t a I E) RA FlY OF THL UN IVER.SITY or ILLINOIS OU'2-t^ Digitized by tine Internet Archive in 2009 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaigh http://www.archive.org/details/feliciasdowry01oked FELICIA'S DOWRY. BY MRS. FITZMAURICE OKEDEN. m THREE VOLUMES. VOL. L LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1866. The. right of Translation in reserved LONDON PIUNTICD BV MAGDONALD AND TUGWELL, BLENHEIM HOU6J3, BLENHEIM STREET, OXFORD STREET. ^ s CHAPTER I. EARLY ATTACHMENTS. ^^ *' TTPON my word, you are vastly enter- taining, ladies!'' Mr. Meriton re- marked, during the performance of a tremen- dous yawn; which yawn, whenever executed by Mr. Meriton, must be understood from j; the outset of this chapter as indicative not of weariness or even indigestion, but of a high t amount of displeasure and otherwise unex- pressed disgust. Mr. Meriton's yawns were -perfectly understood in his family circle. . " Upon my word — you are vastly — enter- ^ taining, ladies!'' jj " It has been rather a fatiguing day," ob- ^; VOL. I. B 0/ 1^ Felicia's dowry. served his wife, suffering her work to descend upon her lap, and permitting herself only the slightest glance in the direction of her daughters, one of whom was lazily crocheting as she leaned back in an arm-chair, while the other bent in silence over her pencil drawing. " One might really suppose that when country neighbours meditate a congratulatory visit, they organize a general meeting at the house of the sufferer. We suffered a good deal in that way this afternoon." "Oh!'' (in the centre of another yawn), " who had you here?" Mrs. Meriton drew a dainty filagree basket towards her. " Here are," she said, " quite a little heap of cards for you. Amongst others. Lord and Lady Melford and the Elliots." " The bevy of spinsters! Pray was Made- moiselle Marguerite of the sisterhood?" " Yes, Miss Elliot and Margaret. Sir Geof- Felicia's dowry. frey has goiity threatenings, and Ellen is gone to Stone again about her teeth, poor thing." ** Eather questionable taste, surely." Mrs. Merit on shrugged her shoulders the least in the world. Probably the gesture was intended to convey assent. Mr. Meriton un- derstood it so; and for some further time he sat rubbing his hands, playing with his diamond ring, and smiling to himself ; Mr. Meriton's smiles to himself not being par- ticularly pleasant to look at. At last he rose, and having graciously condescended to be a little witty at the expense of the sketch his youngest daughter was copying, betook him- self to his own study. Mr. Meriton was a barrister, and a fairly successful one. His own county thought great things of him, and even in London clever persons could not gracefully deny cleverness to a man more successful than themselves. b2 4 Felicia's dowry. He had married in rather early life a pretty little lady, who was the niece of a viscount, and who had live? with him happily enough for some years in a modest locality (not, how- ever, very far removed from Eaton and Bel- grave Squares), amusing herself amongst her own friends, occupying herself with her own nursery, and frequently — that is to say, on every occasion offered by debility, measles, whooping-coughs, &c. &c. — visiting the neigh- bourhood in which, now that measles, whoop- ing-coughs, and, it may be presumed, debility were at an end, Mr. Meriton had bought a place of some pretension, and settled down to the enjoyment of one or two respectable and rather lucrative county posts, the cultivating of county society, and the marrying and putting forward of his sons and daughters in the county or elsewhere. Of these sons and daughters there had in- FELICIA S DOWRY. 5 deed grown up but five; and perhaps Mr. Meriton felt himself the more at liberty to be sarcastic on the subject of " spinsters/' because his own eldest girl had been married at seven- teen, almost out of the school-room, by a young cavalry officer who had met her at her first ball. This, however, was five years ago. Olivia Fanshawe was the mother of three children; and there was still a Miss Meriton, who most certainly would not marry at seven- teen ; and a Miss Adela Meriton, who very probably might not do so. It was the mar- riage in London, within the last few days, of the eldest son, Mr. Francis Meriton, that had occasioned the congratulatory visits we have heard of ; but before noticing this more par- ticularly, we desire to say a few words of '' the Elliots," whose names have been already before the reader. They were four sisters, the daughters of a 6 FELICIA'S DOWRY. widowed baronet of ancient descent and fine estate, three of whom were no longer in their first youth. So beautiful had they been, so charming were they still, so popular in the neighbourhood, so beloved and respected by all those whose love and respect were worth having, and so secure of modest fortunes of their own, that the county marvelled they remained the Misses Elliot. The third, it is true, had lately become, through an accident which had resulted in weakness of the spine, a confirmed invalid; but there were yet to be seen, at all the assemblings of the neighbour- hood, Elizabeth, Ellen, and — at a distance of six years from the last — Margaret, recalling to many minds the charming looks of Elizabeth, the most beautiful of all. Brilliant in an unusual degree had been the promise of this eldest sister's early womanhood. The delight and darliug of the very core of FELICIA S DOWRY. 7 her father's heart, the idol of his household, the helle of the county, the beauty of her first London season — everywhere affection and ad- miration surrounded her. , If the pride of Sir Geoffrey in his daughter had not already reached its climax, it must have done so when Lady Jane Lorimer, the sister of his wife and the London chaperone of Elizabeth, arrived in shire, and related to him the triumphs of her niece in the great and gay world. It might have been happier for the Miss Elliots had Lady Jane been the aunt and chaperone of any other young ladies rather than their own; for when, a few weeks after Elizabeth's return home, a young clergyman, nephew of my Lord Melford, reading for orders in a little village in the next county, arrived on a visit at Melford Castle, and forth- with fell in love with her, it was to Lady Jane that Sir Geoffrey applied in his per- 8 FELICIA'S DOWRY. plexity, and referred the young curate's not very brilliant proposals. Sir Geoffrey sin- cerely wished to act for the best. He desired his daughter's happiness; he was most un- worldly himself, but he supposed there was a proper worldly standard for these sort of things. Lady Jane was the sister of his dead wife; she was Elizabeth's nearest female rela- tion competent to advise. She was an amiable woman, she was a woman of the world, she loved Elizabeth. The baronet put in a word for the young lover. His family and character were unexceptionable; he worshipped Eliza- beth, and Elizabeth (in her serene way) seemed not altogether indifferent to his wor- ship. He had prospects in the Church — small ones — Sir Geoffrey left it to Lady Jane. There was at least no suspense. Before the Grange supposed that its letter could have reached Lady Jane, Lady Jane reached the FELICIA'S DOWRY. d Grange. No, there was no suspense. It was an ineligible proposal, not to be entertained for a moment. Sir Geoffrey was made a little ashamed of having entertained it. The young clergyman, nephew of Lord Melford, reading for orders in the next county, was refused. And Elizabeth — well, the day of sensation novels had not dawned. She had not learnt that to adhere to a love or a hate, autho- rised or unauthorised, is a virtue. She was modest and diffident. In proportion to the indecision of Sir Geoffrey before Lady Jane had pronounced, was his decision now ; and Sir Geoffrey had been too kind a father not to be entitled, according to Elizabeth's old- world notions, to some consideration. Nor did she think herself the least a '^ Jephtha's daughter," or any sort of heroine. Most pro- bably she had not even made up her mind that this was to be the love of her life, nor 10 Felicia's dowry. registered a vow of perpetual celibacy in her heart ; and when the young clergyman, nephew of Lord Melford, resenting his dis- missal, expressed to the startled Lady Jane something nearly amounting to an opinion that her niece might " go farther and fare worse," and this opinion was forwarded to Elizabeth, Elizabeth dried her eyes, and felt that he had resented his dismissal improperly. Whether, however, her affection had from the first been more deeply engaged than Sir Geoffrey or Lady Jane had suspected — whe- ther the name that Horace Grant soon began to make for himself in a crowded proprietary chapel in London (for which he had ex- changed the modest family living held for him till he entered the Church) was foster- ing that affection or adding to her regret — whether no second wooer came to displace the memory of the first — the brilliant star of Felicia's dowry. 11 Elizabeth commenced to pale a little from the date of Horace Grant's rejection. Ellen came out, and then Anne, each with much beauty and promise of her own, if a little inferior to that of the eldest sister ; and there were admirers, and from time to time rumours of more than admiration, and yet the lovelier elder sister's maiden destiny seemed to attach itself to them. No very wealthy aspirants were spoken of ; and those whose worldly prospects were as yet unascer- tained, probably remembered the rejection of one whose pretensions had been of a higher order than their own, and were deterred by the remembrance from exposing themselves to similar mortification. At a distance of exactly ten years from the date of Miss Elliot's first ball, took place the introduction of Margaret to the county on a similar occasion; and for some time 12 Felicia's dowry. after this it seemed as if a different destiny from that of her sisters' awaited her. Mr. Francis Meriton was now twenty-three, and was studying for the bar ; and, an interval in his studies permitting him a visit to the paternal roof, he found very agreeable occupa- tion in walking, riding, singing, and playing ^croquet with the beautiful Margaret Elliot, who five years ago had charmed all eyes, and more especially his own, in the capacity of juvenile bridesmaid to Olivia Meriton, and who had now progressed into a grown-up young lady, walking, riding, singing, and playing croquet in conjunction witli his sisters Kate and Adela. It must not, in- deed, be supposed that in these five interven- ing years the juvenile bridesmaid and the young aspirant to forensic greatness had never met. It was quite otherwise ; and to say behind the back of the elder Mr. Meriton Felicia's dowry. 13 what one would not care to say before his face, it was rather the friendsliip that had very naturally grown up between young per- sons thrown at intervals pretty frequently together in the course of these five years, than any very unquestionable claim possessed by a Mr. Francis Meriton to be the assiduous admirer of a Miss Elliot, and a county belle, that inclined the county to suppose that his assiduity would be rewarded with success. That any Meriton objections would be raised it never entered the head of the county to imagine ; and therefore, as the young man was devoted, as the young lady permitted his devotion, and as poor Sir Geoffrey had to atone for a mistake in the case of his eldest and dearest daughter, which had deprived her of the affection of a man she perhaps loved, and who was now next heir to Lord Melford, and a Dean, the county had good-naturedly 14 Felicia's dowry. made up its mind that there would be a wed- ding at the Grange at last. The county had, however, reckoned — not exactly " without its host ;" but — since the Meritons were comparatively new people — without what we may call its guest. The county had reckoned without Mr. Meri- ton. One evening, after a little lively discussion had taken place between Mr. Francis and his sisters and mother, relative to a croquet practice arranged to commence on the follow- ing day at 11 A.M., on Mr. Meriton's lawn, the latter gentleman raised his eyes over his newspaper, and said to his wife, taking her rather by surprise, " Has it occurred to you that it m'ay be desirable these croquet practices should take place a little less frequently ?" "No, indeed! Why?" Felicia's dowry. 15 " Has it occurred to you that it may be desirable they should include the fourth Miss Elliot a little less frequently ? '' " Eeally, no.'^ *' Upon my word, I credited you with greater discernment. The young lady is setting her cap at Frank." " Oh ! all the young ladies set their caps at Frank ; he is the most popular creature. And young men, you know, are apt to flirt a little with their sisters' friends. I have not the least idea that Frank thinks at all particularly of Margaret Elliot." " I am delighted to hear it. Miss Margaret Elliot divides, at her father's death, thirty thousand pounds with her three sisters. Your son, independently of what • it may be my pleasure to give him, has, during my life, his prospects at the bar." " Of course ; such a thing," replied Mrs. 16 Felicia's dowry. Meriton, in a tone that was a little alarmed — " such a thing is not to be thought of." " Frank," said her husband, " with his singing, and his verses, and his popularity, will never sit upon the woolsack. I am rejoiced, therefore, to hear that the affair has gone no further. Nevertheless, these festive gatherings may be moderated a little with advantage to all parties ; and to prevent the possibility of future mischief, let Frank dis- tinctly understand that if he ever marries Miss Margaret Elliot, he will do so indepen- dently of my assistance and consent." The breakfast hour on the following morning was a trying one to Mrs. Meriton. The young people were in such very high spirits, and talking a good deal that would have been nonsense at any time, but was, poor Mrs. Meriton felt, peculiarly infelicitous Felicia's dowry. 17 nonsense at the present moment. Unlimited croquet they chattered of, as a matter of course, and this might perhaps have been endured ; but luncheon was named quite as a necessary consequence, a ride in the cool of the evening all but settled, and even an impromptu soiree introduced in an easy manner by Mr. Francis, and not at all discouraged by his sisters. In the happiest ignorance of the conspiracy against them- selves, of which their mother was au fait, they perfectly ignored the not pleasant smile with which Mr. Meriton bent low over his plate, as referring to some little matter between their respected parents, into which it was no part of their duty to inquire. Ellen and Margaret Elliot were to arrive at half-past ten, that they might rest a little after their Avalk before commencing the VOL. I. C 18 FELICIA'S DOWRY. serious business of the day ; and the son of the vicar of the parish, an infatuated croquet phiyer, thirty minutes afterwards. Breakfast at Elm Green was neither a very early nor an unsubstantial meal. Mr. Meriton had papers, letters, sometimes even a book, and broke his fast deliberately. Mr. Francis played a knife and fork, whose duties could by no means be performed with brevity. The half hour was near at hand, and Mrs. Meriton became almost evidently anxious and uneasy. The head of the family rose at last. Mr. Francis had already more than once, on the pretence of a passing cloud — which, however, could not easily have been supposed to be- token rain — been at the window ; and now, on the exit of his father, threw up the sash and gazed unrestrictedly down the avenue. The young ladies shook out the folds of their foulards, and one after the other departed. FELICIA'S DOWRY. 19 At last Mrs. Meriton, who was locking the tea- poy, was alone with her son. ^* My dear Frank, may I speak with you for a minute ?" Mr. Francis's watch was in his hand. '' For six, my dear mother. When those have elapsed, you may perhaps see me vanish," he exclaimed, theatrically flinging forth his hand in the direction of the avenue, ^^ into air !" '' My dear fellow, be serious — yet I am so glad you are not. Do you know, your father is a little uneasy — I was sure there was no cause — about Margaret Elliot." "Eh?" " He fancies all you young people are being together a good deal, and that it may end in falling in love, perhaps, imprudently." " Imprudently ?" " In a way he would not approve." c 2 20 FELICIA'S DOWRY. There was a silence. Mrs. Meriton's keys were not very steady in her hand, and Frank looked straight and fixedly through the win- dow at which he stood. When he spoke again it was without turning his head. ^^Has my father," he said, in a voice 'much altered and constrained, *^ desired you to speak to me on this subject ?" ^' Well— yes— he '' '^Has my father said I shall not marry Margaret ?" " My dear boy, as to shall, you are your own master. But he has told me — there is no kindness in concealing it — to let you understand distinctly that if you ever do marry her, it will be without his assistance or consent.'^ ''Why is this?" '' Only on the score of money, of course." " Miss Elliot is not penniless." Felicia's dowry. 21 *^ Oh, no, not penniless ! She has a small fortune. But you have none ; and, you see, you have not been very industrious, and your father is not extremely sanguine of your great success at the bar. It is no use concealing that \fe has spoken very distinctly." Frank walked away from the window to the fire-place. ^' Well, mother," he presently said, " you have spoken in time — in time, at least, for her. I should probably have made my brilliant proposal to her to-day before we parted. Tell my father so, and that now, at least, I know how I stand, and how much I have to expect from him." *' Frank — you will do nothing rash ?" ** Nothing in the sense you mean. I am not going to run away with Miss Elliot, even supposing she would run away with me, which she most certainly would not. No, I throw 22 Felicia's dowry. happiness to the winds. I shall marry some old woman for her money." " My dear Frank," said his mother, " it need not be an old woman !" 23 CHAPTER 11. FRANK MERITON MARRIES. T17ELL, and it was not an old woman. Something more than a year after this little conversation between Mrs. Meriton and her son, the following letter from the latter was opened by Mr. Meriton at the family breakfast-table : — " Temple, June 3rd. " My dear Sir, " I write to ask in what way you may be disposed to enable me to meet, as to money matters, the friends of a lady who has done me the honour to accept the offer of my hand. She has sixty thousand pounds, but I presume you will not wish her to buy my 24 Felicia's dowry. coats and boots. She is the daughter of one solicitor, and the niece of another. The first is dead, and the last (who is likewise her guardian) treats me with considerable civil- ity. I beg a reply at your earliest leisure, and remain, " Sincerely yours, ''J. Darrell Meriton." " P.S. — Love to my mother and the girls. Is Young England at home with you ? The lady's name is Dunkin,'' This was great news at Elm Green, entertained, however, in consequence of the scarcity of detail, and for certain other rea- sons, with something of mixed satisfaction on the part of the ladies of the family. Mr. Meriton's reply was almost immediate, and as follows : — PELICIA S DOWRY. 2o " Elm Green, June 3rd. " My dear Frank, " Certainly I should not wish your wife to buy your coats and boots. I shall be happy to place your present allow- ance on a settled footing, to pay any trifle that you may owe " (Frank, to do him justice, had never had a turn for debt) ; '* and, since I am not aware that Miss Dunkin has a house of her own, or that any part of her money has been invested in land, I will further give you up Coleworth for a country residence. I mean, of course, the house and garden, and perhaps a bit of grass for a cow ; but you had better see Jones. I will write him a line by this post. I hope to be in town in about a fortnight, and to be introduced to the young lady. Mamma and the girls will write their congratulations. Young England is, I am 26 FELICIA'S DOWRY. glad to sav, gone back to Dr. Trimmer. '* Yours affectionately, ^^F. H. Meriton." So Frank saw Jones, and Jones saw Mr. Dunkin ; and at the end of a fortnight Mr. Meriton went up to London, and saw both Mr. Dunkin and the lady, and was very polite and complimentary ; and then wrote home and told his wife that the future Mrs. Francis Meriton was nothing much to look at, unless quantity might be allowed to make up for quality. It turned out that Mr. Meriton was the only one of the Elm Green party, saving and excepting Frank himself, who did see the bride-elect as Miss Dunkin. On the eve of a visit to be made by her to the family of her futiir, the wife of her uncle fell ill, and the visit was postponed. Mrs. Dunkin died. Felicia's dowry. 27 The widower had business, consequent on her death, to transact in Ireland, and his house was no longer either a suitable home for a young girl, or a proper place for wedding festivities. Under these circumstances, the immediate quiet marriage of his niece was decided on. The good old gentleman, in the midst of his mourning and his desolation, discharged the last duty of giving her away. Her single bridesmaid was her friend of many years standing, the daughter of Mr. Dunkin's partner. " Jones '^ represented the elder Mr. Meriton ; and the bridegroom was at- tended to church by no less a personage than the young viscount, his cousin. A little scheme of six weeks in Paris, pro- jected by Frank, had found no favour in Blankshire. The bride was inexperienced — unused to society — was only eighteen — could 28 Felicia's dowry. hardly be too soon within the influence of her husband's family. Coleworth would be ready for them by the middle of August, and the intervening month might very well be spent in the Isle of Wight, or in visiting the English lakes. Frank was talked over ; per- haps, too, he reminded himself that the costly toilettes of his fiancee were less faultless in taste than those to which his sisters had ac- customed his eye, and that her French accent was really not Parisian. More probably, however, he was, as I have said, " talked over." The young lady, left so narrow an alternative, and having all a young lady's love of the sea, which she had never seen otherwise than in Heme Bay, elected for a month in the Isle of Wight. And this brings me to the moment at which my story opens. The young couple were in the Isle of Wight, and the family Felicia's dowry. 29 of the bridegroom was '^ sulFering " the con- gratulatory visits of its friends. So far all was well, for one may presume that, under the circumstances, the suffering was very endurable. Coleworth, at a distance of barely a mile and a half from Elm Green, was being made habitable — habitable, Mr. Meriton was fond of saying easily, " for young beginners ; " but the neighbourhood could permit itself to imagine that a lady ^'beginning" on sixty thousand pounds of her own might entertain different notions of ^^ habitable," and of Coleworth, from those of the elder Mr. Meriton. To say truth, when all was done that could be done, or, at any rate, all that the elder Mr. Meriton thought fit to do, it was not an extremely desirable residence. But it was just now summer, and Mrs. Meriton said to her friends, that of course Mr. and Mrs. Francis Meriton's home 30 Felicia's DOWRY. would be for the present in London. To her daughters she said, that, as for the winter, Frank and Felicia would spend their Christ- mas with them, and that it was very nice for such extremely young people to have a country-house of their own at all. And when Adela replied, " Yes, mamma, and very nice for papa to have the house kept dry and the garden in order without having to do it him- self; you know he was always saying they cost more than they were worth — very nice for all parties!" Mrs. Meriton quite properly paid no attention to the reply. The really charming part of the business was that Frank wrote from Eyde — Cowes — (I have not an idea which) — quite happily — quite in high spirits — ^because you see, all things considered, it might have been other- wise. He was really a good-tempered, bright- natured young fellow, without any turn for Felicia's dowry. 31 malice or discontent. So he wrote easy, con- fiding letters to his father on the subject of Coleworth; invented little proper messages from Mrs. Frank to his mother, such as mothers and Mrs. Franks may imagine ; and rattled away at score to the girls. Let him have a good croquet-ground, and a room somewhere or other from which they could, at the shortest possible notice, eject the furniture for a dance, and he should be satisfied. He gave them carte blanche as to all the rest. He should do nothing at Cole- worth but play croquet and dance — except, of course, hunt and shoot a little ; and he was glad to say that Felicia was turning out a first-rate horsewoman. She did not take to croquet quite as he could wish ; but then tliere was lots of yachting going on ; and if Fee were not on a horse she must be on the water. What he should do was just to get 32 Felicia's dowry. a pleasant set together, ^^ without any form, you know, and one or other of the girls must always be at Coleworth — not backwards and forwards, but to sleep, and that sort of thing — always." So they must not be short of bed-rooms. Fee and he wanted nothing fine, but only to be all awfully jolly. *^ Only, I suppose," he wound up by saying, "you young women will be taking to your- selves husbands in no time, which would spoil everything. However, * sufficient to the day' — and, by-the-bye, isn't there somewhere or other a Miss Fanshawe beginning to grow up ?" And in one of those letters, I am delighted to say, he asked whether Margaret Elliot was getting married ? Which was, you see, ex- actly the proper question for a young Bene- dict to ask with respect to an old flame. 