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Ebook has 586 lines and 43419 words, and 12 pages
"How are you feeling to-day?" said Flora . . . Frontispiece
Slowly, very slowly, she descended from the carriage
She threw herself on her mother's bosom
"Flora, my love, has anything occurred to distress you?" said the baronet
"Well, there certainly is a charm in the country!" exclaimed Ada Murray, as, with the assistance of the hand of her companion, she sprang lightly down from a stile on the soft daisy-spangled grass beneath.
"Well, I am afraid that I must plead guilty to knowing very little more of rural life than I have gathered from, 'Let me Wander not Unseen.' Ever since I came down here I have been looking out for the shepherds telling tales 'under the hawthorn,' and the village maidens dancing to the sound of the rebeck; but no livelier piece of gaiety can I hear of than a feast to the school-children in a field! I suppose that you could not have archery here?" she added, suddenly, as the thought crossed her mind.
"Oh yes; we have an old bow and some arrows at home, that belonged to my brother."
"Oh, that's not what I mean," replied Ada, laughing; "bows and arrows do not make an archery-meeting, they are a mere excuse for drawing people together. But you don't seem to have any neighbours?"
"How can you say so?" cried Flora, playfully, pointing to a village on their right, nestling amidst elm-trees, above which the spire of a little church gleamed in the evening sun.
"You will not understand me, you malicious little thing! You don't call visiting old women and sickly children, and questioning a prim class of tidy girls in a school-room, seeing anything of society? Have you no neighbours in your own rank of life within ten miles round?"
"Not many," replied Flora; "but a few. There's the clergyman--you have seen him--good old Mr. Ward--"
"Oh yes, I have seen him,--the bald-headed little man, with such a benevolent look and patronising smile, that I quite expected him to pat me on the head and say, 'There's a good little dear!'"
"Naughty little dear, I should say," laughed Flora. "Oh, he is such a kind old friend, and preaches so beautifully, I don't know what we should do without him. We have known him and his dear old lady so long--he was a school-fellow of my dear father. Then there's Captain Lepine--"
"A captain! that sounds more lively. Is he an agreeable individual?"
"Yes; he takes care of my garden, and brings me cuttings of his roses. He's an invalid--"
"Interesting of course."
"And he lost a leg in battle--"
"I hope that he does not stump about on a wooden one; one could hardly stand that, even in a romance. I suppose that he was wounded at Sobraon, or some of those Indian battles with unpronounceable names?"
"No; he was wounded at Navarino."
"Navarino!" exclaimed Ada, with affected horror; "then he must be a century old at the least! Does no one live in this place under eighty years of age?"
"Yes; the doctor and his wife, and half-a-dozen little ones, the eldest not out of the school-room."
"And nobody besides?"
"Mrs. Lacy, the widow of a banker, who occupies the white house which you observe yonder; but she does not see a great deal of society."
"I should think not," observed Ada, drily. "It is a case of 'the Spanish fleet thou canst not see, for it is not in sight.'"
"And she is often ill--"
"With ennui, no doubt."
"Ah! and I was forgetting old Miss Butterfield; we passed her just as we turned into the fields."
"Almost bent into a hoop, like an old witch, and dressed after the fashion of our great-grandmothers. If she had only sported a red cloak in addition to her poke-bonnet, I should have gone and asked her to tell my fortune!"
"Fie! fie! how can you talk so?" cried Flora.
"Well, well, my good coz," exclaimed Ada, as she threw herself down on the roots of a gnarled oak, which, green with moss, offered a tempting seat; "I can only say that I consider you buried alive here--quite buried alive!" she repeated with emphasis, plucking a daisy and pulling it to pieces; "and you so charming and fair, I am always fancying how Eddis would paint you, or whether you have not sat to him already, you are so like one of his soft, saintly beauties!"
"Don't be so absurd," said Flora, colouring.
"Ah! that was all that was wanting, a little heightened blush on the pale white rose," cried Ada, looking with real admiration, perhaps not unmixed with envy, at the fair delicate features before her; for the gipsy hat which Flora wore had fallen back on her shoulders, and as the breeze played amongst her auburn tresses, and the shadow of the young leaves fell on her gentle brow, she looked one whom to behold was to love.
"Come, come," said Flora, willing to change the conversation, which embarrassed her at the time, though, sooth to say, she found her mind frequently recurring to it afterwards, and with no disagreeable sensation; "if you think that to live here is so dreadful, how is it that you can submit for a whole fortnight to be 'buried alive' in the country?"
"Well, my dear, I must not take credit for too sublime heroism. The London season had hardly commenced, not a single dance was in view. I think that the melody of all your nightingales, and the perfume of your flowers, would hardly have tempted me away after Easter."
"And what are the delights which you prize so much?" inquired Flora, with some little curiosity. "You know that I have never spent two days together from my home, that I know nothing of what passes in the world, that though I was born in London, I was so young when we left Golden Square--"
"Golden Square! my dear, never mention such a place, nobody lives in Golden Square."
Flora coloured again, and felt uncomfortable, she scarcely knew why.
"You asked me," continued Ada, "what are the delights of town. It is hard to describe them, they are so utterly different from any which you experience here. Bustle and noise, incessant rattling of carriages and thundering raps at the door, late breakfasts--perhaps in bed--dinner at the hour of your supper; and when you, innocent dear, are retiring to rest, the maid is placing the flowers in my hair, and I am off in a flutter of muslin or tulle, to mount step by step a crowded staircase, and enter some room where it is impossible to move, and barely possible to breathe!"
"And this night after night?" inquired Flora.
"Yes, night after night; that is to say, unless the season is a dull one."
"And do you not feel knocked up in the morning?"
"Well, not inclined for a long country walk through fields garnished with stiles, nor for teaching stupid children in a school, nor for listening to a very sober, sensible book, such as that to which my dear good aunt is treating us; but just inclined to rest on a sofa with a diverting novel in my hand, to chat to amusing visitors, or to fill up the time till dinner with a concert or a botanical f?te."
"Ah! these are what I should enjoy," cried Flora; "I am so fond of music and of flowers."
"Dear simplicity, do you imagine that any one goes to a concert to listen, or to a garden to look at the flowers? You go to talk, and to see your friends, and quiz the company, and--kill time!"
"And do you never grow weary?" asked Flora,
"Weary; yes, half tired to death, quite ennuy?e; but then the only way to restore one's jaded spirits is to plunge deeper into gaiety; the excitement, and the bustle, and the diversion, become quite a necessity at last."
"It reminds me--but I'll not say of what it reminds me."
"Not say? but you must, and shall. What does it remind you of, little philosopher?"
"The craving which some very vulgar people, to whom I should never dream of comparing my friends, have for another kind of stimulant."
"It is a sort of intoxication, you mean," said Ada, gaily. "I will not deny it; a very pleasant sort of intoxication. I wish that you would come to Grosvenor Square and try it."
Flora gently shook her head.
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