, 1 shall 
 be more easy ; but still I must protest against such 
 dangerous trifling. Were Lord W. not what he 
 is, I should be apprehensive that he might divulge 
 your imprudence, and let loose on you, half the 
 adventurers of the metropolis. — I shall be more at 
 ease when I have you safe back. Forgive my pa- 
 rental anxiety. — Write quickly to your anxious 
 friend/ 
 
 It required a little more assumption of jocula- 
 rity, to get over the duty enjoined. — Gladly would 
 the baroness have remained sileut — but so sadly 
 was the aspect of her concerns now changed, that 
 she thought with horror of what might expose her 
 to the danger of her guardian's yielding to the sti- 
 mulus of his anxiety for her, and, at some unex- 
 pected moment, presenting himself before her, to 
 satisfy himself as to facts. 
 
 She therefore wrote by return of post, and at 
 the last minute, in these frolicsome terms : 
 
 ' This is to certify to Thomas Meryon, clerk, 
 
 VOL. i. R 
 
362 IIERALINE. 
 
 and one of His Majesty's Justices of the Peace for 
 the county of Devon, that Heraline Beltravers, Ba- 
 roness Lynford, hath no intention of disposing of 
 herself, as she declared to the right honourable 
 the Earl of Winchmore — that to get rid of his 
 lordship's unacceptable presence, was her sole 
 purpose. And, furthermore, the said Heraline 
 Beltravers, Baroness Lynford, undertakes for her- 
 self that her pride shall be duly consulted, when- 
 ever she deliberates on the weighty subject of 
 matrimony/ 
 
 Whatever reception Mr. Meryon might give 
 this attempt at the ludicrous, he remained silent. 
 It might, and it did probably, satisfy him that his 
 ward had only done very unbecomingly — but his 
 silence indicated that he did not immediately for- 
 give it. 
 
 THE END OF VOLUME 
 
 S. Gosnell, Printer, Little Queen Street, Hclborn. 
 

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