33 CHAPTER III. VEXATION AND A DEBUTANTE. QO far, as I have said, all was well. But all was not so well when, within a morn- ing or two of the day fixed for the arrival of the newly-married pair at Elm Green, a few lines were received from Frank in postpone- ment of the visit. He now wrote in a manner half-easy, half-conscious. " They found, ^^ he said, " that the house they were in might be had for three weeks longer. Felicia's health had really suffered from attendance on her aunt during her illness, and the sea-breezes were so manifestly assisting her to recover it, that he had been quite glad to close with the VOL. I. D 34 FELICIA'S DOWRY. offer — about the house, he meant. He should bring her at the end of that time into Blank- shire, so blooming that his mother would for- give them the delay. The partridges were a terrible business, but Belgravia was down at Brockley, and, like a right good fellow, had offered him a day's shooting as often as he liked to go across. This would be some com- pensation for the sacrifice he was making. Fee and he were to go to Brockley on the last day of the month, for the 1st and 2nd." What effect the ^^ bloom" of Mrs. Francis Meriton might have in softening the displeasure of Mrs. Meriton remained, of course, to be proved. Obviously there was displeasure to be softened. Mr. Meriton continued his break- fast vigorously ; but mamma held high her head, and looked redder than her daughters were at all accustomed to see her look. She withheld any remarks, however ; — a reticence Felicia's dowry. 35 the young people could hardly, perhaps, be expected to imitate. " Mamma," exclaimed Adela, after a rapid survey of the family circle, *^ they ought to have come. It is so disappointing !'* *^ As to the illness," said ^' Young England," who rejoiced in the name of Tom, and was prolonging his holidays by a timely whooping- cough, " that is all bosh." " I am sure I hope so !" observed the elder Miss Meriton. ^^ Coleworth would never suit an ailing person." " And a person who fancied herself ailing," smartly remarked Adela, ^' would never suit Coleworth." '^ The to-do we have made," added the same young person, ^^to get the house ready!" "And," ejaculated Tom, "the chokings I have had over that blessed croquet ground." " Which is now," observed Miss Meriton, D 2 36 Felicia's dowry. '^ in such admirable order. It really is not nice ; they should have made a point of com- ing." " They should have come,'^ reiterated Adela. " I now wish we had said less about ex- pecting them/' pursued the elder sister. " Everybody knows that our dinner-party on Tuesday was intended to introduce Mrs. Frank to the neighbourhood. She must be excessively — Frank, at least, mamma, should have known better. It is provoking — it is ex- tremely provoking !" " It is selfish '^ " A little patience, ladies !" said Mr. Meri- ton. " The ladies '' were surprised. They had been believing him more contrarie than them- selves. They had been supposing themselves the mouth-pieces of his displeasure, and there- FELICIA'S DOWRY. 37 fore had perhaps rather out-spoken their own. It was a relief to be called to order. They would have done well to have imitated the discreet silence of their parents ; but their discernment was not extraordinary. Youth, moreover, is voluble, and country youth, in expectation of visitors, especially voluble ; so, after a few moments, they again set off on what Frank might at this moment have called " another tack." The flower-beds, at any rate, would have more time, and the pink room might now be furnished. It was certainly nice for Frank and Lord Belgravia to be such good friends. They wondered what people were staying at Brockley — it could not be a mere bachelors' party, they supposed, since Frank took his wife ; and whether Lord Belgravia was much over at Cowes ; he was not a yachting man, they thought. The pink room must be 88 Felicia's dowry. furnished ; with Frank's rough-and-ready notions of hospitality, he might even be ask- ing Lord Belgravia down to Coleworth. Here a yawn from Mr. Meriton — one of Mr. Meriton's yawns — terminated the dis- cussion, and sent the young ladies soon after from the breakfast-room. But all this was nothing to the scene in that breakfast-room one morning, three weeks after, when a letter, at which Mr. Meriton's countenance changed remarkably, was opened by that gentleman, and read through silently to the end. There was no yawning then. "From Frank?" asked his wife, with a tolerably easy voice, but an anxious eye. Mr. Meriton handed the letter to his ejdest daughter, for transmission to the head of the table. " He is mad ! — stark, staring mad ! Star- ing mad, by heaven !" Felicia's dowry. 39 And Mr. Meriton forgot his breakfast, and turned a little round on his chair, and, with his elbow on the back of it, he picked his teeth. The letter was as follows : *' My dear Sir, " I write you and my mother a hurried line — in fact, it is at the eleventh hour, and before you receive it we shall be off terra firma. Since yesterday's post we have been offered a berth in Belgravia's yacht — a splendid little craft, 250 tons, bound for the Mediterranean, and to sail with sunrise to- morrow morning. Of course we have jumped at it. Such a chance may not occur again in a fellow's lifetime. Our plan is a cruise in the ^ tideless sea,' a winter at Naples, or perhaps Nice, and to return by Paris in the spring. But I will drop you a line the first oppor- tunity, — from Gibraltar, if not before, and F. 40 Felicia's dowry. will write to the girls. With much love to all, '^ Yours affectionately, " Frank D. Meriton." ^' P.S. — ^A term or so more or less will not greatly signify, if, indeed, I keep the re- maining one at all, which I rather think I shall noty " Mamma ! — mamma !" exclaimed Adela, as a single tear fell on her mother's cheek. '' Mamma !" said Kate. " Nothing, my dears, only Frank " Mr. Meriton was still half turned from the hreakfast-table, still with his elbow on the back of his chair, still picking his teeth, and still gazing through the window on vacancy. "Frank, mamma?" "Your brother is going — gone — to the Mediterranean." Felicia's dowry. 41 " To the Mediterranean !" " In Lord Belgravia's yacht." '' Without Felicia ?" *^0h! no." " Go7iey mamma ?" " Yes, gone. They sailed this morning." Mr. Meriton rose from his chair. He took up the letter. " He is mad !" he said, as he folded it thoughtfully, preparatory to quitting the room. ^' I wish — by God ! I wish " ' He did not say what he wished. Perhaps he wished that Margaret Elliot was his son's wife. At least Frank was not worse than his word. He did drop his father a line from Gibraltar. Moreover, Mrs. Frank wrote rather a nice little letter from Malta to Mrs. Meriton, and again another from Corfu. Frank, too, when they were located at 42 Felicia's DOWRY. Naples for the winter, sent a pleasant sum- mary of all their doings to his sisters, and enclosed photo's of himself and Lord Belgra- via, in the costume of Neapolitan fishermen. So Elm Green was in some little degree appeased ; and, besides, it had by this time other things to think of than Mr. and Mrs. Francis Meriton. For Adela had in October completed her seventeenth year, and her subsequent debut at the winter county ball had been a great success — a far greater one than the '^ coming out " of Kate three years before. This the parents acknowledged to themselves, and even to each other. There were ten minutes after breakfast, in which Mrs. Meriton usually made a visit to her husband's library, for a little consultation on the subject of dinner ; for Mr. Meriton was a man who, now that he had leisure to eat a dinner, liked to know what it was going to Felicia's dowry. 43 be. And in these ten minutes it was that little family confidences, rather apart from their daughters, were sometimes exchanged. On the morning succeeding the ball, when fish, and cutlets, and game had been arranged, they spoke of Adela. "Well," said Mr. Meriton, gleefully rub- bing his hands, " make hay while the sun shines. Adela is older now than Olivia was when she married. '^ " But we never,'' said mamma, *' could part with a second daughter so early. Adela, dear child, is so happy with us, and we never could allow her to go to India as Olivia did." " To India ! — no, I think Adela may do better than India." " To say the truth, I think perhaps she may." " I don't care much to push these things," 44 FELICIA'S DOWRY. observed Mr. Meriton, presently ; '^ but what do you say to having a dinner party one day next week, and asking young Beauchamp to it?'' *' Oh ! yes — why not ? I think it would be a very proper acknowledgment of his civility.'' " Exactly. And perhaps a hop after it." *^ Charming !" " Well, settle about it with the girls." Now, ^* young Beauchamp " was the only son of a Mr. Wilbraham Beauchamp, one of the members for the county, and a gentleman of some ten or twelve thousand a year. He was therefore an eligible admirer, and he had rather demonstratively admired Adela. So mamma '^ settled with the girls " about it, and the result was a rather brilliant dinner- party, and a dance, which outgrew all the recognised limits of a "hop," and only Felicia's dowry. 45 stopped short of the design and grandeur of a ball. These themselves, however, resulted in nothing particular — only, in general, in the increased popularity of the Misses Meriton and Elm Green. Inevitable February arrived, and the in- exorable meeting of Parliament ; and the elder Mr. Beauchamp, with his wife, his son, and a plain young lady, who was his niece and his ward, made their annual exchange of Ranford Manor for a certain dingy house in May Fair, in which they were accustomed to pass half the year ; and still young Beau- champ had not spoken. So many others of the young gentlemen of the county had, how- ever, followed suit in the matter of admiration, that Miss Adela was very easy in beholding his departure : and her parents were at least able to affect an equal unconcern. Of these young gentlemen there were some 46 Felicia's dowry. who, if they had fewer thousands than those prospective ones of young Beauchamp, had at least greater agreeability ; and it may, I think, allowably be supposed that, as the spring ad- vanced, the metropolitan tendencies (in the way of duty or pleasure, as the case might be) of some of these, had the effect of developing certain latent aspirations of Kate and Adela after a London season. That untirable waltzer, for instance, Captain Frederick Maitland, who had divided his steps between Elm Green and the Grange, and whose regiment was at Houn- slow,was returning to his duties; and Margaret Elliot was on the eve of a long visit to her aunt. Charley Forester, too, of whose political career the county prophesied great things, and who had been so wonderful in those charades, had just received some appointment or other, and was gone up with the silver trowel of family ministerial connection to lay Felicia's dowry. 47 the first stone of that career ; and the Misses Maitland, who, if they had not taken part in the charades, had at least been demonstrative admirers of the way in which they were acted, being already in town for the season, Kate and Adela, as they prepared for one of the first daylight dinners at Elm Green, felt themselves a little left behind. *^ Mamma,'' said Kate, "I never thought of such a thing before, but now that we are both come out, and Adela so much admired, how nice two or three months in London would be ! But I suppose it is out of the ques- tion r ^* Quite so, my dear," replied Mrs. Meri- ton. ^' Your father keeps up this place so liberally, that such a thing would at any time be impossible ; but more so than ever this year, for our winter expenses have been heavy." 48 Felicia's dowry. " I suppose so," said Kate with a sigh. " Now, if Frank had married Margaret Elliot, they would have had an elegant little home in London — everything about Margaret would always be that, at least — and they would have asked Adela to stay with them in the season; and Margaret would have worked little caps for her nursery, and sung Frank's verses to him ; and Adela would have gone to balls with Lady Jane." Mrs. Meriton gave a little smile, and then a little sigh. '^ What you say, my dear, is quite true; and I sometimes wish " She did not say what she wished. Per- haps she wished, as her husband had possibly wished on a former occasion, that Margaret Elliot were Mrs. Frank. 49 CHAPTER IV. FELICIA. A MIDST all the little vanities and rivalries, and expectations and aspirations of this too short winter at Elm Green, Frank and his bride had been, it must be owned, compara- tively little thought of ; but the time was now coming when they must again be the principal topic. Lord Belgravia and the yacht had long returned to England, and a letter had been received from Frank from Paris. The Meritons had, however, better information than they obtained from his letter. Lady Melford corresponded with some two or three old friends at Paris, and these all spoke of the success achieved in the society there by a young VOL. I. E oO Felicia's dowry. Mr. and Mrs. Darrell Meriton ; but especially by the lady, whose horsewomanship was the theme of the Faubourg, who brought a Nea- politan Count and a Sicilian Marchese in her train, and who had already, since her arrival in the French capital, a French Duke and a Russian Prince at her feet. The Elm Green ladies listened to as much of this as Lady Melford thought fit to impart, with naive astonishment ; and Mr. Meriton (as he would have listened to anything else from the lips of Lady Melford) with complacency ; but when her ladyship had departed, and Kate and Adela looked upon each other, and upon Mrs Meriton, and began, as was really natural, to com.ment on what they had heard, then the disgust, that was a large ingredient in one of Mr. Meriton's most prolonged yawns, reduced the party to immediate silence on the subject. But it is vain to say that what they had Felicia's dowry. 51 heard had not quickened the curiosity of the two still tolerably unsophisticated sisters of Frank with respect to Frank's wife. It would not be true. It had done so. " Young Beau- champ " was forgotten. Captain Frederick Maitland and Charley ^Forester were not French Dukes and Sicilian Marquises. Mar- garet Elliot descended to a mere dowdy. Here was this invisible sister-in-law — this underbred (so they now found they had con- sidered her) — this under-bred daughter of a London solicitor, whom Frank had married for her money, whose toilettes were in bad taste, and whose French accent even Frank had found fault with — with Paris at her feet. It was really a sensation ! I do not know how they would have endured a much longer suspense. Fortunately their patience was not severely tried. The week succeeding the visit of Lady Melford E 2 LIBRARY -— . ..r.A.'M est in NO»S 52 FELICIA'S DOWRY. brought a letter from Frank to his mother, in which he named a day for his and Felicia's arrival at either Elm Green or Coleworth, which ever would receive them. It was a pleasant letter. It said enough, and not too much, of their Parisian gaieties ; enough, and not too much of the reception that letters from Lord Belgravia and from Neapolitan friends had procured for them. It said they had seen heaps of things worth seeing since they left Cowes, and before they set foot in Paris. It implied that they had had sights and gaieties enough to last them for some time. It said not one word of London, or of " the season ;" and, on the whole, the in- ference to be drawn from it was, that they were not only coming to Coleworth for at least the summer, but coming to it with very plea- sant intentions, and a considerable appetite for quiet country life. Felicia's dowry. 53 Now, setting aside the non-allusion of Mr. Frank to any readings for the bar (and it had for some time been pretty generally under- stood at Elm Green that these were not to be thought any more of), this letter seemed to promise well; so well, that Kate and Adela were surprised to perceive that Mr. Meriton was bending over his plate with one of his not pleasant smiles. Mrs. Meriton had per- haps a key to that smile which the young ladies did not possess, or the use of which they at any rate did not understand. It is true, that the income produced by sixty thou- sand pounds is not utterly inexhaustible; that the young married couple — if they had lived rent-free in Lord Belgravia's yacht — had pro- bably got rid of a good deal of money at Naples and Florence; and that they were not likely to be recovering themselves, in that way, in Paris. Mr. Meriton, then, might think 54 Felicia's dowry. their return a less undoubted compliment to Coleworth than if it had taken place some months earlier. Kate and Adela could hardly be expected to arrive, of themselves, at all this. They sufficiently comprehended, how- ever, that their sister-in-law no longer stood in the place in their father's favour which he had at the period of her marriage, and for some little time after, been willing to accord her. They comprehended, too, that this might not be entirely concealed, on her arrival, from Mrs. Frank; and something of apprehension mingled with the delight with which they again began to bustle about little matters at Coleworth. There were no further delays or disappoint- ments. On a charming first of May, Mr. and Mrs. Francis Meriton were expected at Elm Green; and on a charming first of May they arrived. The elder Mr. Meriton received them Felicia's dowry. 55 with a tolerably good grace; but *' mamma" was all a ^^ mamma'' should be on such an occasion; and Kate and Adela, beyond their real affectionate joy at once more seeing their brother, were as ready to welcome and feter their new sister as any new sister could at all reasonably have desired. They had the greater merit in this, as it must be owned they were disappointed in the looks they had intended (since Lady Melford's visit) to be so proud of. After all, allowing for improvement in style, papa had given them a good idea of her. She had a very fine figure, and her face was pleasant, they thought — nothing more. The county standard of beauty was fair and statuesque. The Miss Elliots had skins like alabaster, and profiles like the " Greek Slave." The Miss Meritons' profiles were not quite so like the " Greek Slave," but they had inferior pretensions to the same line of feature, and 5Q Felicia's dowry. their complexions were blonde and delicate. Mrs. Frank's face was, on the contrary, rather wide than oval; her skin was opaque, her hair was a dark brown, and she had no nose in particular. This was, however, by day-light, and in her bonnet. Closed shutters and the lighted lamp told rather a different tale. Then it was perceived that if her skin were not like alabaster, it was very like cream; that her grey eyes could look extremely dark and brilliant, and that the fulness of her throat (which was not at all according to the county standard, that being rather slender and swan-like than full) was really quite in keeping with the magnificent chevelure coiled at the back of her head, and utterly beyond the suspicion which, in these days of '^ orna- mental hair," attached to the more elaborate plaits of the Miss Meritons. The last-named young ladies, then, modified Felicia's dowry. 57 their opinion a little. Felicia had magnificent hair — she had a fine figure — she dressed elegantly — she had brilliant eyes. Still she was not a beauty — certainly not a beauty. But Tom said she was " a stunner," and at any rate, a beauty to his taste. And when a rather gay dinner-party gave occasion for a fuller toilette, and some charming smiles, it turned out that she was a beauty to the taste of more than Tom. I have said that her papa-in-law received her with a tolerably good grace. T think, however, she must have seen almost from the first that Mr. Meriton in his own, and Mr. Meriton in her uncle's house, were not quite the same person. Once her eye happened to turn on him when he was smiling over his plate ; and having turned on him once at such a time, it turned on him again. These smiles, too, occurred more frequently after a just, but 58 Felicia's dowry. rather off-hand criticism of Coleworth on her part. She was not extremely charmed with the place, and her remarks had been, though within the bounds of decency, on the whole less complimentary than true. Mr. Meriton smiled therefore ; and in a little while he be- gan to yawn. At the first of these yawns — so well understood in the family by all but herself — she only looked up with a naive surprise ; the second time such a thing oc- curred, she did not look up, but became a little thoughtful ; at the third occasion Mr. Meriton took of manifesting his sentiments in this remarkable manner, she sprang from her chair, exclaiming, "Oh I how glad I am one may yawn in this house ! Why mayn't one always yawn when one is bored ?" " I suppose," replied Mr. Meriton, "because one should yawn too often." Felicia's dowry. 59 ^' Ah ! that indeed I" she said ; and Mrs. and the Miss Meritons felt that war was declared, and that the strength of the belli- gerents was pretty nearly equal. Of course there were numbers of visitors to Elm Green just now. Amongst others "the Miss Elliots !" were one day announced. Mrs. Frank was very charming on the occasion. She was not so on all occasions of the kind ; so that, beholding her attention to the younger Miss Elliot, while the elder one was engaged with Mrs. Meriton and Frank, Kate was led to believe that her brother had committed, she would have said the indelicacy, her mother would have called it the grave mistake, of acquainting his wife with the sentiments he had formerly entertained towards a lady of that family. When the visitors had departed, Mrs. Frank was still charming. 60 Felicia's dowry. " How very sweet-looking/' she said, " the younger Miss Elliot is ! Not so very pretty, I think — but extremely sweet-looking, and elegant !" " Oh ! yes," Kate replied, " they are all that. You have seen the handsomest, and the least handsome of the four." " I did not know," said Felicia, after a mo- ment's pause, " that there were more than three Miss Elliots." " I daresay not. Anne, poor thing, is a sad invalid. Indeed, for the last year she has been quite confined to her sofa." " And which were those that were here ?" " Elizabeth and Ellen." At a pretty large party given in honour of Mr. and Mrs. Darrell Meriton at Melford Castle, Elizabeth and Ellen again represented the Grange. '* And where, then," asked Mrs. Frank of Felicia's dowry. 61 Adela, on her return, ^'is the fourth Miss Elliot." ** ^Margaret ? Oh ! with her aunt, Lady Jane Lorimer, in town.'' " Does she live with her aunt, Lady Jane Lorimer ?" ^^ Oh ! dear, no. Ellen, indeed, tells me that she comes back next week. Lady Jane is ordered to Kissengen, which has shortened Margaret's visit." Kate and Adela began to find that they did not get on with their new sister-in-law very much beyond a certain point. They suspected she found Elm Green dull. Yet there were visitors and dinner-parties, walks to and from Coleworth, rides, drives, and croquet; she professed a liking for the country, and cer- tainly drew no " odorous " comparisons. No young married lady could well have said less of all the gay things she had been seeing and 62 Felicia's dowry. doing for the last nine or ten months. When she was asked a question, she answered it, but it was rarely indeed that she volunteered in- formation on any of the several topics of Paris, Florence, or Naples, the Greek islands, Lord Belgravia, or the yacht ; and as to the admiration of which she had been the object, but for the French letters of Lady Melford, and now and then, perhaps, a chance allusion on the part of Frank, no one in Blankshire would have known that Mrs. Darrell Meriton had a Sicilian Marchese, or a Eussian Prince in her acquaintance. This reticence was not, Kate and Adela thought, extremely engaging. They were wanting, too, to hear a good deal about Brockley, and could really discover but very little. On that subject, however, they knew more exactly what questions to ask. They came to the conclusion that Felicia was rather Felicia's dowry. 63 an unimpressionable and indolent character ; and there were really many little things that warranted such a belief. For instance, music had, of course, not been forgotten in the education of the Miss Meri- tons. They were tolerable pianists, and the songs they attempted were usually fairly per- formed. Their sister-in-law, then, had been duly asked whether she liked music, and having duly answered, ^' Oh ! yes — so much!" the Miss Meritons put forth their best. This had been going on for a good many evenings before it was discovered, or even for a moment suspected, that Mrs. Frank sang at all. She had declared her profound ignor- ance of any musical instrument. On one occasion, however, Frank, whose voice his sister Kate had been accompanying, was turn- ing over his portfolio, and a sheet dropped from it, which Kate picked up. 64 Felicia's dowry. " 'Yivi tu !' Do you sing this, Frank ?" " No, it is Felicia's." " Does Felicia," said Miss Meriton, turning quite round on the music-stool — " does Felicia sing?" Mrs. Frank was the person addressed, and she answered, "Very seldom!" " But you do sing ?" " Oh ! a little !" " May I play this for you ?" "If you please." Mr. Meriton raised his eyes over his news- paper, and fixed them for a moment or two on his daughter-in-law, who rose and moved to the pianoforte, and without the least effort or emotion, in a voice perfectly cultivated, and possessed of such power and sweetness as I imagine is rarely heard, the notes of the beau- tiful song placed before her fell from her lips Felicia's dowry. 65 — literally fell, her insouciance reaching a climax in her song. " Why," said Adela, " have you never sung to us before ?'' " Oh ! I don't often sing." " But why r " Too much fag, ain't it. Fee ?" said Tom. And Felicia nodded to the boy pleasantly — indeed, she always was pleasant to him — and said, '* Yes, Tom, too much fag." VOL. I. 66 CHAPTER y. COLEWORTH. A FTER a three weeks' visit at Elm Green, Mr. and Mrs. Darrell Meriton, with Kate for their guest, took possession of Coleworth. Mrs. Frank had evinced an unexpected know- ledge of the requirements of a modest country house, and considerable ability in forming her household ; and now this last was completed. ^' As we shall generally have someone stay- ing with us/' she had said to her husband, ^^we must not have too few servants, and, above everything, we must not have too many. Of all deplorable extravagance, the most deplorable is extravagance below stairs." Felicia's dowry. 67 ** I think, perhaps," observed Frank, ^^ we may not be quite guiltless of that mistake at Elm Green." " Possibly. That, however, is not our afiair ; and we need not imitate what we do not approve. A good cook will be the great thing, and a man who has lived under a butler in a first-rate family. These, with Marie (who will not object to assist in the arrange- ment of my room and that of a visitor), a housemaid, and a kitchenmaid, will be all we shall require within doors." "And how about washing?" " Oh ! I never could endure anything ot that sort in so small a house as Coleworth ! Besides, it is provided for. You know the under-gardener at Melford Castle, who met with that horrid accident. His widow lives in a cottage just close to our gate, very ill oflf, poor thing; and Lady Melford says she f2 68 Felicia's dowry. is an excellent laundress, and will be thank- ful to be employed." ^'That willdo," said Frank. So a good cook, and a well-trained man, and the less important et ceteras being pro- vided, the young married people took posses- sion of their house, and began to return visits and issue invitations on their own authority. The Grange, Elm Green, and Coleworth formed an unequal triangle, of which the shortest side was that between the first and the last. Hardly five minutes from Cole- worth was the village, and at the further end of this, the church and the vicarage ; and just across the churchyard, a small house so pretty and elegant, that one was surprised to hear it was occupied by an unmarried man, a curate of Mr. Dalton, who increased, more- over, his slender income by the reception, for a few hours daily, of three young gen- FELICIA'S DOWRY. 69 tleraen, one of whom was Tom Meriton. An easy, indulgent creature, I may as well say here, was Mr. Dalton, the husband of a wife with a disposition similar to his own, and the father of a son who had intended himself for the army, but had never carried out his intentions, and was now nothing in particular but a won- derful croquet player, and, Tom said, "a swell." A kindly indulgent creature was Mr. Dalton, whose kindness had lately given offence in some quarters, inasm.uch as it had accorded permis- sion to a curate of Higher Church tendencies than his own to sing parts of the service which he had been accustomed to say ; and had not summarily dismissed the same curate when the latter thought fit, in the temporary absence of his vicar, to ascend the pulpit in his sur- plice, even though this last ill-judged perform- ance had given rise to greater divisions than twenty sermons in black gowns would heal. 70 ielicia's dowry. As to the singing, (said Mr. Dalton,) his curate had a fine voice and ear (neither of which he had himself ever possessed), and could command a choir of ladies, whom he would probably have been unable to influence ; and as to the surplice, when Mr. Mildmay next had occasion to preach, he would dress as his predecessors in that pulpit had done. One of the earliest visits, then, made by the Coleworth party was to the Grange. By this time Margaret had returned, but again she was invisible. The guests were received in Anne's drawing-room by Elizabeth and the invalid, and to these Sir Geoffrey was presently added ; but Ellen and Margaret did not appear. So good an observer as Kate had become could discern the little cloud on Felicia's brow ; but the latter, however, controlled herself perfect- ly, behaved her best, as she always did with '^ the Elliots," and was particularly sweet and Felicia's dowry. 71 engaging to Sir Geoffrey, who was perhaps captivated by her, and perhaps not. It was only Avhen she had risen to take her leave that Margaret, unconscious of visitors, entered by the window from the garden, a basket of flowers in her hand, and her straw hat hang- ing on her arm. The first positive colour that Kate had ever seen on the cheek of her brother's wife was there now, when the eye of the latter rested on the younger of the four sisters of the Grange. Margaret was twenty. She wore some clear, fluttering robe of delicate pink, with little linen collar and cuffs; and a snood of the same colour carried back the fair hair that descended in two glittering curls to her waist, from a face so faultless in feature, in contour, and, at that moment, in tint, that, framed as it was in the woodbine clustering round the sash, it took even Kate by surprise. Elizabeth 72 FELICIA'S DOWRY. herself, in a morning dress, had probably never looked so beautiful. Kate sprang forward to meet and to kiss her ; and then, in the moment when her joy might have given place to embarrassment, Elizabeth turned and introduced her sister to Mrs. Frank. Yery sweet and serene was the acknowledg- ment of this introduction on the part of the younger Miss Elliot; and while the latter shook hands with Frank, Felicia availed her- self of the opportunity afforded by the basket which Margaret had disengaged from her arm. '' What charming flowers V^ she exclaimed. '* Kate, look at that azalea, surely it is superb. I believe/' she said to Elizabeth, " with my Italian notions, I must have been undervaluing the gardens of this county." *' Margaret," said Miss Elliot, '^ is the florist of the family." Felicia's dowry. 73 "Then," rejoined Mrs. Darrell Meriton, turning to Margaret, " I am sure I hope we shall be better friends. Pray come and tell me what to do at Coleworth ; you have no idea what a sad state we are in, as to flowers, there. Kate is staying with me now, and will be rejoiced." There was no particular necessity for Mar- garet to do more than look pleasant, and say that plants really grew so well at the Grange, there was very little credit due to her ; and this, leaning on her father's arm, she did say. And then everybody shook hands, and Sir Geoflfrey indicated his gouty shoe in apology for not attending Mrs. Frank to the hall-door; and Frank, with a little less than his usual self-possession, walked out first, and the ladies rustled to the carriage, and the Coleworth party drove off. And quite soon Elizabeth Elliot and Mar- 74 Felicia's dowry. garet drove their pony-chaise, with some plants in it for Mrs. Frank, over to Cole- worth. They all walked out into the garden, and Margaret gave a little advice about it ; and Kate saw that Felicia was flattering and amusing her, and doing her possible in every thing to win her ; but whether she was won or not, Kate was unable to decide. Mr. George Dalton dropped in, and Frank insisted on ordering luncheon ; and there was a little music, and a croquet party was talked of, and it was all very pleasant and friendly ; but still, when the Miss Elliots had driven away, Kate found herself disbelieving that Margaret intended to occupy the position of Vamie intime at Coleworth, designed for her by Mrs. Frank. It turned out that Kate was right. Eliza- beth and Margaret, Ellen and Elizabeth, Mar- garet and Sir Geoffrey, all came in their turns FELICTA^S DOWRY. 75 to Coleworth — all came in the nicest, civilest, and most neighbourly manner ; but Margaret, however, would not be singled out from her sisters. Indeed, her sisters responded more frequently to the invitations of Coleworth than she did herself. Margaret was so often here for two or three days, and there for two or three days ! Then Margaret, on account of a little delicacy of chest, was forbidden by Dr. to play croquet ; and since Anne's accident, Sir Geoffrey had been so uneasy about his youngest daughter, that she now seldom mounted her horse except for a sober ride with Sir Geoffrey himself. At last Mrs. Frank Meriton gave it up, not without complaining to Kate of the coldness and in- sensibility of her friend. " I never," said Felicia, " took such pains to please anyone. It has not been my fault. I wished to show her attention, in the first 76 Felicia's dowry. place, because I understood that Elm Green and the Grange had always been intimate; and in the next place, because lam not one of those married women who wish to shut a man out from all his former young lady friends. I think that a mistake. I think it is nice for a man to have young lady friends. T think they make a house pleasant, and strengthen a wife's hands." ^'You see," urged Kate apologetically, " Margaret is a very occupied person ; and she has three sisters of her own." *^ But young ladies who have three sisters of their own do not, for that reason, always shun other society." " Shun other society ! oh ! no. But Mar- garet cannot be accused of that. She is — they all are — more popular than anybody else I know of in the county." " Then," rejoined Mrs. Frank, " I can only Felicia's dowry. 77 conclude that she has some particular reason for shunning me r But notwithstanding this conclusion, im- parted to more than Kate, and therefore in all probability arriving sooner or later at Mar- garet's ear, the younger Miss Elliot did not visit Coleworth in any other than a civil and neighbourly manner, and did not become the *^ young lady friend " of either Mr. or Mrs. Francis Meriton. 78 CHAPTER YL "and is he coming?'* T/"ATE MERITON, though a fairly sensible, and, better still, perfectly straightfor- ward young person, was not gifted with ex- traordinary discernment of character. In this respect she was, I think, a little behind Adela; and she found herself equally puzzled to ac- count for the court paid by her sister-in-law to Margaret Elliot, and for the extreme dis- like which Mrs. Frank had now conceived for the same person. Supposing, even, Felicia to be as well informed as Kate herself of Frank^s former sentiments towards Margaret, surely the conduct of the latter — Kate thought — was the very conduct to allay all jealousy, and Felicia's dowry. 79 prevent all ill-will on the part of Frank's wife. And Kate believed Felicia informed, at any rate, to some extent. But then, how strange had been her first efforts at a particular inti- macy with Margaret ! — how capricious her at- tempts to draw Margaret to Coleworth ! Kate was puzzled, and in a manner annoyed. She thought Margaret's line of behaviour had been in better taste than that of her sister-in-law, supposing her sister-in-law instructed as to antecedents. Was Felicia herself sensible of this superiority of Margaret's, and irritated by it to the bitterness of dislike that Kate discerned ? It was difficult to believe that pique at the insensibility of a mere fourth Miss Elliot to her *^ attentions " could have struck root so deeply. And meanwhile, and as the summer pro- gressed, the promise of Coleworth cheerfulness and sociability, given by Frank's early letters, could hardly be said as yet to be redeemed. 80 Felicia's dowry. Mr. and Mrs. Darrell Meriton, and with them Kate, made a little series of dinner visits within a reasonable distance, and they them- selves gave two or three dinners in return, which were perfect successes in their way. But this was not what the girls had looked forward to. Besides, in the intervening months, their ideas on the subject of gaiety, and their demands in the way of admiration, had enlarged themselves. George Dalton and Frank were inseparable, it was true — they believed his knife and fork were laid regularly for him at luncheon and dinner — and S. Mild- may (S., be it sorrowfully said, standing for Surplice) was for ever singing and chanting, and accompanying himself on the Coleworth piano. But what were George Dalton and S. Mildmay to the Captain Frederick Maitlands and Charley Foresters of the departed winter? Adela, at all events, voted Coleworth ^'slow!'^ Felicia's dowry. ' 81 So did not Tom. Tom had always been a favourite with Mrs. Frank, and he rewarded her kindness to him by pronouncing her " a brick," and Coleworth as "jolly a place as a fellow could turn into for his lunch on a summer day !" Indeed, it was at that young gentleman's request that S. (otherwise the Kev. James) Mildmay was " made free " of the Coleworth drawing-room. " I say. Fee," Tom had asked, " would you mind letting Mildmay have a turn now and then at your big Broadwood ? You hardly ever go near the drawing-room of an afternoon (I don't wonder at it, this is such a jolly little nest), and he'd be like a cowin a clover-field there. He ain't half a bad fellow^ and his piano is about as long as my stick. You couldn't swing a cat in his parlour; and you see his voice is ' stunning,' and when VOL. I. G 82 Felicia's dowry. he gets up the steam, you can't hear there's a piano going at all." So the Curate was turned into the Cole- worth drawing-room, where his contentment was so great, that it was really impossible not to remind oneself of Tom's simile. Probably the first visit which his strains, or Mrs. Frank's want of occupation, impelled her to make him, was beheld by the reverend gentleman with a feeling nearly akin to that which the quad- ruped already mentioned might have enter- tained on seeing her pasture about to be divided with another ; but when he found that Felicia was not wanting to usurp the music- stool herself, and that her voice, when joined with his own, made such music as he had only heard in his dreams, then his delight was in proportion to his former alarm, and there was no more garden parlour on such occasions for Mrs. Frank. Felicia's dowry. S^ Indeed, she embraced the opinion ah-eady arrived at by Tom, that S. Mildmay was not " half a bad fellow," and took him up exceed- ingly, thereby — the young unmarried ladies of the choir affirmed — rather turning his head. I don't suppose she was very welcome when she took her own place, which immediately became the prominent one, in that same choir. Not that she made any great pretensions to zeal in the service of the Church. She told Kate and Adela that, as Sunday in England was always half a day too long, her choir-sing- ing helped to amuse part of it ; and she told Frank still more confidingly, that she was being better than a mother to S. Mildmay, in protecting him from the advances of some three or four musical and school-teaching young females, each of whom was bent on sharing the poor fellow's ninety pounds a year. To do S. Mildmay justice, her flippancy on serious g2 84 Felicia's dowry. subjects would sometimes almost bring tears into his eyes ; but then he consoled himself a little with believing that she never meant above half of what she said. To Kate and Adela there was, however, no sort of amusement in all this ; and they con- trasted Elm Green with what it had been in the winter, and Coleworth with what it had promised to be in the spring. What had come to them all, they wondered ? Of Mar- garet Elliot they saw less, they thought, than they had ever seen before ; she was always visiting somewhere or other ; and what could the Maitlands want at Dover? After being ever so long in London, too. Even Billy Beauchamp (so low as this had the young gentleman fallen in the estimation of Elm Green) had gone to the Continent, to make quite the grand tour; under the prodigious notion — Mr. Meriton supposed — that he would Felicia's dowry. 85 come back the wiser. The girls were at their wit's end. " Shall we write a novel ?" exclaimed Adela. " Could we r asked Kate. " Oh, yes ! Besides, all women write novels now, whether they can or they can't. I am not quite sure about the spelling." As to that, Kate scorned the uncertainty implied. " I don't know," said Adela. ^' It is easy enough, when you do it off-hand ; but when one comes to think how a word ought to be spelt, one very often spells it wrong." Kate said she would undertake the spelling, and she thought her forte would be rather in the mildly comic line. "Mine wouldn't!" said Adela. *^Mine would be deep tragedy, with a murder in a mill- pond." 86 ■ Felicia's dowey. But they were not yet to be reduced to novel writing, and for a reason which will al- most immediately appear. Towards the end of July, Frank accom- panied his father to London on some little business. Mr. Meriton remained there but two days. Frank stayed a third, and in that third day he met Lord Belgravia, who had run up from Southampton for the last week of the session. "Felicia," said Frank on his return, "who do you think I nearly ran over to-day in Bond Street?" Felicia did not know in the least. " Belgravia." " Nothing more probable. I did not name him, because your father told me he was not in town ; that he was at Southampton." " So he was. He had only just come up, and is going to Yorkshire for the twelfth. I FELICIA'S DOWRY. 87 have asked him down here for a few days after the first." ^' And is he coming ?'' " That he is. He jumped at it. To say the truth, I think he ought to have been asked before." ^' Oh, I don't see that. This is such a small place — so different to Brockley." *^ Just why he'll like it. It's not such a bad sort of crib, and he wants to have some croquet. We'll get both the girls over here, and have no end of fun." ^' Do you know, I wish I had known this before." '^You could not very well know it before I knew it myself. But there is still nearly a week to the 2nd, and any preparations can surely be made in that time." **' Oh, I was not thinking of preparations — of course Lord Belgravia will not expect any. 88 FELICIA'S DOWRY. But I have asked Millicent Jebb for the first fortnight in Ausjust." ^^ Millicent Jebb!" '^ And if I had known of this I might have arranged her visit later/' " Can you not do so now ?" '' Impossible ! It is our first invitation to her, and I have no right to hurt her feelings. After all, it does not much matter. Lord Belgravia will, of course, be a good deal at Elm Green, and he can play croquet with your sisters as well there as here. Indeed, I think perhaps it will be almost better. The walks backwards and forwards will fill up time. By the way, I think he is a fisher- man." '^ In that case," said Frank, '^ he will do well." But he was a little vexed, notwith- standing. Millicent Jebb has not been mentioned by Felicia's dowry. 89 name before ; but she was that " daughter of Mr. Dunkin's partner" who officiated as bridesmaid to Felicia. Frank felt, and everyone will admit, that she had really a claim to an early invitation. Neither could Frank quite convince himself that his annoy- ance was on Lord Belgravia's account, since Lord Belgravia had already met her on the morning of the wedding, and had, though a stranger, shown her more civility on that occasion than Frank himself had done. To say the truth, in the days of Frank's assi- duity, when the two girls were almost always together, he had not relied much on the good offices of Millicent. He did not at all admire her, and he did not think there was much admiration wasted on her part. She was neither tall nor short, neither dark nor fair, neither pretty nor plain, neither sensible nor silly. Frank thought her a very common- 90 Felicia's dowry. place person ; and when, on the morning of the wedding, he had pitied his best-man, and had said some little thing aside to him that implied disparagement of Millicent, and had the air of an apology, he was not a little sur- prised at Lord Belgravia's answer : " A face of some power, I think.'' It had not struck Frank before, but now he looked at Millicent, and thought that per- haps it ivas a face of some power. He did not like her any the better, nevertheless. To pass, however, from this, the approach- ing visit of Lord Belgravia to Coleworth was great news at Elm Green. Kate and Adela had never seen their mother's cousin, and as cousins, and as young unmarried ladies they naturally felt delighted to make his acquaint- ance. '^ But that Miss Jebb, mamma !" exclaimed Adela, of course after Frank had departed. Felicia's dowry. 91 ^^ I think, my dear/' said Mrs. Meriton " it is quite as well." Mrs. Meriton's words were always un- doubted words of wisdom to her daughters, so they dismissed Millicent Jebb from their minds, and gave themselves up to delightful anticipations of the expected visit of Lord Belgravia. *^ We shall have," said Adela, '^ a new cha- racter for our novel." *' A live lord," said Kate. " And a lord," rejoined Adela, " such as all novelists have not — a lord who will sit for his picture." 92 CHAPTER YII. A NOBLE LORD. T?RANK had said to his father, " You must help me, sir, to do the honours." So Elm Green set about organising a dinner-party, to take place in the week for which Lord Belgravia was expected ; and in the meantime Millicent Jebb arrived. The young ladies liked her rather better than their brother di'd, but admired her quite as little. She was not a person, they thought, to be twice spoken about. They were " quite of mamma's opinion ; it was very well she was there. She would help Mrs. Frank to receive Lord Belgravia, and leave them free FELICIA'S DOWRf. 93 to make Elm Green as much more agreeable as they could/' Lord Belgravia was rather expected at Coleworth on the evening of the 1 st ; but on the 2nd he had not arrived, and on the 3rd the Elm Green party were not sure whether he had arrived or not. On the morning of the 4th, however, a distingue'lookmg man of thirty, or thereabouts, and Frank, walked into the morning sitting-room at the latter place ; and the stranger was, of course, Lord Belgravia. Mr. Meriton was not in the house. Mrs. Meriton, therefore, had the advantage of re- ceiving the Viscount alone, and of placing on its former footing an acquaintance with him which had in his boyish days been a very friendly one indeed. She had not seen him for about eighteen years. *^ When Miss Olivia Meriton," said Lord 94 Felicia's dowry. Belgravia, " was a most coquettish little per- son, who cried, I remember, because her gloves and her parasol were not of the same shade ; and your second daughter must have been, I think, a young lady in arms." '' Not quite that," replied Mrs. Meriton ; "but too young to have arrived at her troubles about parasols and gloves. Here, at any rate," she said, as Adela entered the room, "is a person of whom you can have no tales to tell. My youngest daughter — Lord Belgravia." Lord Belgravia and Adela shook hands very pleasantly and cordially ; and then Mrs. Meriton told the latter that she had inter- rupted a conversation about very old times, and that if she would lend her sunshade they would now all go out into the shrubbery, and look for Kate. " Frank had set off in search of his father," Felicia's dowry. 95 Mrs. Meritoii supposed ; " and, she very much feared, without doing the honours with- regard to bitter beer." "They had been drinking bitter beer at Coleworth ever since breakfast," Lord Belgra- via said. " I want," rejoined Mrs. Meriton, " to talk to you by-and-by about Coleworth, and about Felicia, who has seen so much more of you lately than we have done." " Frank," said the Viscount, who, notwith- standing his distingue looks and his thirty years, seemed to have a trick of colouring a little now and then, " Frank is the luckiest fellow going. There he is, in deep conversa- tion with a lady who will not make Mrs. Francis ^leriton jealous, for she is, I take leave to conclude, the Miss Kate Meriton I have heard of." H€ had lifted his hat as he pronounced the 96 Felicia's dowry. last few words, and the two parties having now met, Lord Belgravia shook hands with Kate as pleasantly and cordially as he had done with her sister. Then, and after a little talk, his lordship and Mrs. Meriton, and Frank with a sister on either side, strolled about for half-an-hour or so longer in the shrub- beries. It was not till their return to the house that Mr. Meriton was forthcoming. After some talk with that gentleman, and a visit to the stables, Frank spoke of departure. It was not yet quite luncheon-time, but Mr. Meriton hospitably offered to order it. Lord Belgravia and Frank had, however — they said — promised to return to Coleworth to luncheon. " You had better walk back with us, sir,'' said Frank. " Thank you — no. I will walk part of the way with you, however. And, by-the-by. Felicia's dowry. 97 have you a note from mamma for Felicia?" ^^No." ** It is not yet written," said Mrs. Meriton. " We are hoping that she and you will bring Lord Belgravia, and Miss Jebb, of course, to 'dine with us on Saturday. We have asked a little party to meet you, and notes shall be sent this afternoon to Coleworth." " If I," said Lord Belgravia, '' may answer for myself, I shall be delighted." " Of course we shall all be delighted," said Frank. "" That is — Felicia complains of hatch- ing a cold, but I suppose she will get rid of it and come. One has no notion of colds in August. At all events, count on Belgravia and me." '* Oh ! yes," said Mr. Meriton; "and on Felicia too. But I am going to see you off my land, at any rate." " Mamma," exclaimed Adela, when the VOL. I. H 98 FELICIA'S DOWRY. ladies were alone, "how nice Lord Belgravia is !" And again when she and her mother and sister found themselves together after luncheon, and writing their notes, " How different Lord Belgravia is from the men we have been knowing — the men one meets ! Do not you think so ?" " I think, my dear,'' said Mrs. Meriton, " he is." "I wonder why. Is it because he is a lord ?" " I am not prepared to say that," replied her mother. " I don't suppose all lords are as agreeable as Lord Belgravia. Indeed, I know they are not." " Oh ! no, not so agreeable ; Lord Melford is not. But then I don't mean agreeableness, exactly — I mean something almost better than being agreeable. Charley Forester is agreeable, but he is not like Lord Belgravia. FELICIA'S DOWRY. 99 I mean soraething different — something that Charley Forester has not, and that Lord Bel- gravia and Lord Melford have. I believe, mamma, it is being a lord. And I think I will go on believing it till I meet with a lord who is like — who shall I say ? — like Billy Beauchamp." Kate laughed ; so did Mrs. Meriton. '^ In that case, my dear," said the latter, " I really think you may preserve your opin- ion for a considerable time." The next morning brought Frank over to Elm Green in vexation, with notes for Mrs. Meriton ; but he could tell all that was in the notes. Felicia's cold was wretched. She had not written last night, hoping to be better in the morning ; but was worse. It was very vexatious. There wasn't a chance of her being able to come. They must fill up her place. h2 100 FELICIA'S DOWRY. " Oh ! as to that," Mrs. Meriton replied, " our party is made, we shall ask no one else — that is to say, if we must understand that Felicia's absence implies Miss Jebb's — it does, I find from her note. We shall make no alteration ; we shall be fourteen instead of sixteen — and if Felicia's cold should improve — as a summer cold sometimes does, suddenly — we shall still be delighted to see both her and her friend. Have you called in Hig- gins?" '^ No. I wanted her to ; but she hates doctors." ^' Still, if she does not improve, I hope you will carry the point. Shall Kate walk back with you and try to persuade her ?" '' I wish she would." " Then, I am sure she will." " Certainly, mamma," said Kate. " And you must send and let Tom know Felicia's dowry. 101 she is at Coleworth, and they can come home together/' " After luncheon," said Frank. Kate accordingly accompanied her brother back to Coleworth, and found Mrs. Frank going about with a light shawl thrown over her, but otherwise not exhibiting any very distinct symptoms of suffering. Kate could not conscientiously say that she thought Mr. Higgins very much needed ; but she could comprehend that an amount of cold that was very endurable at home, might disincline a person for a dinner-party. She thought, too, she could comprehend, that the necessity of being chaperone to Millicent Jebb, under the immediate notice of the Melfords and Elliots, might not render her sister-in-law more eager to make the effort. Lord Belgravia was fishing, and Millicent was, Kate thought, more common-place than 102 FELICIA'S DOWRY. ever ; so that the latter passed a couple of hours in no very lively manner. Tom and S. Mildmay, however, came in to luncheon, and matters improved ; and to these were pre- sently added Lord Belgravia, Frank, and George Dalton. They were quite a large and pleasant party, and it was near three o'clock before Kate set out on her return from Elm Green, accompanied not only by Tom, but by the Viscount. Adela was wild when, on ar- riving from one of her long "sittings-out ''.with a novel, she found that Lord Belgravia had been for nearly an hour in the drawing-room with her mother and Kate, and was now gone. " And about your toilettes, young ladies?" asked Mrs. Meriton on the following morning, being the morning of the dinner-party. " What are you intending to wear ? " " I suppose' our white silks, mamma," re- plied Kate. Felicia's dowry. ** No," said Adela. " At least, Kate can perhaps afford to wear hers, but for so very young a person as myself I think white is too significant of the imputed bread and butter." Kate looked up, and smiled. ^' Meme, elle parle hien /" she said to her mother. Mrs. Meriton smiled too. ^' Well, my dear, your pink, then ?" " I will wear," said Adela, ^' my blue tar- latane." " As you please," her mother answered. "It is indeed an extremely pretty dress ; and there is no reason why Kate, whose white silk is so becoming to her, should not wear it." " And our coiffures, mamma ?" "For a dinner-party, nothing can be prettier than a little black velvet in the hair. But if," 104 Felicia's dowry. added Mrs. Meriton, " you elect for flowers, you must talk to Dawson" (the gardener), *4or I will have nothing artificial at a day- light dinner." So, as the young ladies, in common with most other young ladies, entertained the notion that youthful hair is the least effective orna- ment for youthful heads, they did talk to Dawson; and Kate half broke his heart by almost wresting from him a spray of mag- nificent geranium, which he had prized as the apple of his eye; while Adela, when the evening arrived, appeared looking so lovely in a wreath of charming roses, that she took father and mother and sister by surprise. But this last is a little anticipating. Now that Adela was grown up, Tom was, on occasions of dinner-parties, always a diffi- culty. He could not make up his mind to be the only one not presentable at table. When FELICIA S DOWRY. 105 there had been Adela to share his hour of solitude, and the sweets that enlivened it, he had thought the whole aiFair rather jolly than otherwise; but now he was invariably discon- tented and vexatious. "There is always such a fuss here,'' he said, "when people are coming to dinner. Now at Coleworth you wouldn't know there ■vvas anything out of the way. Things are left to themselves, and they always come right. If mamma thinks I am coming in with the dessert, I hope she won't be in a wax, that's all. I intend to ask Fee to have me to dinner with her and Millicent Jebb." " I think it will be a very good arrange- ment," said his eldest sister. " I am glad I thought of it. And so I am sure you needn't grudge me a little of your time now. Which of you has some fine, strong, black silk, and a bit of wax? I want 106 FELICIA'S DOWRY. you to doctor my fishing-rod. Where are you going, Kate?" " To my own room." " Adela, where are you going?" '' To Jericho.'' " Thank you!" said Tom. '' I hope you'll stop there." The dinner-party was, I think 1 have said, a party oh fourteen. Mr. and Mrs. Meriton and their daughters numbered four, to begin with; and the guests were Lord Belgravia and Frank, Lord and Lady Melford, Sir Geoffrey and Miss Elliot, Mr. and Mrs. Beauchamp, and Mr. Beauehamp's niece Miss Wilbraham, and George Dalton. It was a well-arranged little party, you see, and merited to be a success. And a success it was; indeed the Elm Green dinner-parties usually were. Mr. Meriton, if he were not very pleasant at other men's tables, could be pleasant at his own ; Felicia's dowry. 107 and with Lord Belgravia for his visitor, and his daughters looking so charmingly, he was likely to put forth his best. At a dinner-party of fourteen it is not acci- dent or inclination, we all know, that places the visitors, but strict order of precedence. The chair of Lord Belgravia, therefore, was between those of Mrs. Meriton and Miss Wil- braham; but a little way down the table, on the opposite side, might be seen the radiant face of Adela, and Mrs. Meriton was not slow to observe that the eyes of the Viscount were frequently directed for a moment towards it. Not at all surprised was the delighted mother to perceive, while apparently giving all her attention to Sir Geoffrey Elliot and Lady Melford, that Lord Belgravia, on entering the drawing-room, approached the blue tarlatane dress. Adela was surrounded with other young ladies, but after a very little general 108 Felicia's dowry. conversation, Lord Belgravia, in the quietest and least observable way in the world, had withdrawn her a little from the group, and was bending, Adela thought very agreeably, over the back of the chair he had found for her. *^ I have,'' he said, " to make up for yester- day. You were invisible, and my acquaint- ance with your sister has gone far beyond my acquaintance with yourself." " I envied Kate, I assure you. And when you were here, it was the most provoking thing — I was under my pet tree with a novel." " But if you are often under your pet tree when one calls, I should like to know where it is to be found." " I must introduce you to it." " What charming roses those are ! A hun- dred years or so ago, in my youth, there used Felicia's dowry. 109 to be a song about a wreath of roses.'' " Oh ! yes — I know it — a dreadful old thing ! Olivia — my married sister, I mean — found it in some old book at the Grange, and used to make us all laugh by singing it in the most miserable manner." '' Naughty Olivia !" " Yet, do you know, it had an immense popularity in its day, Sir Geoffrey Elliot says ; and the man who wrote it used to sing it himself, and young ladies used to weep at his singing. I can sing it. Shall I ?" ^^ Certainly not," said Lord Belgravia ; " it has curls of jet ; and besides that, it is a melancholy affair — a sort of parody on the ' Seven Ages of Man.' " Of course Lord Belgravia did not talk all the evening (not a very long one either) to his Cousin Adela. He talked a little to Kate, and a little to Ellen Elliot, and a good deal to 110 Felicia's dowry. Lady Melford ; but still he left Adela herself, and others than Adela, under the impression that she had been the favoured lady of the night. Never had a dinner-party seemed to Adela so brilliant, or so soon at an end ; and when she overheard a sentence that led her to believe a party at Melford Castle might be in prospect, her heart beat quick with plea- sure and excitement. ** I shall remind you of your promise," said Lord Belgravia to her, when people were taking their leave, and at a moment when, strange to say, she had not seen his approach. '' My promise !" " As to your pet tree." Adela blushed very beautifully, and at this instant meeting Mr. Meriton's eye for the fifty-ninth part of a second, her blush became so much deeper, that Lord Belgravia might reasonably think hers a very tell-tale face, Felicia's dowry. Ill and might think not very zmreasonably that it had already a tale to tell. When the visitors had all taken their de- parture, the evening was still not quite ended. Tom had not returned. If the truth must be told, Mrs. Meriton had, till her drawing-room was empty of its guests, forgotten all about Tom, and then very naturally concluded that the young gentleman had betaken himself, without making an appearance, to bed. The butler, however, now said that " Master Tom had not, he thought, come in." And on investi- gating the matter, it turned out that the butler was right. It was half-past eleven, and Mrs. Meriton was alarmed. '^ Pooh !" said her husband, ^^ they have kept him to sleep. Jephson, lock the doors." Jephson accordingly proceeded to do so, but had not left the drawing-room more than a 112 Felicia's dowry. few seconds, when a prodigious noise was heard in the hall. The stick and umbrella- stand seemed to be rattling its contents for a wager. ''What the deuce?" said Mr. Meriton ; and in the following moment, with a great swing open of the door, Tom entered — his eyes very bright, and his cheeks unusually red. " Well," he said, hilariously, and before he had got very far into the room, " which is it ? Who's to be Lady Belgravia? Which is to be the Viscountess — eh ?" " Tom !" exclaimed his mother, otherwise speechless with astonishment. " Which is it ?" ''They have given the child too much wine," said Kate, with dignity and disgust. Mr. Meriton now steadily regarded his younger son, and the result of his regards was that he said, Felicia's dowry. 113 " Go out of the room, sir, before you are sick r Whether the chiret to which Tom had helped himself, under the auspices of the Cole- worth well-trained man-servant, and Millicent Jebb — for Felicia, it afterwards appeared, had retired early to her own apartment — whether the claret had rather improved than impaired the filial obedience of the young gentleman, or whether his inward convictions of the pru- dence of the paternal counsel were irresist- ible, I know not. Certain it is, he immedi- ately vanished ; and the diminished party in the drawdng-room, rather disconcerted by the evening's finale, separated a little abruptly, and the house of festivity became dark. VOL. I. 114 CHAPTER yJII. FLIRTATION. A DEL A was not, as we have intimated in an earlier chapter, at all unaccustomed to receive attention ; but I am quite safe in say- ing that she had never received any that had elated her to at all the extent that the atten- tion of Lord Belgravia had done. She passed a wakeful night, yet the two hours' sleep into which she subsided after daylight were sufficiently refreshing, and her own thoughts and recollections sufficiently exhilirating, to bring her to the breakfast-table on the follow- ing morning almost as radiant as she had appeared at the dinner of the day before. Felicia's dowry. • 115 On Sundays there was not, usually, much intercourse between the families of Elm Green and Coleworth. The elder Meritons, with their daughters, always attended in the morn- ing a small church half-a-mile nearer to their house than that of Mr. Dalton, and in a different direction ; and on this Sunday the afternoon turned out so wet that there was no thought, on the part of the young ladies, of the second service at Coleworth. Even Tom, whose '^ own sweet will " generally carried him to the latter place of worship, in which the service was intoned and sung by Mr. Mildmay, was, on this particular morning, in- disposed for the walk, and accompanied his mother and sisters to Froud. On Sunday, then, nothing was seen at Elm Green of either Lord Belgravia or Frank. Adela's recollections, however, sustained her very tolerably ; and as it drew towards night, i2 116 Felicia's dowry. and consequently towards the next day, she was really as gay as a bird. The promise she distilled from those recollections of hers was redeemed, for half-past ten o'clock on Monday brought Lord Belgravia and his fishing-rod. At the conclusion of breakfast on the same morning, a note had been brought in to Mrs. Meriton. " From Melford Castle," the servant said, as he placed it before her ; and the lady of the house opened and glanced over it, and then handed it down the table to her lord. "Very good!" said the latter, " I presume we accept." " Oh, yes ! I think so. Have we finished breakfast V ** I have — these ^yq minutes." " Then I will go and answer it at once." Mrs. Meriton accordingly went straight to FELICIA'S DOWRY. 117 her writing-table, and penned her acceptance of the invitation. Then, instead of ringing, and delivering it to a servant, she took it her- self out of the room ; and it was not till the little library consultation as to fish, flesh, and fowl was at an end, that the young ladies had an opportunity of speaking to their mother on the more interesting subject. " When is the invitation for, mamma?"asked Kate. " For to-morrow," Mrs. Meriton replied. *^ It is a party for Lord Belgravia. Lady Melford said as much on Saturday night, to excuse the shortness of the invitation. Lord Belgravia's visit to Coleworth cannot, you know, be a long one." *^ Oh, no !" Kate said. " He is to shoot in Yorkshire on the 12th, and it is the 8th to-day. He must go on Thursday." *^ At the latest," said her mother. 118 Felicia's dowry. " It is very nice of Lord and Lady Mel- ford !'' Adela exclaimed. " How I pity Felicia for having a cold. Are we' all asked, mamma ?" ^' We are all asked, '' Mrs. Meriton re- plied, " but you know it is an understood thing that we never go more than three to Melford Castle.'^ *^ And it is my turn !" said Adela quickly. " It is, I believe, your turn, my love ; but your father and I have spoken on the subject, and consider it most proper that on this occa- sion Kate should be the one to go." Fortunately it was at this moment that Lord Belgravia and his fishing-rod arrived. He had been seen from the window of the library by Mr. Meriton, who went out to meet him in the hall, and bring him to the ladies' morning-room. The master of Elm Green, though no great sportsman, knew something of fishing-tackle, and could at least give ad- FELICIA'S DOWRY. 119 vice as to the fishing on his own property. "Not that," he said, looking up to the bright sky, " I promise you much sport on such a day as this." " I count on Tom for my guide," said Lord Belgravia. "Oh! 'Young England!' He doesn't," said his father, " handle his rod so badly, I promise you." "And," rejoined his lordship, " I even ventured to hope that by coming up to the house I might persuade Mrs. Meriton and the young ladies to patronise the expedition." " Then," said Tom, " there'll be no fishing. Mamma will be expecting to see me heels up in the water every minute." " Don't be alarmed, my dear — my fishing days are over." "But your daughters?" pleaded Lord Belgravia. 120 Felicia's dowhy. " Oh, mamma !" exclaimed Adela, *^ don't refuse/' " My love, I don't wish to refuse. And I suppose," turning to Lord Belgravia, " there is really no danger — you will not go very near the edge. Suppose, papa, you were to let Dawson walk the same way, and keep them all in sight." But this supposal was received with a shout of derision, and even *' papa" said, " Pooh ! they will take very good care of themselves." You will conceive they were not long put- ting on their hats and paletots — not so long as Tom was buttoning his gaiters. They found their mother and Lord Belgravia speaking of Lady Melford's dinner-party. " Felicia," said Mrs. Meriton to her eldest daughter, " hopes to be able to go. Her cold is better." Felicia's dowry. 121 *' I am so glad. I was pitying her. And is Miss Jebb going too ?'' ** I fancy so," replied Lord Belgravia. "Are we ready ? " " All but Tom, who will burst a blood-vessel directly." " 1 only wish," said that young gentleman, " I had the fellow here who concocted these gaiters. Wouldn't I make my shoemaker acquainted with his tailor — that's all !" " Tom !" exclaimed his mother ; adding, " My dear Lord Belgravia, in former days boys did not talk this slang." *^ I fancy," said *' my dear Lord Belgravia " laughing, '' in former days the school-room and the drawing-room were farther apart." ** We shall be back, you know, mamma, to luncheon," observed thoughtful Kate. *' Certainly, my dear !" ** Nothing of the kind," said Mr. Meriton, 122 Felicia's dowry. returning from giving a shake to the barometer in the hall. " I know what a fisherman's com- ing back to luncheon means. You will have your luncheon sent to you." '^ Jolly !" exclaimed Tom. " Indeed," said his mother, '* I think it is a charming plan. I will speak to Andrews, and Dawson will be— where, papa ?" " In Slope Meadow," replied that gentle- man. " In Slope Meadow with a basket at one o'clock." " Jolly !" again exclaimed Tom. " Now we are ready. Good-bye ! We shall all be brought home on shutters.'^ You will not expect — nor did Adela — that Lord Belgravia would so completely sacrifice Kate's pleasure in the walk to that of her sister, as to be very exclusive in his attentions to the latter. No, Adela had good taste Felicia's dowry. 123 enough to appreciate the ease with which, while she was able to continue in the belief that she was the one preferred, he rendered the morning delightful to them both. As to fishing, they had not great success, and, with the exception of Tom, could hardly be said to merit the success they had. By the time luncheon appeared, however, they were not quite empty-handed. And then, what a luncheon it was ! Would Adela ever forget that luncheon in the Slope Meadow — and must it, in the future, be for her a recollection fraught with unmingled pleasure, or unendurable pain ? Such an hour occurs in the lives of all of us ; but we do not wonder then how we shall have to remember it in the time to come. Adela did not. '' Don't fall in love with him, Kate !" said the happy girl to her sister, at a moment when 124 Felicia's dowry. Lord Belgravia was engaged with the basket, and with Tom. " I don't mean to fall in love with him," replied Kate. '' Why ?" "Because," said Adela, '^I do." It was not till the debris of the luncheon — plates, glasses, and so forth, had been gathered together, and carried off by Dawson, that the party became a little divided. Lord Belgra- via said something of the last day's dinner at Melford Castle ; and Kate, feeling that he was about to receive unwelcome information, af- fected to be a little busy with the trout. '* I am not going," Adela said. " Eeally not ?" *' No, really ! Kate is going ; and though we are both asked, only one of us ever goes to Melford Castle." After this, Adela thought Lord Belgravia's attention was directed more obviously to her- Felicia's dowry. 125 self. She thought Kate saw it too, for ex- cepting when Tom would walk close to the Viscount, and make himself heard as well as seen, Kate carried him off — now for some green food for her canary — now in pursuit of a butterfly — now on suspicion of a bird's nest. " By the way," said Lord Belgravia, ** how did it happen that your brother was not with Mr. Mildmay this morning ?" " Oh, he has a holiday on the second Mon- day in every month, to suit, I fancy, some domestic arrangements at * The Cottage.' " " It is the day," called out long-eared Master Tom from behind, " that Mildmay washes his surplice." " Tom," exclaimed his sister, " you are too bad, a great deal!" '* And about your pet tree?" said Lord Belgravia to her when they were crossing the 126 FELICIA'S DOWRY. last field between them and the gate at which their roads would diverge. He had just given ever such a little look back, and seen that Kate had stopped to assist Tom and his fishing-rod in some difficulty with the brambles. '^ Oh! when you next come over, Kate and I will take you to it.'' " If it is a family pet," rejoined his lord- ship, " it loses its charm, and," he added, after a moment's pause, ^^ the introduction its compliment." I daresay a little blush answered the last sentence, but to the first the young lady re- plied in words, "Oh! it is not," she said, " exactly that," (a family pet she meant of course,) " Kate has pets of her own." " Quite properly. And then — when do you visit your pet? Tell me the when, and leave it to my ingenuity to discover the way. But I Felicia's dowey. 127 believe I shall do very well without even the first information. It was between half-past three and half-past four o'clock that I was in the drawing-room at Elm Green on Friday. Thank you! I shall do very well/' " How terribly clever you are! You should have been a barrister." " A Queen's Counsel is spoiled, decidedly. Miss Meriton, we are talking of the law. I should have been a barrister." "Dear me! Why?" "Oh! because I should have looked so well in the wig." " Because," said Tom, glancing rather shrewdly, " he aint half a bad hand at chaff. I shall, I know; chambers, and all that, is such a jolly lark!" I am afraid that on the following day, be- tween half-past three and half-past four in the afternoon, Adela was found by Lord Belgravia 128 Felicia's dovyry. under the pet tree of which mention has been made. I daresay, if it were so, that she doubted extremely, in the first place, whether he would recollect anything about the matter; in the second place, whether, even if he did recollect it, he would care to come; and in the third place, whether, if he did recollect it, and did care to come, he would be able to find her. It is true that the grounds of Elm Green were not quite a labyrinth; but then there was a fourth consideration, which perhaps weighed with her. Lord Belgravia and she were cousins, and their conversation had led up so naturally to this point, that really any fuss in the way of a refusal would have been making more of the thing than it was worth, and coquettish, and out of place. So I am afraid that at the above hour Lord Belgravia found her under the pet tree. All, however, I know for certain is, that she was heard play- Felicia's dowry. 129 ing some new waltzes for about an hour or so subsequent to luncheon; that after that she was missing, and that the last number of the *^ Cornhill" was missing too; and that about five o'clock Mrs. Meriton, who had been feeling a little disappointed that nothing had been seen of Lord Belgravia that day at Elm Green, beheld from the drawing-room window her youngest daughter and the Viscount cross- ing the lawn from the shrubbery walk to the house. She took it for granted that his lordship had just arrived (mammas, however, should not take things for granted), and made him extremely welcome, notwithstanding the late- ness of his visit. Kate was pouring out early tea in the morning sitting-room, which was, indeed, the second drawing-room, and opened with folding doors out of the first; having like- wise this advantage over the first, that two of VOL. I. K 130 FELICIA'S DOWRY. its three windows gave from the side of the house on the garden. In this room Kate was seen pouring out tea, and Lord Belgravia exhibiting unmistakable pleasure at the sight, the whole party drew most sociably round the little table at which she officiated. The seance was necessarily a short one, all present, with the exception of Adela, being due at Mel- ford Castle at seven o'clock, and Lord Belgra- via having still to walk back to Coleworth to dress. But this brevity made it perhaps the more inquante ; and when his lordship was gone, and the ladies were dispersing to their toilettes, Kate said, ^*I wish, mamma, Adela could still go instead of me.'^ Mamma, however, replied, " Certainly not, my dear, there can be no alteration. '^ For Adela, therefore, there remained the Felicia's dowry. 131 tete-a-tete dinner with Tom, which was that young gentleman's delight, inasmuch as on these occasions the housekeeper, who had been Tom's nurse, was wont to indulge herself and him by sending up the pudding and sweet- meats he especially loved. Adela was not quite in her usual force at this banquet. Not cross — Tom could not accuse her of that — not melancholy exactly ; but a little preoccupied and thoughtful ; so that for a part of the evening Tom betook himself to Andrews' room, and a game of cribbage, for amusement. It was near twelve o'clock when Mr. and Mrs. Meriton and Kate reached home. The two last forgot that they had had a four miles drive, and rather expected that Adela, in her dressing-gown, would have flown out to meet them hi the gallery ; but she did not. She had gone to bed. She was not asleep, however ; and when k2 132 Felicia's dowry. her sister, followed by their maid, entered the room, she turned on her pillow with a very serene " Well, Kate ?" ^'Well, dear?'' " Have you had a nice party ?" ''' Yes — nice ; not quite so pleasant, I think, as our own." '^ Not so pleasant ! Were there more people ?'' " We were sixteen. We heard a little piece of news. Lord Melford has a nephew — a Colonel Grant — ^just coming home from India." '^ A brother, I suppose, to the Dean." " Exactly. I think that will do now, Jones," said Kate, when the dress and the " ornamental hair " had been removed. " I am rather tired to-night ; you shall come to me a little earlier in the morning. Good night." FELICIA'S DOWRY. 13'3 ^^ Good night, Jones," said Adela. *^ And you did not think the party so pleasant as our own ?" ^'I thought not quite. Mamma thought the same. Still it was very nice." '^ To whom did Lord Belgravia talk most ?" " Oh ! most to Felicia — and a good deal to Millicent Jebb." "ToMillicent Jebb!" " She improves in evening dress. She is by no means so inelegant-looking as you would suppose, and received quite her share of at- tention. Lady Melford likes her, I think. Lord Belgravia talked to mamma, too, and to Sir Geoffrey Elliot." " Was Elizabeth there, or Ellen ?" ^* Both were. Lord Belgravia admired Elizabeth, he told mamma, very much indeed. He did not talk to her, however. He could not talk to everybody, you know." 134 Felicia's dowry. '' And how is Felicia's cold ?" ** Oh ! quite gone. She was looking beau- tiful to-night." '^ Felicia looking beautiful !" said Adela, raising herself in surprise a little from her pillow. ^' Her cold has made her complexion clearer, I think ; and her hair was dressed magnifi- cently. Everybody said they never saw such a thing. She sang, too, enchantingly." *^ Yes — one would give a good deal to have her voice. Kate, it must have been a pleasant party." *^ Well, dear, I daresay it was. The fact is, I think we have been doing a great deal the last few days, and perhaps I was hardly ' up ' to it." ^' You are not very strong, Kate," said Adela, a little anxiously ; ^^ and I must not keep you talking any longer. Good night. Felicia's dowry. 135 You said, too, you were wanting to be up early in the morning." ^^We must not be late at brealdast, for mamma has a little business with Mrs. Dal- ton, and means to call before luncheon both at the Vicarage and at Coleworth. I think she wants either you or me to drive her over." ^^ Oh ! not me, Kate. I don't at all care to go." '^ Don't you ? Well, perhaps mamma will not mind. I only mean that you could go if you liked." ^^ We shall see when to-morrow comes. Good night, dear," said Adela. 136 CHAPTER IX. MR. MERITON YAWNS. AN the following morning, however, Kate's looks bore such not-to-be-mistaken testi- mony to the headache which had probably been coming on the preceding evening, and visiting was for her so obviously out of the question, that when Mrs. Meriton put forth her plans, and said, "You will drive me over, Adela ? " Adela had really no alter- native. They found Mrs. Dalton at home, alone, so that Mrs. Meriton^s little business with her was satisfactorily and even speedily arranged. At Cole worth, too, only ladies were visible. Felicia's dowry. 137 Frank and Lord Belgravia had, Felicia said, gone over to luncheon, by invitation, to Mel- ford Castle. Felicia's good looks of the even- ing before were, Adela thought, remaining ; but she could not say the same for Millicent Jebb. She thought that young lady looking plainer and more common-place than ever. Nevertheless, since Lord Belgravia had talked ^^ a good deal " to her, Adela thought she might be worthy of more attention than she had as yet bestowed upon her ; and when she heard her mother accept Mrs. Frank's offer of luncheon, she resigned herself to attempt an hour's sociability with Mrs. Frank's friend. She proposed a turn in the garden, and the two young ladies strolled out together. When Adela had seen a little how things were getting on, and had sufficiently noticed one or two improvements made by Millicent, they had exhausted the botanical knowledge 138 Felicia's dowry. of, at least, the former, and it became requi- site to introduce another topic. " You had a pleasant party last evening," said Adela. a Very. I am glad your sister enjoyed it. We thought she looked a little tired. '^ " She has a head-ache this morning. But we always enjoy Melford Castle." To this there was no rejoinder, and it was necessary to begin again. *' How much," said Adela, "you will miss Lord Belgravia !" " Yes, very much indeed. Coleworth is not gay. It has not, 1 fancy, a very good neighbourhood." Adela turned aside her head. She felt her- self redden with displeasure. Coleworth might be " slow " in her own and in her sister's estimation, but it should have been fairyland to Millicent Jebb ; and then — a Millicent Felicia's dowry. 139 Jebb to find fault with their neighbourhood ! She controlled herself, however, and replied, "Lord Belgravia might be missed in any neighbourhood.'* " Yes, he is agreeable. Less so, though — I think he is generally thought less so — than his brother." Again Adela felt herself colour, and again she averted her face. She knew that Lord Belgravia had a brother — she, who was his cousin, had heard that there was a Plantagenet Eaton, and that was all, while this girl was acquainted with him. Her former blush dis- pleasure and surprise had jointly produced ; for this last one surprise was chiefly responsi- ble ; and since she scorned — very properly — to acknowledge her ignorance, she must re- main without information. Botany, therefore, was once more resorted to, and this soon brou"fht them to the house. 140 Felicia's dowry. On the return of Mrs. Meriton and her youngest daughter to Elm Green, they found Kate much better for the three hours' perfect quiet she had obtained, and ready to agree with her mother that a little air would complete her recovery. Adela was wanting a talk with her sister on the unpleasant subject of Milli- cent Jebb, and, notwithstanding her morning's visit, and the sultriness of the afternoon, was quite pleased to accompany her in a stroll imder the elms in the avenue. On arriving at the exact words used by Miss Jebb, Kate did not feel as certain as did Adela of the acquaintance of the young lady with Mr. Plantagenet Eaton. That she had intended to imply an acquaintance with him, Kate believed ; but her words had not — that astute young person thought — absolutely as- serted it. However, the acquaintance might, she said, be a fact for either of two reasons — Felicia's DOWRY. 141 one being that it was impossible to say what classes of female acquaintance Mr. Plantagenet Eaton might be pleased to affect ; and the other that Miss Jebb herself, though clearly very ill-bred — ill-bred enough to permit her- self to be disagreeable where she saw no particular necessity for being otherwise — could still behave herself quite differently when she thought it worth her while to do so. This Kate had seen enough of her at Melford Castle to understand. ^'I wish I had not gone to Coleworth this morning," said Adela, *^ and I wish Millicent Jebb were not a friend of Feli- cia's. She is mysterious, and I hate a mys- tery." " Certainly !"' replied Kate. '' And in the meanwhile, do you know I think we had better perhaps go in. We have been walking here some time, and it is so very probable that 142 Felicia's dowry. Frank and Lord Belgravia will call on their way from Melford Castle." '^ But it is out of their way." '' A little. Still, I do not think Lord Bel- gravia would leave Coleworth without wishing us * good-bye ;' and, you know, in coming from Melford Castle they would enter by the Pond gate." " Very well — then we will go in." It turned out that Kate had judged quite rightly, for Lord Belgravia and Frank were found with Mrs. Meriton in the drawing-room. They had not been there more than a few minutes, however, and were complaining greatly of the heat. '^ Mamma," said Kate, " it would be pleasant under the verandah in the next room. "We should have come in by the garden, only we found the door fastened." "As to its being pleasant anywhere, my Felicia's dowry. 148 dear, this afternoon/' Mrs. Meriton replied, *' I must be sceptical ; but we will try the next room and the verandah.^' To the next room they adjourned accord- ingly, and found it, they all admitted, less oppressive ; the gay parterres of the garden and the light green of a graceful acacia tree being undeniably pleasant to the eye. Out upon the terrace, beneath the verandah, the young ladies and Lord Belgravia passed, but Mrs. Meriton and her son remained near the window Tvithin the apartment. "]\Iother," said Frank, '^ Lord Melford is aged a good deal lately. Hasn't it struck you that he is ?'* ^^I thought him,'' replied Mrs. Meriton, '^ looking remarkably well last night." '^ He was looking ill enough this morning. I was sorry to see it. I think Lady Melford observed it ; she says he is much excited at 144 FELICIA'S DOWRY. the return of Colonel Grant, and hardly thinks of anything else. He is, it seems, his favour- ite nephew." " Younger than the Dean, is he not ?" ** Of course. Since poor Myron's death, Dr. Grant is, you know, the next heir." " Exactly. Dear me ! — what a change !" '^ Why, as to that. Dr. Grant has done great things for himself. Still, a peerage is no bad thing." " And fifteen thousand a year is a very good thing." " Is that," said Frank, " the figure ? By- the-bye, this Colonel Grant — Lady Melford says — mentions Olivia in his last letter/' " Charming ! One might have guessed, however, that they must have met. I wonder I have not heard from Olivia by this mail ; I expected a letter." "She has not written to me, I know, for Felicia's dowry. 145 the last six months. Women get so lazy in India.'' " I fancy that is an old-fashioned notion." I have said that the two girls, with Lord Belgravia, were on the terrace under the ve- randah ; Kate, however, though not at all conspicuously apart from the other two, was perhaps rather more attentive to a wandering branch of clematis that had escaped from its position, than if the gentleman had been another than Lord Belgravia. Mr. Meriton, on entering the apartment, looked not at all dis- satisfied at the arrangement of the tableau. '' I am afraid this is a P. P. C," he said, as he went out to shake hands with Lord Belgravia. " Unhappily for me," his lordship replied. " I have a great deal of kindness to thank you for. I shall mark my visit to Blankshire with a white stone." VOL. I. L 146 Felicia's dowry. ^' You are off, then, to-morrow ?'' '^ At nine, a.m.'' <' Frightful hot weather for travelling ! " ^^ Not cool, certainly." '^And after the grouse, I suppose, come the partridges? Where do you shoot on the 1st?" "In Northamptonshire, at St. James's. Then we go southward to Brocldey, and I have promised him a fortnight's cruise in the Naiad before I lay her up for the winter." " Which will bring you to October. We are pretty well off for pheasants here. What do you say to killing a few of them ? Frank and his wife talk of the sea-side in the autumn ; but if you should have any fancy to bring your gun into Blankshire in October, count on a bed with us." " Upon my word, you are extremely good ! Felicia's dowry. 147 There is very little doubt that I sliall remind you of your offer." Frank now said they must be off, and the dog-cart was ordered round. Mr. Meriton and his daughters accompanied their visitors to the hall-door ; nay, the former made — as country gentlemen are wont to do — an approving circuit of the equipage, and finally shook hands with the Viscount, after he had mounted to his place by Frank's side ; while Mrs. Meri- ton kissed her hand, and waved her hand- kerchief from the window in the principal drawing-room. It was to this apartment that the young ladies and Mr. Meriton returned as soon as the dog-cart had travelled out of sight. '* I am so glad," said the lady of the house, " that we are likely to see Lord Belgravia And Kate had begun to follow suit with a l2 148 FELICIA'S DOWRY. similar little sentence, when its delivery was interrupted by a yawn from Mr. Meriton, who, taking up a book from the table, subsided into an arm-chair. 149 CHAPTER X A LETTER FROM INDIA. ^HE same mail which it was expected Colonel Grant would accompany, brought / a letter from Olivia Fanshawe to her mother. Olivia — if I must tell the truth, and, mind you, I mean no more than I say — was a very lively young married lady, not at all more averse to the attentions of gentlemen, and the various distractions of gay society, than other young married ladies of her regiment in India. But her letters to Mrs. Meriton were, never- theless, perfection. In reading them you would never have supposed that she had a single admirer but her own husband, or an amusement beyond her own nursery. Indeed, 150 Felicia's dowry. these letters, in the hands of Mrs, Meriton, were a little dreaded by Mrs. Meriton's friends, who should not have been expected to take a great interest in details so exclusively domestic. This last one, arriving (I think) on or about the twentieth of August, was even more do- mestic, and more interesting than usual. Captain Fanshawe had suffered a little attack of fever — his first, and not at all an alarming one, but sufficient to procure him leave of absence, and send them all to the hills. ^^A charming change," wrote Olivia, "to which I look forward not more on dear Har- ry's account, than that of my darling chicks. But our arrangements for moving — the nursery requirements which must be thought of — and the warmer clothing to be looked out — make me so busy that I have hardly a moment for writing." Felicia's dowry. 151 It was not till near the end of the letter that she mentioned Colonel Allan Grant. *'He is a nice fellow," she wrote, " and a great friend of Harry's. Indeed, we both like him so much, that you must, for our sakes, show him any little attention that may be in your power. Of course, being Lord Mel- ford's nephew, besides having distinguished himself so much, he will he fete in Blankshire ; but that is not the sort of thing he cares about, and he wants to know you all very much. He will win your heart, as he did mine, by a charming likeness he has taken — for he is a capital draughtsman — of little Olivia, one copy of which he is bringing home to you, while he leaves the other with me. It is her very image. I daresay you have heard at Melford Castle that he is a widower, and without children. Now, let me whisper in your ear, that he makes no secret of his in- 152 Felicia's dowry. tention to marry again — in England — for he was not to be caught in India, — no fault of ' our spins/ as you may guess. And as we are very fond of him, and he is the nicest fel- low, besides being a Lieutenant-Colonel, and a C. B., please to tell Kate (Adela is too young for him), that I will not love her any more if she does not make him our brother-in-law. By-the-bye, speaking of dear little Olivia, I must tell you." &c. &c. I think the one thing that beyond others elat- ed the young grand-mother, was a letter from Mrs. Harry Fanshawe. And I think this last one, with the prospect of soon seeing a person who had so lately been in Olivia's society — the prospect, too, of beholding a little Olivia already arriving at an age for smart parasols and gloves, had really thrown her a little, the very least in the world, off her balance ; for she chatted away so gaily with her daughters Felicia's dowry. 153 on all these subjects, not excluding that of the naive proposal (so she termed it) on the part of the elder Olivia for making Colonel Grant one of the. family, that she did not for some little time perceive that Mr. Meriton was smil- ing some of his most unpleasant smiles over his plate. Possibly he was even then in posses- sion of a little piece of county news, which later in the day, when the dinner cloth had been removed, and the dessert placed upon the table, at which Mr. and Mrs. Frank were pre- sent, he put forth : ^' Have you heard, ladies," he said, in re- turning his tooth-pick case to his waistcoat pocket, " of a marriage we are going to have in the county ?" ** A marriage ! No." "You are quite behind-hand. I have known it these two days. The gentleman is Mr. William Beauchamp." 1 54 Felicia's dowry. ^' Billy Beauchamp !" exclaimed Frank. '^ Billy Beauchamp," said his father. "And the lady?" asked Mrs. Meriton, still, however, quite animatedly. " Some one he has met abroad ?" " Certainly not. I believe she has never been abroad." " But who, then ?" *^Try a guess." " Mamma," said Kate, tolerably shrewdly, " the Maitlands were nt Dover — is it Fanny Maitland?" " No." "Not one of the Elliots?" said mamma. " Oh, no ! None of the sisterhood." " Then I give it up. Do we all give it up?" " I don't," said Mrs. Frank. " It is Miss Wilbraham." "It is Miss Wilbraham." Felicia's dowry. 155 " By Jove !" exclaimed Frank. "Miss Wilbraham!" repeated Mrs. Meriton, after a little astonished silence. " I cannot think, my dear Felicia, what led you to the guess. I never should have guessed Miss Wilbraham. She is, I should think, the least attractive — of Mr. Beauchamp's acquaint- ance." " But then, mamma," said Kate, " she is his cousin, and we always thought she might be rather clever. At any rate, you know, she must have had the greatest possible oppor- tunities of making herself agreeable to him ; and as for her looks — they are, at least, fully equal to his." " Oh ! fully." Mr. Meriton drew a dish of fine grapes to- wards him, and studied them a little with his disagreeable smile. " Sour grapes !" he observed. 156 Felicia's dowry. " I will trouble you for some," said his daughter-in-law. " Not sour, I think — only not a very good sort." The ladies of Elm Green, however, were by no means overwhelmed by Mr. Meriton's an- nouncement. The selected Mrs. William had never been a rival, and at this particular juncture they could very easily dismiss Billy Beauchamp from their thoughts. These last, indeed, pleasantly engaged as they were with the expectation of Lord Belgravia's visit in October, and of the almost immediate arrival of Colonel Allan Grant, could hardly be ex- pected to occupy themselves with so untitled and otherwise undistinguished a person as the son of the member for the county. '^ He may even have arrived, mamma," said Adela, speaking not of Billy Beauchamp, but of Colonel Grant. '^ That is hardly likely. But a day or two FELICIA'S DOWRY. 157 will, I should think, very probably bring him to Melforcl Castle." '^ Is papa going to stay long in town, mamma?" asked Kate. ^^ Three or four days only." ** Papa going to town for three or four days!" exclaimed Adela. ^^ Then he will not be able to call on Colonel Grant?" " Not till he returns." " That is a pity. We shall not be amongst the first to see him." " Perhaps," said Mrs. Meriton, " Lord Melford may be aware of your father's ab- sence — his movements are usually pretty well known in the county, I think — and Colonel Grant having so lately left Olivia, may possibly come over in the meantime to see us.'^ '^ And having," added Adela, ^^ the picture in his possession." Mr. Meriton, however, left for London ; and 158 Felicia's dowry. two wet days passed, and then a fine one, and the Elm Green party heard nothing of Melford Castle, or of the Mogul, as Tom was pleased to call Colonel Grant. (He might be the Great Mogul — that young gentleman said — there was so much talk about him.) One knows how, in the country, there are some- times several days together during which one has no visitors and hears no news, and every- thing seems to stagnate. Such days were these three at Elm Green. On the third, Kate and Adela walked to Coleworth. First, they called at the Manor House, and found that Frank and Felicia had gone on a week's visit to some friends sixteen miles off. Then they walked on to the Vicarage, where they were told that Mr. and Mrs. Dalton were "not at home." Then they walked back again to Elm Green in disgust; and I am afraid Colonel Grant was talked of that even- Felicia's dowry. 159 ing a good deal. The mystery in which he was enfolded rendered him a more interesting topic than ever. On the fourth day Tom rushed into the morning room just before luncheon, hot with his walk from Mr. Mildmay, and rubbing his hands gleefully. "Now!" he exclaimed, "what will you give me for my news?" " How," said Kate, " can we know before- hand what it is worth?" " Is it," said Adela, "about Colonel Grant?" "The Mogul is at Melford Castle. He came on Monday." "On Monday!" "And this," said Tom, "is Friday. The Mogul has been four days within five miles of us, and we have not known it!" " And pray," inquired Adela, " how do you know it now?" " Mildmay told me. Mr. and Mrs. Dalton 160 Felicia's dowry. dined yesterday at Melford Castle, and told The girls were silent, but Mrs. Meriton looked cheerfully up. " Now," she said, '' we shall soon see little Olivia." '^ I hope so," Adela replied. '^ Did Mr. Mildmay mention whether there was a dinner- party at Melford Castle?" Tom had planted himself on the hearthrug with his hands behind him. " Only old Dalton and Mrs. Dalton and the Elliots." '' The Elliots!" exclaimed Kate. " Sir Geoffrey and either Elizabeth or Ellen, I suppose," said Mrs. Meriton, still quite cheerfully. They all knew that Margaret was at Folkestone with Lady Jane. ** Mildmay said Sir Geoffrey and the Miss Elliots. And Melford took the Mogul over Felicia's dowry. 161 to the Grange the day before to ask them. We must look sharp — they have two days start of us, by Jove!" Kate began to fold her work in disgust, and Adela remarked contemptuously that Elizabeth and Ellen Elliot were both old maids. **Kather a goodish sort, though, I should say," observed Tom, still enacting a sort of humble imitation of his father on the rug ; **"and the Mogul himself ain't exactly a chicken. We must look alive." Mrs. Meriton now interfered. *' Tom," she said, to her youngest son, ^^you are getting too old for this sort of " '^ Chaff," the young gentleman observed. " Exactly — chaff. It is ungentlemanly, and by-and-bye you will find it difiicult to leave it off" " One must draw the line somewhere, I VOL. I. M 162 Felicia's dowry. admit," said Tom. " I will leave it off when I shave." ^' As if," exclaimed Adela, " anyone shaved now !" '' The Mogul don't, of course." *' If there were any wit in what you say " " I should," rejoined the incorrigible Tom, " keep it for a more appreciating ear." '' There — do go to the nursery !" his sister said as he quitted the room ; and the speech was intended to be severe, for there was a nursery — the nursery of the younger Meritons' childhood — now remaining exclusively to Tom, for the disposal of his bats, skates, fishing-rods, colour-boxes, &c, and for his presumed pre- paration of certain lessons for S. Mildmay. This apartment was called by Tom himself his study, and it was perfectly understood in the family that you could not wound the young Felicia's dowry. 163 gentleman's feelings more than by referring to it under its original name. His sisters, however, may be forgiven for a little severity. They were disappointed, and perhaps not quite unnaturally so. Olivia's letter had said that Colonel Grant " wanted to know them all very much," and his friendship with her husband and herself spoken of by her, and evidenced by the picture of their little un- seen niece, drawn by him, and in his possession, had made them feel rather as if their interest in him was greater than that of other persons in the county. Yet he had been in the county since Monday night, had been seen by the Daltons and the Elliots, had even been to see the latter, and neither he nor the picture had been near Elm Green. " Tuesday and Wednesday were so wet," said Mrs. Meriton at luncheon, " and in the early days of his visit to Lord and Lady Mel- M 2 164 Felicia's dowry. ford it is quite natural — quite proper, that he should be engrossed by their friends. I think it very probable, however, that he may find time to come to-day. I shall not go further than the garden terrace, in the hope that he may. I would not miss the opportunity of hearing about Olivia, and the dear children, for anything." '^And in the meantime," said impetuous Adela, ^' what if Kate and I were to walk over to the Grange. Mamma, we cannot but be curious, and we might do so, as we really owe a visit there." Mamma, however, did not quite approve of this measure. She thought they would do extremely well without the Grange. Her im- pression was that Colonel Grant would call that afternoon ; and even if it should turn out that he waited for Mr. Meriton's visit, Mr. Meriton would return home to-morrow. It Felicia's dowry. 165 was really only to have a little patience — tlioupjh she would own to being as eager to see the darling's picture as any one. The two girls, therefore, not permitted to visit the Grange, and indeed, entertaining the least in the world of a not very reasonable displeasure towards their friends the Misses Elliot, turned their steps in the direction of Pond Gate — the gate, it may be remembered, by which visitors from Melford Castle might be expected to arrive. A very charming walk, screened by trees, surrounded this little piece of water, and at the same time commanded a view of the gate. Here Kate and Adela thought they might at once receive the benefit of air and exercise, enjoy a comfortable causerie, and prevent the possibility of losing the hoped-for visit if it should be made. They expected it less than their mother had appeared to do ; they thought they must wait the re- 166 Felicia's dowry. suit of the formal paternal visit to Melford Castle. ^' I do not know," said Kate, ^^ why we should have supposed he would rush to us as soon as he arrived. He might even consider it an intrusion. I can easily imagine that English persons abroad have a much less formal intercourse than at home ; and Colonel Grant would naturally feel a greater interest in Olivia's family — though thousands of miles away — when with Olivia herself, than now when only five miles ojff", and surrounded by relatives and friends of his own." Adela admitted this, and that their expec- tations had been a little unreasonable ; and then she wondered whether they would think Colonel Grant so very nice a person, after all. Olivia's standard of niceness might be rather a military one, perhaps, *^ and a mili- tary air, you know " Felicia's dowry. 167 ** A military air ?" '^ Is, in fact, a military air, and nothing else." "It is not the air of Lord Belgravia, per- haps you mean." ** Oh ! I was not thinking of Lord Belgra- via." " But you have a theory about a lord, I remember, which perhaps Colonel Grant may disprove." " I do not think it is very likely." " And even if he should have something else than a military air, he will be, you know, some day, not a lord, but at least the brother of one. I think, however, we talk a great deal too much about Colonel Grant ; if it were not for Olivia and the picture, it would be quite inexcusable." "I wonder," said Adela, "why papa was so unpleasant the other day about Wil- 168 Felicia's dowry. liam Beauchamp's marriage — before Felicia, too ? Did he think we should be morti- fied r " Oh, no ! More likely he may have been cross about something else." " For myself, '^ said Adela, ^' I am really delighted at it. It is a relief to my mind ; for, do you know, I have sometimes had a horrible idea that if the worst came to the worst — I mean if one could not marry any person one liked, or something of that sort — one might have to end, after all, with William Beauchamp ; and it is charming to think that now that at least is impossible." *' Impossible. But ' have to end !' I do not understand you. You never could have married William Beauchamp but with your own consent." *^ Oh, no ! of course not — so to speak. Only if one could not have married any one Felicia's dowry. 169 else — any one one liked better — and you see, one cannot always be sanguine." "Sanguine!" repeated Kate in utter as- tonishment. " Do you mean about marriage?" "Eh? Oh! I don't know. Papa and mamma expect us to marry some day, 1 fancy, do they not?" " I suppose they think it probable that we shall — or one of us, at any rate." " And, in fact, we ourselves should not wish to be old maids." " I do not," replied Kate, " quite say that. I would rather be an old maid than marry William Beauchamp. Adela, you are younger than I am — you should be less worldly ; yet you would marry a man who is contemptible, rather " " Than," said Adela, " encounter the con- tempt of society." " You are quite wrong. But somehow you 170 are a little bitter to-day, and I am sure you are saying more than you mean." Of course Miss Adela spurned the apology offered for her by her sister, as any other young lady in the mood of temper she was indulging would have done. " Look/^ she said, " at Elizabeth Elliot." " Well," Kate replied, '' I look at Eliza- beth Elliot, and I see a charming person, whom society acknowledges to be charming." "I don't know about charming; besides Elizabeth Elliot has advantages — advantages just here, at least — of family, and even for- tune; yet papa speaks of her contemptuously, for no other reason than that she is thirty and unmarried." " Papa," said Kate, ^^ has on some account or other rather a dislike of Elizabeth; but I do not know any one else who speaks of her contemptuously." Felicia's dowry. 171 " Mamma says ^poor Elizabeth!' " " That is because she is not married to Dr. Grant — not because she is not married at all. I fancy mamma thinks she must have liked Horace Grant." " Oh, if you mean to say that the position of a single woman in society is superior to that of one who is married " " I do not say so; I almost think it ought to be, and I think if it were, it would prevent a great deal of unhappiness, and a great many wrong marriages; such, for instance, as yours with William Beauchamp would have been. But it is not. Still I think you perhaps ex- aggerate its inferiority. The very last time we dined at Melford Castle there was a little talk in the drawing-room about old maids; and Lady Melford said it happened that the three or four persons of her own sex she most valued in the world were single women, 172 Felicia's dowry. and that she knew no married persons of equal condition more popular in society than they were, or commanding greater attention. She said, too, that she thought society was im- proved and improving in respect of the posi- tion in it of single women.'' " If you were five years older. Miss Kate Meriton," said Adela, merrily laughing, " I should say you were beginning to hedge. But my ill-humour is over, and I do not believe you will attribute it to the marriage of Billy Beauchamp. By-the-bye, will they be want- ing to have a gay wedding, and shall we be asked?" '^ I should think not. Of course there will be a demonstration in the matter of tenants, and schools, and poor people; but I imagine nothing of what we should call a gay wed- ding. If there should be, I suppose we shall be asked — indeed we should not be Felicia's dowry. 173 pleased at being left out; but I imagine not. I hope not, for it would be a bore. With Colonel Grant to get acquainted with, and Lord Belgravia's visit to look forward to, and all the autumn parties in prospect, one does not want to trouble oneself about a toilette for such an extremely uninteresting affair as William Beauchamp's marriage to his cousin. I hear wheels — oh, it is only Mr. Higgins's (the doctor) gig. And indeed it is too late now for Colonel Grant to call! Would you believe it? it is five o'clock. We ought to be going back to mamma. What a pretty walk this is! Why don't we come here oftener, I wonder?" 174 CHAPTER XL COLONEL GRANT. T/'ATE and Adela, although it was five ' o'clock, did not take the nearest way to the back of the house, but followed a path that entered the shrubbery, from which they emerged on a gravel walk at the head of the avenue, terminating in the sweep in front of the hall door. The sound of depart- ing wheels were then audible, and an under- gardener, who was just turning away, touched his hat when he saw the young ladies pause, and said to Kate, ^^ The pony carriage, Miss, from the Grange." '^My dears," Mrs. Meriton exclaimed as Felicia's dowry. 175 they entered the drawing-room, ^' where have you been? I sent to look for you, but you were nowhere to be found; at least Thomas could not find you, and Dawson had not seen you/' ** We were in the Pond walk, mamma," said Kate, " and we so seldom go there, that I do not wonder Thomas's search was unsuccess- ful. You have had the Elliots here ?" " The Elliots, and Colonel Grant." " Colonel Grant !" " Mamma !" Adela exclaimed, ^^ do you mean it ? How unlucky we are ! We thought ourselves so safe in not losing sight of the Pond Gate ! He did not come from Melford Castle, then? How long has he been gone ?" "Not five minutes." '^ Do you mean that he came with the Elliots ?" *^ Did I not say so ? Their pony-carriage 176 Felicia's dowry. could hardly have been out of the avenue when you came in, and I think they must have arrived within a quarter of an hour of your going out. He has talked of Olivia and Harry Fanshawe, and the dear children, almost the whole time ; and she has not praised him a bit too highly, I promise you. We shall all be delighted with him." " But when,'' said Kate, " shall we see him? And where, then, is the picture ?" " He is to bring it to-morrow. He had set apart to-morrow for coming to see us, and had not thought of to-day's visit till he found him- self at the Grange." " Do you think he has waited for papa to call on him ? Did he seem to have been aware that papa was from home ?" " Oh ! yes, perfectly aware. I fancy he thought we should quite understand that the early days of his visit must belong to Lord Felicia's dowry. 177 and Lady Melford. His candour, and look and tone of perfect good-humour, and good faith, are what strike you so particularly. Except with Lord Belgravia, I have not been so pleased with any one for a very long time indeed." ^^ But, mamma," said Kate, " these are not, I think, what strike one most in Lord Belgravia. - j'H VIM '^ Oh, no ! — that is, I mean, I did not ex- actly say they were. Both Lord Belgravia and Colonel Grant are very superior to the men one usually meets in society, and yet quite unlike each other. It is difficult to define. Colonel Grant has, however, the most sol- dierly air, and Lord Belgravia most the air of a man of fashion." " Exactly," Kate replied. '' And did he say, mamma, whether little Livy is as beauti- ful as Olivia thinks her ?" VOL. I. N 178 Felicia's dowry. *^A charming child, he says. More like her father, however, than like Olivia." " That would be pretty for a child, mam- ma. The florid complexion and large brown eyes would be very pretty for a child." " Well, we must be patient till to-morrow. Then we shall see ; for Colonel Grant, though he speaks very modestly of the drawing, says the likeness has never been questioned. He says little Frank is a noble boy. He speaks quite con amove of children, and must be very fond of them, I think. Quite a sadness came over his face when he said he had none. T am sure he is a very amiable man." No disappointment was in store for our young ladies. On the morrow, almost before he was expected, Colonel Grant and the picture arrived. As to the latter, there could not be two opinions about it — it was charm- ing. As to the former, there might be two Felicia's dowrv. 179 opinions, and there were ; both, however, must be favourable, and couhl only vary, not in character, but in degree. Even Adela was very quickly constrained to admit to herself that a certain frankness, simplicity, and good faith in the kind dispositions of them all toward him for Olivia's sake and his own, was extremely engaging. He had not, Miss Adela thought, the air of high birth and fashion that Lord Belgravia possessed in such perfection; oh, no! he had nothing at -all equal to that, or to the insouciance, never, however im- polite, which rendered the least attention, the smallest solicitude on his part such positive flattery. Colonel Grant was cheerful, demon- strative, capable — she even thought — of being enthusiastic. Then, of course, few gentlemen drew in such a style — an inspection of his portfolio would be delightful; and no doubt he was otherwise accomplished. For herself, N 2 180 FELICIA'S DOWRY. she did not particularly care for accomplish- ments in men. She could fancy Lord Bel- gravia a patron, never a performer. Now Colonel Grant, she dared to say, sang. Kate, who was not thinking of Lord Bel- gravia, saw in the ribboned officer a hero, and in the artist of her little niece's portrait a man of genius; either of the two a higher thing in her estimation than a man of fashion. And his simplicity, his cheerfulness, his pride in his own country, the almost romance of his recollections, the evident brightness of his hopes, his tenderness in the matter of family ties, his passionate love — equally unaffected and undisguised — of children; these gentle genial qualities seemed to her to elevate the hero, and exalt the genius. But, as to Kate, I am a little anticipating, for of course all this could not quite appear in a first visit, though a good deal of it did. Felicia's dowry. 181 And Colonel Grunt did not sing. He re- gretted, however, that he could not, which Adela in her own mind thought nearly as bad. '*No, Miss Meriton/' he said, "I am sorry to say I am no musician. I do not even know that I have much love of music. At all events, it has never been cultivated. We are not, I think, very accomplished in India. We dance, and we — well, we dance — and I do not know that we do very much else. I had not been eight-and-forty hours in England before I discovered in myself one terrible de- ficiency. I am no croquet player, and I hear that the Miss Meritons are the best in the county.^' " We are at least," said Adela, 'Wery fond of it. We must take you in hand." '' Will you? I shall be the gratefullest, the most painstaking, the most persevering of pupils. As for music, I am told that if I 182 Felicia's dowry. wish to hear good music, I must go next Sunday to Coleworth church ; that with Mr. Mildmay (whom I have seen) at the reading- desk, and Mrs. Frank Meriton in the choir, one must be very hard to please indeed if one finds any fault." "Yes," Kate said, *^one does not often, I fancy, hear two such fine voices together, and Felicia has been admirably taught. Mr. Mildmay, too, I believe, has science. I am glad that ray brother and sister will not be absent to-morrow. They have been from home all the week, but were to return yester- day. I suppose they did so, and that is the reason you do not see my youngest brother Tom, who studies with Mr. Mildmay, and usually inflicts himself on Felicia at luncheon as often as he can find any pretence for doing so." " I have that pleasure, then, to come. Oh ! Felicia's dotvry. 183 I mean what I say, I assure you. I like ^youngest brother Toms/ and they are person- ages we do not often come across in India." ''In that case/' said Mrs. Meriton, ''you can refresh your memory with us ; and our ' youngest brother Tom ' is rather a florid specimen." The one subject on which Adela fancied Colonel Grant did not readily follow their lead, was that of the Grange. Mrs. Meriton men- tioned Sir Geoffrey, and her visitor said, " As you say, the perfection of a gentleman — but, Miss Meriton, you were speaking of this croquet lesson " Adela herself had at another moment occa- sion to speak of Elizabeth. " We have always heard," said the youngest Miss Meriton, " that she was the most beautiful. Do you think her beautiful still, Colonel Grant ?" " Still most beautiful ; — Mrs. Meriton, you 184 Felicia's dowry. are not placing that picture in a good light. In fact, before you place it at all, I am going to ask a great favour. May I take it back and copy it ? It has been my companion so long, that I feel more sorry than I expected at parting from it. I have already drawn it twice, — may I make a third copy for my- self?" " Of course, I may not refuse," said Mrs. Meriton, '* it would be too ungrateful. But to own the truth, now it has once come to me, I hardly know how to let it go away again." " I quite understand your feeling. May I come here to copy it ?" " May you ? My dear Colonel Grant, how I thank you for having proposed it ! It is a charming alternative. Assuredly you may." "The greater part I can draw from me- mory ; I will only ask the young lady for two, or at most three, sittings of an hour each. FELICIA'S DOWRY. 185 Must I steal them/* lie said, turning to Kate and Adela, ^^ from our croquet ?" " Oh, no !" exclaimed both girls at once. " And mamma," said Kate as they left the luncheon table, '* we should like to show Colonel Grant our croquet ground. It is a strong point of ours," she said to him. *^ I believe it is the best croquet ground in the county, and we owe to it a good deal of our reputation as croquet players. Is the key of the garden in your pocket, Adela, for it is not in mine, and we might bring Colonel Grant home that way." " Le voiciy " I doubt," said Colonel Grant, " whether I must come back anyway. I am due at Mel- ford Castle at three o'clock, and it is nearly two now." " But your groom," Mrs. Meriton put in, " can receive orders in the meanwhile." 186 Felicia's dowry. ^* True ; and I may then give myself another quarter of an hour/' ^^ Twenty minutes it must be/' said Adela, '^ if you are to go round the garden." *^ Twenty minutes, then, be it." " You will come, mamma?" "No, my dear. The light is a little too strong just now for my eyes ; but if you are going into the garden, I should be glad to have a few flowers cut for the vase I bought at Smithson's. You will find me in the verandah." The light indeed on the hall-door steps, and on the sweep in front, was sufficient, notwith- standing the charming appearance of the lawn beyond, to warrant Mrs. Meriton's apprehen- sions; but the young ladies and Colonel Grant had soon entered the shrubbery. It was by a winding path through a part of this shrub- bery that the croquet ground was reached; Felicia's dowry. 187 and when the little party emerged on a sort of miniature clearing^ everywhere surrounded by foliage, perfectly level, and the turf of which was really incomparable, Colonel Grant could admire as much as he was expected to do. " But we must not linger," he said. " How you remind us," exclaimed Adela, " that you are a soldier. And we really need not be five minutes going round the garden. You would have time," she said, lifting a mallet from the ground, " to make a beginning — just to get an idea of the game — " *^ My watch says five minutes past two, and if we are to cut a bouquet for Mrs. Meriton, I believe I have not another minute to give to this charming spot. It already de- lights my artist's eye, and I have no doubt when I arrive at a better understanding of croquet, I shall value it for merits of a more 188 Felicia's dowry. special sort. This path leads to the garden, I am sure." "How I hate watches!" said Adela, relin- quishing her mallet in a sort of little pet. "And how I hate punctuality! And I have a great mind not to like soldiers." " That would make me very unhappy, only I feel sure that sooner or later a time will come when you will acknowledge punctuality to be a virtue." "Never!" "What do you think. Miss Meriton? — when, for instance, your sister is expecting some one to whose arrival she is not indif- ferent?" Kate laughed. "Oh!" said Adela, "I hear what you are saying. Punctuality would be odious." "Ah! I see!" rejoined Colonel Grant, turn- ing round on her with his brightest smile ; Felicia's dowry. 189 *^ I am beaten ; I lay down my arms — you have the best of it." Well — the garden was admired, as well it might be ; and the flowers were cut, Kate's contribution to the bouquet being some charm- ing little moss roses from a parterre peculiarly her own; and Mrs. Meriton was found, not in the verandah, but just within one of the windows of the morning room which opened on it. On receiving the bouquet from the hand of Colonel Grant, that lady remarked that the flower in his coat was a little faded, and asked him if he would not replace it with one of those so lately gathered. '^Unless, indeed," she said, ^'it was the gift of any fair lady." *^ To say the truth," replied Colonel Grant, removing it from his coat, however, and placing it, but with some care, in his waistcoat pocket, " it was given me this morning by 190 Felicia's dowry. Lady Melford. I do not tliink, though, she will be at all sorry to see it replaced with another, so I will accept your offer. Thanks! May I choose?'' " Assuredly." " I will, then, take one of these. A thou- sand thanks!" And, carefully detaching one of Kate's moss roses from the group, he fas- tened it in his coat where Lady Melford's geranium had been. '^ And to-morrow" he said, turning to the young ladies, " I shall see you at church?" " We generally," replied Kate, ^' go to Coleworth church in the afternoon, but we always attend the morning service at Froud." " In the afternoon, then." '^And on Monday at any rate," Mrs. Meriton said, as he shook hands with her in departing, ^^ little Olivia is to sit for her picture." Felicia's dowry. 191 " At three o'clock, if that will not be too soon — to allow," he added, turning to Adela, "an hour and a half for croquet." " You will not learn much," replied the young lady, '^ in an hour and an half." " You will see that I shall make the most of the time." Well, the acquaintance with Colonel Grant had been, Mrs. Meriton and her daugh- ters felt, very pleasantly begun; and I am not at all sure that when the carriage sent into Westford to meet the head of the family returned with the telegraphic message — " On Tuesday, at the same hour," — I am not at all sure, I say, that the two younger of these ladies were extremely disappointed. Mrs. Meriton of course was, or if she were not, she did not think it an occasion for absolute candour; but I rather imagine that Kate and Adela owned to each other that it might be 192 Felicia's dowry. as well for Monday to be over before the return of the lord of the castle. Mr. Meriton's yawn at the departure of my Lord Belgravia, his smiles when Olivia's letter had been read, and the unpleasant remark with which he had followed up the announcement of the betrothal of Mr. William Beauchamp to his cousin, had given them no great encouragement to expect extraordinary amenity on his part towards future indistinct admirers. I repeat, then, that I think the regret of these young ladies at the return of the empty carriage was not severe. They not unreasonably supposed that by Tuesday the acquaintance so charmingly commenced would have attained a less dis- turbable footing. 193 CHAPTEE XII. CROQUET. A ND, in fact, by Monday evening the ac- quaintance of Allan Grant with Kate and Adela had progressed extraordinarily. On the Sunday afternoon these last had no sooner entered Colevvorth church than they beheld Colonel Grant and Frank in the pew belonging to the Manor House; and had no sooner come out of church than they disco- vered that the former had attended the morn- ing service under Mrs. Dalton's auspices, had been introduced by that lady to the F. Meri- tons, had dined with them, and was now on the point of accepting a second invitation, VOL. I. 194 FELICIA'S DOWKY. which included Kate and Adela themselves — from hospitable Frank to the high tea served on a Sunday at Coleworth, at the usual dinner-hour, and supposed to be a less gene to the domestics than the ordinary meal of fish, flesh, and pudding. Indeed, it probably was so, for, the table once covered, no further requirements were made, and the family re- tiring from the dining-room in which the tea was served, at the conclusion of the repast, the well- trained man or a deputy, as the case might be, removed the debris and the cloth at his convenience. As regarded Kate and Adela, there was a little difficulty. Mrs. Meriton would be un- easy about them ; ' and, moreover, she would have no other dinner companion than Tom. As for the dinner, Frank did not think she would mind it for a moment; but measures must undoubtedly be taken to prevent any Felicia's dowry. 195 possibility of uneasiness. At this crisis Mr. Mildmay came forward. He was going to see a sick person who had been his own parishioner, but was now removed to the cottage of her parents nearly two miles off. He would pass the gate of Elm Green, and would be most happy to leave a message, or even see Mrs. Meriton herself for a minute. His offer removed all anxiety, and was thank- fully accepted. *^ I never saw such a fellow as Mildmay,'^ said George Dalton, a little apart to Felicia. '^ He works like a cab- horse — he is at it from morning till night.'^ Colonel Grant heard what was said — so did Kate; and the latter saw with particular plea- sure the beaming look and handsome bow with which the former saluted the departing curate. Well, this high tea at Cole worth was quite an unexpected pleasure, and, like most unex- 2 196 Felicia's dowry. pected pleasures, more enjoyed perhaps than one longer planned ; and there was still the Monday croquet lesson to look forward to. The young ladies feared this might prove rather dull after the cheerful Coleworth meet- ing. Felicia, they admitted, could be very engaging when she chose, and her little im- provised parties certainly had an ease and elegance and charm peculiarly their own. She was never at her best, they thought, at Elm Green, and it was no use asking her to assist at the croquet lesson, because she de- tested croquet. Frank and George Dalton would have been invaluable, but they were fishing everlastingly, and not to be had. Kate and Adela would be left, therefore, to their own resources. Better things, however, were in store. By the time Colonel Grant had been seated half an hour at his drawing-frame, the scraping of Felicia's dowry. 197 wheels on the gravel, and, immediately after, a loud knock at the hall-door, announced the arrival of visitors. ^^ I shall not allow you to be disturbed. Colonel Grant," said Mrs. Meriton, as she rose from her writing-table. " We will re- ceive our friends in the other drawing-room." '^ You are very good," Colonel Grant was replying, when the door of the ^^ other draw- ing-room " opening, he became aware who the visitors were. ^^ Oh ! it is Mrs. Beauchamp and Miss Wilbraham," he said ; " I shall fol- low you for a moment to pay my respects." And he did so, with an ease and elegance that even Adela owned to herself Lord Bel- gravia could hardly have surpassed, and with a bonhomie that Kate thought Lord Belgravia would very probably not have equalled ; re- turning immediately afterwards to the inner room and his picture, the completed copy of 198 Felicia's dowry. which had of course to be brought out and crowded round and admired and complimented. It soon became evident that Mrs. Beauchamp had arrived with leisure to make a consider- able sitting ; and the party, after little Olivia was done with, divided — Miss Wilbraham, Kate, Adela, and Mr. William Beauchamp forming a little group of young people at one end of the room, while the two elder ladies settled themselves to a confidential chat on the sofa at the other. Of course Mrs. Beau- champ was wanting to be spoken to about the engagement of her son, and of course Mrs. Meriton spoke of it. Was it declared ? — was it only about to be declared? Eumours, almost more than rumours, had reached Mrs. Meriton's ears. Was it too soon for an old friend to congratulate ? Mrs. Beauchamp was delighted, and only a very little coy. She was not quite pre- Felicia's dowry. 199 pared to hear that it had spread so widely. It had been dedared to a few — a very few friends — not exactly as a secret, certainly. In short, where all were so sociable, everybody — Mrs. Beauchamp supposed — talked of every- body ; and, Mrs. Beauchamp was glad to say, it was a very acceptable subject indeed to Mr. Beauchamp and herself. " I feel it must be so," said the polite lady of Elm Green, *^ or I would not have intro- duced the subject. We all felt it must be what you and Mr. Beauchamp would most like, most approve. It is not often that the mother of an only son has the happiness of receiving in a daughter a young lady she knows as well and values as highly as you do Miss Wil- braham." '^ What you say is so exactly what I feel," responded the pleased Mrs. Beauchamp. ''And William, though the best of young 200 FELICIA'S DOWRY. men, and of sons, has peculiarities. He re- quires to be understood ; and a young lady who understood him less well than our dear Maud does, he might not have made so happy as I hope and believe he will make her." '^ So true. All men, I believe, require more or less to be understood." " More or less — aud, dear me, marriage is such a lottery. Maud is not handsome — nay, do not look towards her just now, she is not seen at this moment to advantage — not many young ladies are, I think, by the side of your dear girls. She is not handsome." "But," said Mrs. Meriton, with a little polite exaggeration of opinion, "very charm- ing." " Oh ! yes, charming unquestionably, and very sensible, and as good as gold. And so far as I have observed, it is not always the Felicia's dowry. 201 most beriutifiil wife that has the greatest in- fluence/' " Generally, indeed, quite otherwise," Mrs. Meriton said. *^ iVnd now that we are upon confidences," said the good lady of the county member, bend- ing still a little closer to Mrs. Meriton, " do let me ask if what I hear of Mrs. Frank Meriton is true. It has been very confidently said, I ^assure you, and as I thought it must please you, I pricked up my ears." Mrs. Meriton professed entire ignorance. *' I certainly should be glad, and very pro- bably it may be so ; but I am in the dark." " Which would hardly be the case." ^* I do not know." " Hardly, I should think. I am afraid, then, it is not true. However, these very young married ladies — they have been married nearly a year — have they not ?" 202 Felicia's dowry. ^^ A year, and almost a month." " Bless me ! how time flies ! It has been flying with us, I think, for here is Colonel Grant, who has finished his drawing." "For to-day, Mrs. Beauchamp," said that officer ; " and indeed, Mrs. Meriton, I find I get on so well, that another sitting will, I be- lieve^ be all I shall require. It is my third copy, you know, and memory comes greatly to my assistance. After another sitting I shall be able to finish it from memory." " As much memory," said Mrs. Meriton, " as you please. But, I entreat of you, no imagination. I should be unhappy if your little Olivia were prettier than mine." " And now," said Mrs. Beauchamp, "Colonel Grant is ready for his croquet lesson, and we, my dear Maud, must be going." The young people, however, had arranged otherAvise. Half an hour in the society of the Felicia's dowry. 203 Miss Meritons had revived Mr. William Beau- champ's love of croquet, and his more than hinted offers to assist at the croquet-lesson had been amiably seconded by Miss Wilbra- ham, and readily accepted by Kate and Adela, and were now communicated to the elders of of the party, including Colonel Grant. Good- humoured Mrs. Beauchamp had nothing to do but consent — though she did express some little proper fear of intruding too far on Mrs. Meriton's time, which the latter lady politely removed ; and I am bound to record that if the next hour and a half on the croquet ground were a little dull to some of the party, it was quite the reverse of dull to others. To Mrs. Meriton it was perhaps tedious, but the satisfaction of Mrs. Beauchamp was quite un- affected ; I am not sure that Miss Wilbraham was much amused, but herfutur was unmistak- ably contented ; and I feel almost certain that 204 Felicia's dowry. Adela was to a great extent bored; but, on the other hand, Kate was radiant herself, and perceived not that any of the rest were less so. I have already said that by Monday even- ing the acquaintance with Colonel Grant had progressed extraordinarily. Now I think this progress has been accounted for. You perceive that the young ladies and he had been in each other's company a considerable portion of Saturday, Sunday, and Monday ; so consider- able a portion, indeed, that Tom, when he came home from an afternoon's fishing with his brother and George Dalton, and having lost his dinner, was indulged with ham and eggs in lieu thereof, made an ungrateful return for his viands, and seriously displeased Mrs. Meriton by giving it as his opinion that " the girls were making too early running." The re- mark, besides being coarse, was really unjust. FELICIA'S DOWRY. 205 Not Kate and Adela, but circumstances had, I think, made the running. There was Church, you see ; and there was the pro- verbially easy hospitality of Coleworth ; and there was the picture ; and there was Colonel Grant's vehement desire to learn the game of croquet. Circumstances had really made the running, and I do not think the young ladies were in fault. They might have stayed away from Coleworth Church, certainly. They did not always attend the afternoon service at Coleworth, and they might have stayed away ; but, on the other hand, they often did attend it, and they could there- fore quite properly go. They might have stayed away, certainly ; they might have said to Colonel Grant that they generally did go in the afternoon to Coleworth Church, but that they were not going on that particular Sun- day — and they might not have gone. But I 206 FELICIA'S DOWRY. think — if I may for a moment revert to Tom's objectionable figure — it would have been nearly tantamount to turning round and can- tering off the course. I am not at all pre- pared to say that, under the circumstances, and in the case of so unexceptionable a gen- tleman and acquaintance as Colonel Grant, I should have required a daughter of my own to practise so much self-denial ; and I there- fore do not feel that I, at least, have any right to charge either the Miss Meritons or their mamma with what the newspaper of to- day informs me is to be henceforth called husbandry. For Tuesday, however, nothing had been arranged. You will remember that " on Tuesday, at the same hour," Mr. Meriton's carriage was again to be at the station, and this time it did not return empty. " Mamma," said Adela, in the course of Felicia's doayry. 207 the afternoon, " did Colonel Grant say at all when he was commg to finish the pic- ture ?'' " No, I think not. It will now be for your father to call." This Mr. Meriton did on the following day, accompanied by " mamma,'^ who had not yet had an opportunity of congratulating Lord and Lady Melford on the return of their nephew ; and on Thursday, and again on Saturday, Colonel Grant rode over to Elm Green to continue, and, on the last-mentioned day, to complete, as far as Elm Green was concerned, the drawing of little Olivia. There was croquet, too, on the Saturday, though the Thursday afternoon had unfortunately turned out rainy, and there was a formal in- vitation to dinner sent by Mr. and Mrs. Meriton to Melford Castle ; but notwithstand- ing all this, matters were felt to have gone a 208 Felicia's dowry. little back since the return of Mr. Meriton from London. Kate and Adela were not of opinion that he meant to be constrained, or sarcastic, or disagreeable in any way. Yet he was so, they thought, at the very time he was endeavouring to be otherwise. Somehow he had not come back from London at his best. They hoped they were not undutiful, but — comparing " this Saturday " with the one be- fore, and with the Monday — they came to the conclusion that, whether he meant it or not, papa had been wet-blankety. ** I think mamma," said Kate, " looks as if she thought him not in his best spirits. He would say if he did not like Colonel Grant ; but perhaps he may feel bored by his coming here so often, and he may not be wanting to have a dinner-party." " More likely," replied Adela, " it is some- thing in London. I daresay it is nothing of Felicia's dowry. 209 any consequence — some little money matter or other." " What was Frank saying when papa gave that great yawn ? I wish papa would not give those yawns before strangers. Colonel Grant must have been quite surprised. Did you happen to hear, Adela, what Frank was saying ?" " No." " It was something about the shooting." '' I did not hear." This little conversation between the two girls took place in the drawing-room soon after dinner, and was at this moment inter- rupted by Mrs. Meriton, who had a note in her hand that had been given her by Jephson as she crossed the hall. Be in no flutter, young ladies, this is not a novel, as you must have seen by this time, that deals in the sen- sational or surprising. VOL. I. P 210 Felicia's dowry. " From Coleworth, my dear/' said Mrs. Meriton, placing the note in her eldest daughter's hand. " From Coleworth, mamma ?" It was as follows : — '"' Coleworth, Saturday. *'My dear Kate, ^^ Frank and I have just been say- ing how very little we have seen of you lately, and in another fortnight or so we shall be going to Weymouth. Do, therefore, get Adela to spare you, and prevail on Mrs. Meriton to let you spend next week with us. We are sorry that we are engaged to the Maitlands for the day of your dinner-party. Of course we shall leave you free to dine at Elm Green, or to go with us to Lime House. Come over early on Monday morning, as Fanny and Augustus Maitland and George Dalton are coming to luncheon, and you can Felicia's dowry. 211 have some croquet afterwards, if you like — that is, if you will not be wanting me to play. With love to all, " Yours affectionately, '' Felicia." " Well, mamma ?" said Kate as she passed the billet-doux to her sister. "Well, my dear?" " But about the dinner-party, mamma ?" asked Adela, who had read the note in a mo- ment. "If Kate," replied Mrs. Meriton, "goes to Coleworth, she must, I think, accompany Frank and Felicia to the Maitlands." "Oh, certainly," said Kate. "Still, I think, mamma, I should like to go." "Very well, my dear, I think you decide quite properly. You have not been a great deal with Felicia lately, and as she is going so p2 212 Felicia's dowry. soon to Weymouth, I think it is very proper you should accept her invitation." " And Adela," said Kate laughingly, *' must promise not to entirely appropriate Colonel Grant in the meantime.'' '' Pooh !" said Adela. 213 CHAPTER XIII. FIVE HUNDRED A YEAR. A DELA had indeed as little opportunity as inclination to disobey her sister's injunc- tion. Mrs. Meriton thought it very signifi- cant that during the week of Kate's absence from Elm Green they only saw Colonel Grant twice — at their dinner-table on the Tuesday, and for about half an hour on the afternoon of the following Friday on his way to Cole- worth ; while they heard from Tom, and, indeed, through other channels, that he was an almost daily visitor at the latter place. It was rather a triste week at Elm Green ; for another and more serious reason, however. 214 Felicia's dowry. On the Tuesday morning Mrs. Meriton did not rise quite in her usual excellent health ; and exerting herself to receive her dinner company, and to appear as usual, so aggra- vated her indisposition, as to render her really depressed and suffering on the following day. She would not allow Kate to be told this. '^Felicia," she said, "complains reasonably that she has not seen much of us lately. , It is best that Kate should finish her visit ; and if she knew I were ailing it would fidget her.'' " But then, mamma," said Adela, " when she finds that you have been ailing, she will reproach herself." " My dear, I do not at all expect her return before Monday ; and by that time, or even by Saturday, I shall be quite well again, and she need never know that I have been much otherwise." Felicia's dowry. 215 Kate, therefore, in the midst of all her enjoy- ment, which was considerable, at Coleworth, knew nothing of tlie less brilliant state of matters at Elm Green. She was beginning to like Felicia very much, and thought her greatly improved, and Coleworth becoming much more like the Coleworth that Frank's letters, during his honeymoon, from the Isle of Wight, had taught them to expect. The visitors, always welcome in an easy way at Coleworth, were no longer limited to George Dalton and S. Mildmay. These two were there as frequently as ever, but others were there frequently also. The Maitlands declared themselves perfectly charmed with Mrs. Frank, and were for ever appearing at Coleworth, or making gaieties to include the Coleworth party at their own home. The Foresters were hardly less captivated. Lady Melford herself was fond of, or, at any rate, very kind to 216 Felicia's dowry. Felicia, though Frank had never been a first favourite, Kate thought ; and, indeed, at the period of his withdrawal from the position of admirer of Margaret Elliot, he had been for a considerable time out of her ladyship's good books altogether. And as for Colonel Grant, if Felicia had been Olivia Fanshawe herself, he could hardly have been more comfortable, and at home in her company. So you do not won- der that with Kate just now all '' went merry as a marriage bell" — though no marriage bells, however, as yet made themselves heard — and that her little notes to Adela spoke much of her amusement. ^' Felicia," Kate wrote, " is very kind, and very nice, and I am enjoying my visit greatly. How is it mamma and you have not been over ? I suppose you have been doing some of the distant visiting mamma spoke of, in which case I pity you much. I Felicia's dowry. 217 have only time just to give you the outline of what we have been and are about — the details I must keep till my return. On Monday Fanny and Augustus Maitland and George Dalton came to luncheon, and Colonel Grant immediately after, and we had a first-rate croquet party. Indeed, we played so long, that the Maitlands declared they would be late for the six o'clock dinner at Limehouse, and Felicia ordered an early tea for them, at which we spoiled our dinners, and Colonel Grant, too, did his best to prepare anxiety for Lady Melford on the score of his presumed loss of appetite. It was all great fun. On Tuesday we dined and slept, as you know, at Limehouse. Besides the Maitlands themselves and us, there were the Foresters and George Dalton. We had music and dancing, and it was very pleasant, though we were only five couple to stand up. In the cool 218 Felicia's dowry. of the morning we all walked over to a farm of Mr. Maitland's, which Felicia wanted to see. It was about a mile off, and we breakfasted deliciously under a great pear-tree. Early in the afternoon we got back to Coleworth, over- taking Colonel Grant not a dozen yards from the gate. We had croquet, and Colonel Grant stayed to dinner ; Frank had asked him, I should tell you, on Monday. Mr. Mild- may dined, too, and we spent a charming evening listening to his singing and Felicia's. What voices both have ! " To-day we are to dine at Melford Castle. I suppose we shall meet the Elliots. Lord and Lady Melford, and Colonel Grant, dine at the Grange to-morrow, I know. Tell me if you are asked ; we are not. Of course you have heard all about the volunteer review. We gather from Colonel Grant that Lord Melford intends it to be a very gay affair. Felicia's dowry. 219 What does mamma think about bomiets ? " It was not till late on Friday that Kate heard there had been anything amiss with her mother. You will remember, it was on Friday Colonel Grant called at Elm Green. He had spent a considerable part of the afternoon at the Grange, and, taking the Meritons on his way home by Coleworth, found Mrs. Meriton looking so poorly, that, as she treated the matter very lightly indeed, he expressed no concern to her or to Adela, but very faith- fully told Kate that her mother was not look- ing as usual. Frank, it turned out, had been at the house that morning, had seen Adela, and even Mrs. Meriton herself, for a minute, and had no idea of anything beyond a trifling cold. Kate, however, was uneasy, and would have started off immediately for Elm Green, if Frank would have heard of her doinsr so. But Frank would notj nor, indeed, would 220 FELICIA'S DOWRY. Felicia. The latter said, rather sensibly, that supposing Mrs. Meriton were more unwell than Frank believed her to be, Kate's return- ing suddenly and unexpectedly, immediately after Colonel Grant's visit, would be likely to alarm her. " We will drive over after luncheon to- morrow." ^^ Thank you, Felicia," Kate replied ; '^ but I am a little uneasy, and I can judge best of mamma if I see her by myself. After what Colonel Grant has said, Frank and you will be anxious, and can drive over after luncheon as you propose — indeed, I know Frank has an engagement in the morning ; but I will walk across the fields after breakfast." " If you would rather.'^ " I," said George Dalton, who was, as usual, present, '* shall be very happy to walk with you, Miss Meriton. I need not go further Felicia's dowry. 221 than the gate, if you would rather not take me in/' *^ That is a good fellow," replied Frank. " I am not sure I quite like those fields for young ladies alone ; and the road will be a broiler. As to the gate, however, you must not only 'go in,' but must bring Kate *out' again." " That," said Kate," will of course depend on how I find mamma." '^ There is nothing the matter with her," replied her brother ; *^ and she will send you back here to luncheon. It is well you should satisfy your mind, however." Ultimately it was resolved that George Dal- ton should arrive at ten o'clock the next morning at Coleworth, to walk with Kate to Elm Green ; and that if she found her mother poorly, she should remain at home, sending George back with her report. If, on the con- 222 trary, she found Mrs. Meriton pretty well, and herself not wanted, she and Mr. Dalton were both to return to Coleworth by luncheon, and Kate would remain the guest of Frank and Felicia till Monday. A shower that began to fall at the moment Mr. George Dalton entered the garden par- lour at Coleworth, prevented Kate from setting out for Elm Green quite as early as she wished. About half-past eleven, however, she reached the latter place, and had the satisfaction of finding her mother, thanks to an excellent night's rest, and a very becoming little cap, retaining hardly a trace of her recent indisposition. Kate was a poor dis- sembler, and had soon betrayed Colonel Grant ; but .though Mrs. Meriton professed herself quite affronted at his ill-opinion of her looks, and angry at his evil report of them, she was evidently much pleased that he had noticed Felicia's dowry. 223 them, and had made it his business to speak of them to Kate. The hitter carried out her resolve of offering to remain at home ; but Mrs. Meriton's looks and good spirits really reduced the offer to a mere compliment, which that lady declined to entertain for a moment. " At the risk, indeed," she said, *^ of being thought inhospitable by Mr. Dalton, I shall counsel you to return to Coleworth as soon as you are really rested, to relieve Frank and Felicia of all uneasiness, and to prevent them from coming over ; for Adela and I intend a little 4uiet drive, and shall very likely show ourselves at Coleworth in the course of the afternoon." " Colonel Grant," said George Dalton, when they were only a few yards beyond the gate, '*is a high favourite with Mrs. Meriton, I see." '' Oh, yes !" 224 Felicia's dowry. " He seems, I think, to have taken us all by storm." " By storm ! Oh, you mean he has not been here long. But as to us, his knowing . Olivia so well, and having seen her so lately, made quite a sort of bond.'' "" I suppose so." It was by this time past noon, and the day was beautifully bright without being too warm. The shower of the morning had brought out all the colours of the landscape, and had evoked a fraicheur thoroughly delicious ; and Kate's looks, and voice, and carriage, were in charming harmony with the scene. To say the truth, this was not surprising. In addi- tion to the natural pleasure of youth and health in the freshness and brightness of the hour, there were other things. Kate's mind was relieved from the uneasiness on the score of her mother's health, that had been pressing FELICIA'S DOWRY. 225 on it since the afternoon before ; she conld look forward to a Sunday not less agreeable than the preceding week had been ; and lastly, five minutes' conversation with Mrs. Meriton on the subject of the volunteer review had possessed her of that lady's very satisfactory ideas with regard to not only '' bonnets," but an entire toilette for the occasion. Kate, then, walked lightly forward, and without perceiving that her companion was perhaps hardly as sensible of the charming condition of the atmosphere, and of the sur- rounding landscape, as she washerself ; without perceiving, either, the state of mind that im- pelled him to the frequent decapitation of the long grasses and wild flowers that were, un- luckily for themselves, within reach of his cane as he passed along, or to those energetic and unnecessary jumps over such stiles as crossed his path, when he could just as well VOL. I. Q 226 FELICIA'S DOWRY. have passed through the gates he opened for Kate. Nevertheless, it was not till they were more than half-way to Coleworth that he broke a little silence that had occurred, by saying, " I wonder could Grant tell one anything about Egypt ?" " About Egypt ! About Cairo and Alex- andria he might, perhaps. I have no great idea that persons coming home by the over- land route have very much leisure for ob- servation. But why ?" '' Oh ! in going to the Mediterranean one might perhaps get as far ; and then it would be as well to pick up anything one could about places beforehand." "But are you thinking of the Mediter- ranean ?" " I am — a little — in fact, a good deal." ' "Seriously?" Felicia's dowry. 227 "Seriously/' "And Mr. and Mrs. Dalton— will they spare you ?" " I have not asked them yet/' he replied a little drily. " W^hen one is twenty-four one is not quite a clnld ; though, if one lives at home and does nothing but fish and play croquet, one has no right to be surprised that other persons overlook the fact." Kate turned her eyes on him for a moment with complete surprise. At length she had become aware that something was amiss. Could it be that he was mortified? — that he thought himself thrown into the shade by the superior manners, and talents, and position of Colonel Grant ? It was so unlike George Dalton to be envious or ill-humoured, that she hesitated to entertain the idea. Might not vshe herself be a little to blame ? Had she not been a good deal occupied with her q2 228 FELICIA'S DOWRY. own very cheerful thoughts and prospects, and a little inattentive to her companion ? He had most good-naturedly escorted her, yet she had been at no great pains to make his walk agreeable. Mrs. Meriton, too — so kind and polite always, and to all — had, Kate thought, hardly thanked him. They had depended unreasonably on his friendliness and good-humour, and he might really feel hurt. She owed him amends, she found, and would devote herself to his amusement, and take an interest in his plans for the re- mainder of the walk. '^ But this is rather a sudden idea,'' she said, reverting to his Mediterranean project, '^ is it not?" *' Rather — not quite," he replied ; and her tone had been so attentive and kind that his countenance had brightened immediately. *' The fact is, as a man gets older he begins Felicia's dowry. 229 to feel he ought either to do something or see something ; and if he has no work at home, and no profession to carry him abroad, why the next best thing, I take it, is to travel on his own hook. Of course, if I had gone into the army, as I intended to do, and ought to have done, I should have seen all one wants to see in the course of service." *^ As to that," Kate answered, *^ I do not know that, generally speaking, men in the army are the wisest travellers. I believe travelling on one's own hook, as you call it, may be the better thing. Men in the army, I have heard mamma say, look through rather a narrow medium. To a certain extent, you see, they always carry with them the same surroundings. I have a great notion of independent travel." '^ It may be a better thing, perhaps." " A person can take his own time." 230 FELICIA'S DOWRY. " Exactly. And go at his own time — at any time.'' '^ Yes, at any time." " Not but what men, if there is nothing to prevent them, travel early in these days." ^* Oh, yes !" said Kate. " I have not a word to say against early travel. Look at the Prince of Wales." Looking herself, however, as she spoke, at Mr. George Dalton, she perceived that his countenance fell a little, and that she had not said quite the right thing, after all. She thought, perhaps, he was not so very much in earnest about Egypt, and that it might have been but a little mortified kind of threat, and shaped her next observation accordingly. '^ Yours, however," she said, '' is rather a peculiar position. As an only child, your first duty is to contribute to the happiness of FELICIA'S DOWRY. 231 your parents, which in remaining at home you do." ^' You are very kind to say so/' he replied; and there was a short silence, which brought them to a gate. He opened it quietly, not vaulting over either it or the stile this time, and they passed through. " I wonder," speculated Kate, " if there will be many blackberries this year !" '^ I don't know," he said — not, however, with respect to the blackberries — ^^I don't know what my father and mother might say to Egypt, but I believe they would be very glad to lose me in another sort of way. I believe," he continued, twisting off a great bough — perhaps to look for blackberries — and thereby bringing a considerable colour into his face — " I believe nothing could make them happier than my marriage, especially if it would not 232 Felicia's dowry. take me any great distance from them. But then, you see, they are not likely to be made happy in that way, for who would take such a very ineligible parti as I am ? At my father's death I shall have, I believe, about a thousand a year, which is pretty well as times go — enough, at any rate, for happiness." " Oh, quite, I should think." ^' In the meantime, he would, I know, give me half that sum — and very liberal of him to do it, for it would be dividing his indepen- dent income with me. I could not expect — could not allow him, indeed — to do more ; but, then, who would marry me on five hun- dred a year !" " I suppose it would not do to marry upon," said Kate sympathisingly. " But, then, though you are not, as you say, quite a child at twenty-four, still you are a very young man — very young to marry, I think." Felicia's dowry. 233 " I am the same age," replied Mr. George Dalton, again a little drily, ^' that your bro- ther was when he married." ^^ Oh, but Frank married — that is, he mar- ried a lady with sixty thousand pounds, which quite alters the case. Now, if you are in love with any lady who has sixty thousand pounds, I think you cannot do better than propose to her immediately." ** Thank you. No, Frank is one of the luckiest fellows in the world. I have not a syllable to say against fortunes, or young ladies who possess them ; but / am not in love with a lady who has sixty thousand pounds, and I shall never marry for money." Kate had never heard him speak so bitterly — had never seen so ill-pleased, so pained a look upon his good-humoured face ; and a little unwelcome light began to find its way into her mind. She was silent ; unconsciously 234 Felicia's dowry. she quickened lier pace. They were indeed close upon Coleworth. In almost the same minute they came within sight of the gate, and as they did so, a horseman, who had not seen themselves, was entering at it. A pretty little colour sprang into Kate's cheek, where it was unhappily rather observable, for she was a pale girl, and George Dalton said, ''Le Voilar " Colonel Grant, was it ?" the young lady asked. " I only saw the tail of a horse." ''It was Colonel Grant." " He will be glad to hear our good account of mamma." " Yes. That is satisfactory, at any rate. But this is my turning, for I will not divide with you the welcome proverbially accorded to the bearer of good tidings ; and I believe I have hardly lunched once at the Vicarage since you have been at Coleworth." Felicia's dowry. 235 " But Felicia will be sorry not to see you.'' " I will perhaps make my peace with her later in the day," said the young gentleman, a little mollified. ^^ Good-bye. There are Mildmay and Tom coming — you will be a large party as it is." Kate went on to the gate, where she made a little pause, to enable S. Mildmay and Tom to join her, and they all walked up to the house together. As soon, however, as she had delivered her report of Elm Green in the garden-parlour, and shaken hands with Colonel Grant, she hastened to her own room, on the pretence of re-arranging her hair before luncheon, but in reality for a few moments' quiet thought and retrospection. I have said that a little unwelcome light began to find its way into her mind. This light, the bitterness of her companion's '^ le voila,^^ and his abrupt and unusual departure for the Vicarage lunch- 236 FELICIA'S DOWRY. eon had left undiminished. Kate had not the conceit that makes a girl quick to suspect her- self the object of a preference ; but the sus- picion once reached, she had not the affectation that repels it — repels it, in nine cases out of ten, only to afford opportunity for the more complete gratification of vanity and coquetry. She was sincerely concerned to believe herself likely to be the cause of mortification or dis- appointment to so old a friend as George Dalton. She had been a little unjust to him, too, in the course of the morning, and this preference for herself which she suspected restored him fully to her good opinion. She no longer believed him capable of a mean envy of Colonel Grant's general superiority ; and he might, Kate thought, without dishonour, be jealous of that gentleman's superiority in the eyes of a woman whose affection he him- self desired to win. The luncheon bell did FELICIA'S DOWRY. 237 not give her very much time for the arrange- ment either of hair, thoughts, or line of con- duct, and, I am afraid, that once more in the society of Allan Grant, she had but little re- collection to bestow on George Dalton ; still, before descending to the dining-room, she had very properly resolved to afford no oppor- tunity for a further exposition of his senti- ments to the latter, and to remove herself from his immediate vicinity to the less acces- sible drawing-room at Elm Green on Monday, notwithstanding any amount of solicitation to remain. 238 CHAPTEE XIV. RICHMOND. npHE volunteer review, of which casual men- tion Avas made in the last chapter, had been projected by Lord Melford even before the arrival in England of Colonel Grant, as the most acceptable sight he could oiFer to the returning officer, and as 2i fete the most suitable for assembling friends from all parts of the county at Melford Castle. It now stood fixed for a day at only a week's dis- tance from the termination of Kate's visit to Coleworth, and was the object of almost universal expectation. The Frank Meritons had delayed their Felicia's dowry. 239 removal to Weymouth in order to be present at it, and Mrs. Meriton and her daughters were looking forward to it, it is almost need- less to observe, with very great pleasure. Mr. Meriton, ijere, however, permitted him- self, I am sorry to say, to vote the thing a bore. He so ordered some little business matter on hand that it was found to require his attention in London on the very day fixed for the review ; and at noon on the day pre- ceding, notwithstanding that Mrs. Meriton petitioned against being deprived of his com- pany and a male escort on the occasion, the carriage once more conveyed him to the sta- tion. We have already noticed that Mr. Meriton had not returned from his last London visit at his best. His family were in pro- found ignorance of the cause ; but as I am not so — as I am in possession of a circum- 240 Felicia's dowry. stance unimparted to his daughters, and with- held from the wife of his bosom — I do not feel that I can conscientiously keep it from the reader. On the occasion of the last visit — a visit, be it remembered, to London in August — Mr. Meriton and a male friend arranged for them- selves the solace of a dinner at Kichmond. Well, the drive, the landscape and the dinner were all satisfactory ; the only drawback to the latter being that the spirits of a party of persons dining in the adjoining room were unvLsnsiWj prononces. Mr. Meriton and his male friend had, however, I suppose, *^been young themselves,'^ for they were not greatly dis- turbed ; and when, on returning to the hotel, after a little walk in the cool of the evening, they found a carriage belonging, they shrewd- ly guessed, to their next neighbours, at the door, neither, I think, absolutely averted his Felicia's dowry. 241 eyes from the two very charming faces it con- tained. A gentleman in a light and elegant summer toilette, speaking to another who had already mounted the box, turned his head as they passed, and his regards became fixed on the friend of Mr. Meriton with a sort of half- insolent, half-contemptuous recognition, which, however, no sort of gesture seconded. ^^ Surely that was a face I should know," said Mr. Meriton, as he and his friend passed on. '* If," replied his friend, ^^ you mean my drab-clbthed admirer, it belongs to no less a personage than Mr. Plantagenet Eaton." " That's it ! He is like his brother." *' Handsomer though, by a good deal. A year ago you couldn't well have met with a better-looking fellow. He has lived hard the last six months, and they have told upon him. He was desperately in love last season VOL. I. R 242 Felicia's dowry. with Lady Clementina Brooke — Lord Mount Grosvenor's daughter — who married the brew- ing-fellow the other day." '^The brewer had most money, I suppose?'' " Most money, of course ; but, however, he had not come forward when half London was heavily backing Plantagenet Eaton to win. You know nothing of all this ?" '' Nothing." ^* Well, it happens that I know a good deal. Plant had proposed, and been referred to my lord and my lady, and graciously permitted to enter on a sort of probation ; in the course of which, however, some information, in the shape of an anonymous letter, reached my lord." ^^ Humph! Some liaison V^ '' Well — not exactly — but worse ; some en- tanglement." " The deuce !" FELICIA'S DOWRY. 243 ^^ The fact is, it might have been the deuce. On inquiry the thing looked so ugly, that my lord and my lady were advised it might be better to rescind their permission, and order their footman to say ^^ not at home" to the young gentleman in future. Plant took to his bed in the first instance, and, in the second, to the sort of society of which you have had a specimen." " Poor fellow ! The Viscount goes pretty steady, I fancy.'' " Oh, by Jove ! does he, though ? My good friend, you live in the country." Now, I do not think that this well-informed and loquacious person, who shall be nameless, would have objected to impart to Mr. Meriton an anecdote or two of the elder brother. Whether, however, Mr. Meriton reminded himself of his wife's relationship to the family, or had, for any other reason, heard fully as r2 244 Felicia's dowry. much as he wished to hear, he at this moment blew his nose ; and, that performance ended, he took out his pocket-book, which was, of course, preliminary to another little matter, in which the nameless friend was even more in- terested than in the matters of Lord Belgra- via and Mr. Plantagenet Eaton. These, there- fore, disappeared from the tapis. And now, dear reader, you have the secret of the unsatis- factory state of mind observable in Mr. Meriton on his return to Elm Green; and are wiser than either Mrs. Meriton or her daughters. " I am commissioned to tell you," said Colonel Grant to these last, on the day before the review, *' that we are perhaps to have a dance after the dejeuner — fancy calling a meal breakfast at five o'clock! — and that your cliaussure must be suitable. My uncle would have had it a ball, I assure you, but Lady FELICIA'S DOWRY. 245 Melford got Mr. Higgins to interpose. '' " Very properly, I think," said Mrs. Meri- ton. " I hope it may not be too great a strain on Lord Melford as it is." " No fear of that, I am glad to say. It is only late hours that are objected to." " Are we to dance," asked Adela, '^ out of doors?" '^ I am, to a certain extent, in the dark," he replied, ^^ but I believe not. We possess not the trustful minds of youth, and shall not, I think, leave so much to the mercy of the weather." " But after the rain we have had " '^ Our chances are certainly in favour of a fine day. Indeed, I think there is very little doubt of it." From this you will gather that the weather during the last week had not been entirely favourable to country neighbourly inter- 246 Felicia's dowry. course ; but with the review in prospect, and new toilettes in preparation, the little inter- ruption had been pretty cheerfully borne. 247 CHAPTER XV. AT MELFORD CASTLE. pOLONEL GRANT was right. The next day loas fine ; nay, it was charming — one of those brilliant, yet not entirely cloud- less days, when lights and shades dispose themselves so beautifully. The gate by which Mrs. Meriton's carriage entered the Park, was one open only to the invited guests of Lord and Lady Melford ; but it had not proceeded far before its occupants began to perceive the crowds of persons, looking in the distance like mere groups, studding the park, and still entering it from other directions. Away on the left hand, gaily decorated with flags, and 248 Felicia's dowry. partly hidden by intervening trees, stretched the tents whose length and breadth indicated the scale on which hospitality had been provided ; while presently a turn to the right brought the new-comers on the verge of the scene of action — an open part of the park ad- mirably suited for the display about to take place, and on which — not to mention the crowds of spectators on foot and a hand- some sprinkling of equestrians — a long line of carriages had already formed. A mounted groom in the Melford livery rode forward to meet and take on himself the guidance of their coachman ; and a minute afterwards Colonel Grant was seen to separate himself from the crowd, and gallop towards them. *^ Oh, mamma!'' both girls exclaimed, ^^how charming!" and then *^ Colonel Grant, how do you do? How charming! But are we late? " FELICIA'S DOWRY. 249 *^ Quite in time," was his cheerful rejoinder. *^ I must not detain you, though, a minute. You have to make a sweep that will bring you near Lady Melford, but not near enough, I fear, to speak; and a good place is kept for your carriage. I shall be with you almost directly. You have not forgotten my prohi- bition of thick shoes?" ^' Oh no! we have not indeed. One mo- ment — have you seen Tom?" ^' Yes, a minute ago, with your brother and sister. If one had never seen Mrs. Francis Meriton off her horse, one would say she ought to live on him. She is every one's admiration. The Maitlands are just behind you." And Colonel Grant rode on. ^* Mamma!" again exclaimed Adela, " how charming!" Directed by the mounted groom, their car- riage did make a sweep, which brought them 250 FELICIA'S DOWEY. SO near to that of Lady Melford, as to enable them to exchange bows and smiles and kisses of the hand with her, and to see that she was looking radiant with happiness and hospi- tality; and then they found themselves in no time safely brought to a stand-still, not indeed in the empty space almost close to her lady- ship's equipage, which they had for a moment believed themselves destined to occupy, but in one a little lower down the line, and still in an excellent position. " Mamma!" again exclaimed the Misses Meriton, "this is delightful! What a charm- ing day we shall have!" And Adela was already shaking hands with three or four young men who came up on her side of the carriage ; while Kate, comprehending that Colonel Grant would have many claims this afternoon beside their own on his attention, and not having seen George Dalton since she Felicia's dowry. 251 returned from Coleworth, was not altogether displeased to find him established at hers. "Mamma, this is delightful! And who is here? Almost everybody, I think. We are a little late. Who are near us? Oh! the Maitlands are just behind — " And here there was nodding and smiling. " What charming bonnets ! How gaily everyone is dressed ! — we need not have feared doing too much in that way. Where are the Elliots? Here is an arrival later than our own. Surely it is the Grange carriage now coming on to the ground. Yes, mamma, there is Elizabeth bowing, and Sir Geoffrey. Ellen does not see us. Who is the gentleman sitting by her? — her parasol is so in the way. No one we know, I think. Captain Maitland, who was the other gentle- man in the carriage ?'' Captain Maitland shook his head. " No one we know — I thought not. Rather 252 Felicia's dowry. a nice-looking person. They are quite a gay party! Their carriage is making the sweep. Will they be near us, I wonder? Oh! I see." And as, bending out of the carriage, she did see, the least possible little look of dis- pleasure came into her (Adela's) eyes. The Grange carriage, in charge, as theirs had previously been, of an official who had his instructions, after making the sweep, and receiving the most cordial and prononce wel- come the smiles and waving hands of Lord and Lady Melford could give, was driven straight into the space the Meritons had for an instant believed might perhaps be the one reserved for their own. The little look of displeasure was, however, quite transient. " How well," she said, " Sir Geoffrey is looking! He and Elizabeth are just facing me." And then her attention was claimed nearer home, for Colonel Grant, look- Felicia's dowry. 253 ing very animated, rode up on Kate's side of the carriage. " You have thin shoes ?" he asked. " Oh ! yes — that is, we don't wear shoes, but we have thin boots." ** Exactly. And what a delicious day ! — neither too Vv^arm nor too cool. If it had been made for the occasion it could not have been better. They will be on the ground in five minutes." Indeed, he had hardly ridden away to join a party of mounted gentlemen and officers and Lord Melford, who had by this time got on his horse, than the cheering of the more distant crowd made it known that the first company was entering the park. As the military details of a volunteer field- day are, I have no doubt, better known to most of my readers than to myself, I will only say they were all they should have been ; that 254 Felicia's dowry. the high encomiums they received were, in a great measure, deserved ; and that the grati- fication of Colonel Grant was something to witness. " Did you ever see," said Frank to his mother, as the Colonel rode away from her carriage, after one of several little visits he made it, '' did you ever see such genuine delight as Grant's ? He is every inch a soldier." " And," added Mrs. Meriton, " every inch an Englishman." This was towards the end of the affair, and Kate and Adela said nothing. The radiant looks, indeed, that the former brought to the ground had a little faded. She was looking pale ; or if she flushed occasionally, it was in the effort she made at a greater gaiety than she really felt. To say the truth, these visits of Colonel Grant's had not been very long Felicia's dowry. 255 ones ; and tliougli the Miss Meritons could understand that, as Lord Melford's nephew, and the person in whose honour the fete was really given, he had many sacrifices of his owti inclination to make to the demands of civility, no civility required him to perform those long pauses at the side of the Elliots' barouche ; no civility required him to give his horse to his groom, and mount to the box of their car- riage, when there was Lady Melford's close at hand, commanding an equal, if not a better view ; and no civility required him, when the box was otherwise occupied, to be leaning on the door of the same carriage, and talking so eagerly and happily with those within. No more civility required this. It seemed that at last Frank perceived that things were going wrong. Perhaps he discovered it in the looks of his elder sister ; perhaps the devotion of Colonel Grant to the 256 Felicia's dowry. dark green barouche was pointed out to him by his wife. However this might have been, in his next visit to his mother's carriage he observed upon the great attention always paid by Lord and Lady Melford, and all belonging to them, to the Elliots. " Colonel Grant, you see," he said, " follows suit in that respect. It almost looks as if they were aware of some reason for still feel- ing an interest in Elizabeth." '' Poor Elizabeth !" said Mrs. Meriton. " But it is to Ellen," remarked Kate, with very proper tranquillity, " that Colonel Grant is talking so much." '' To Ellen !" ^^ Is it not Ellen Elliot who is sitting oppo- site Sir Geoffrey ? I can see only her parasol. And, by-the-by, who is the gentleman who came on the ground with them ? He is talk- ing to Elizabeth." FELICIA'S DOWRY. 257 *' Margaret is sitting opposite Sir Geoffrey/' said Frank ; " and the man talking to Eliza- beth is Mr. Lorimer. They came down last night with Lady Jane. Didn't you know ?" Kate was silent, and Adela's spirited con- versation with Augustus Maitland and Cecil Forester came for an instant to a standstill, though she resumed it a^^ain with apparent unconcern ; for society, you see, demands dis- simulation, and Mrs. Meriton set an example in this respect that was perfect. Frank, how- ever, had visibly coloured as he mentioned Margaret Elliot's name, and his elder sister was no longer pale. The information had taken her completely by surprise, and was in its nature more overwhelming than an individual outside of her own little circle might under- stand. Adela out of the question, Margaret Elliot was the only person Kate much feared ; Mar- VOL. I. s 258 Felicia's dowry. garet Elliot was the person in whose absence at this particular time Kate had secretly — perhaps unknown even to herself till now — rejoiced ; and Margaret Elliot was the person to whom Colonel Grant was paying such con- spicuous attention, though he saw her that afternoon for the first time. Happily the review was nearly over ! Happily ! for Kate was not one of society's best pupils in the art of dissembling, and her position was, it must be owned, a trying one. She was impatient to change it, and to be face to face with Margaret. She was impa- tient, too, of the close attendance of George Dalton. There was just the possibility that Colonel Grant might be offended by that same close attendance on so public and conspicuous an occasion — the first occasion, too, on which they had met in public ; and that his devotion to the Elliots' carriage Felicia's dowry. 259 might be the result of his displeasure. This thought had first entered her mind wlien she believed that Ellen occupied the third seat in the barouche; and she would not absolutely reject it, even after she discovered that it was to the greatly more formidable Margaret Colonel Grant was rendering attentions more unreserved than he had ever rendered to her- self. Where the arrangements were so admirably made there could be no confusion in leaving the ground. A very trifling delay did, how- ever, occur in the putting-to Mrs. Meriton's horses, and though she and her daughters were by no means the last, neither were they quite among the first to enter the reception- room at Melford Castle. Even in responding to the cordial welcome accorded to them by their host and hostess, Kate's eye discovered the group of which her mind was in search — s 2 260 Felicia's dowry. a group including the lovely and not, rumour said, too happily married Lady A and her lord, the latter of whom had been offer- ing public homage to the beauty and horse- womanship of Mrs. Francis Meriton during the greater part of the afternoon. It was to Margaret he was now speaking — to Margaret, who, leaning on her father's arm, and forming the centre of the distinguished-looking group of which she made one, threw everything near her into the shade. Kate's fears tight- ened round her heart as she looked at her. Her beauty was so surpassing, her grace was so exquisite — the very details of her simple yet distinguee toilette were so incom- parable ! But where, then, was Colonel Grant? Lord A was standing before her ; Mr. Lorimer was at her side ; Sir Geof- frey, Elizabeth, and Lady A made up the group; but where was Colonel Grant? Felicia's dowry. 261 He was at Kate's own elbow, and speaking to Mrs. Meriton, which was perhaps the rea- son, Kate thought, that Margaret at this moment turned her serene eyes towards her- self, and smiled such recognition as the dis- tance permitted. But Margaret was, for the present, at least, no longer of importance ; for Colonel Grant was now speaking to Kate and to George Dalton, and certainly not in the least as if any pique or displeasure had actuated his conduct during the review. This should not, I think, have been altogether satisfactory to Kate. It w^ould not probably have been so on reflection; but her spirits rose in his company ; and when she saw him give his arm to her mother to conduct her to the banqueting-roora, she could likewise see with complacency the delicate white robe and pale pink chapeau of Margaret preceding them at some little distance through the 262 Felicia's dowry. doorway, and could even remark to George Dalton that the well-looking features and rather supercilious eye of Mr. Lorimer were a little like those of Lord Belgravia. "Do you not think so, Adela?" she said to her sister, who, escorted by Captain Mait- land, was close behind her. "Do you not think that Mr. Lorimer is a little like Lord Belgravia T^ And Adela replied, " No, I do not." This complacency was, however — I hope you are sorry to hear — but short-lived ; for when Colonel Grant had conducted the Meri- ton party to excellent places in the neighbour- hood of Lord Melford, and seen them in a way to be provided with all they wished, he gave up his chair — not unreadily, Adela suspected — to an unwelcome late-comer, and was pre- sently to be seen once more at the side of Felicia's dowry. 263 Margaret, and in the very centre of the group of A/s and Elliots, where it seemed that a seat had been kept, or was, at any rate, very easily found for him. And now I do not know that Kate's was a better position than it had been in her mother's carriage earlier in the afternoon. She could certainly see — that is to say, when she chose to look — not only the attentions rendered by Colonel Grant to Margaret, but also the manner in which his attentions were received. This, however, was a questionable improvement, and I wish she had not chosen to look. Jealousy is no beautifier of our poor humanity. On the contrary, it brings out harder lines and deeper shadows than we can at all gladly recognise in our own pic- tures. And Kate was human, and was jealous. I wish, I repeat, she had not chosen to look. Of course I do not mean that she was in any 264 Felicia's dowry. way improperly observant. It was only when her regards were directed by others, or could be gracefully directed by herself to the oppo- site and upper end of the table, that they were permitted to include the group in question. But then, if they were unfrequent and transitory, they were proportionately acute ; and it must be owned that the beautiful face of Margaret, at once radiant and tranquil, as I have seen some lovely lake in the sum- mer sunlight, was a trying spectacle. In- voluntarily, and but for a single moment, Kate had almost looked round for Felicia. It is sad to have to say it, but for that single moment she had been capable of a wish that Frank's wife were present to control, by the memories the sight of her might evoke, the insolence of that bright serenity. She stifled the wish ; she thrust it out of even her own sight in the same moment it had appeared ; Felicia's dowry. 265 but the angry thought remained that Mar- garet sat there a falsehood. *^ Why should she,'" thought jealous and ungenerous Kate — *^ why should she, of all others, look as if anxiety and mortification were mere words without meaning to her ear ? She, who has known disappointment, and has not a first love to give.'' Well, " sweet are the uses of adversity !" And I believe we all need to be once jealous, that we may know ourselves as we are. Have I said why Felicia and Frank were not present ? They had been, you have heard, on horseback. Frank had quite recently, with a view to the hunting season, made pur- chase for his wife of a beautiful mare, and she had indulged at the same time her love of the saddle and her pride in the animal by riding her to the ground. This had, you see, en- tailed on her a subsequent sacrifice. She 266 Felicia's dowry. might perhaps have appeared at the banquet — dejemer — whatever it may be most proper to call the refreshment offered on the occa- sion ; but had of course debarred herself from joining in the dance that was to succeed it. Sensible of this fact, and beholding the almost unexpectedly brilliant toilettes of those who had driven to the fete, she elected to ride home at the conclusion of the review. I do not know that any other considerations in- fluenced her departure ; but I think it is just possible that, satisfied with the admiration of which she had throughout the afternoon been the object, she had no especial desire to exhibit the evening's triumph she saw pre- paring for Margaret Elliot, before her hus- band's eyes, or to enhance that triumph by Frank's presence and her own. If, however, this consideration did influence ^her, she must have had quite a difierent notion of the efiect Felicia's DOWRY. 267 of her presence upon Margaret from that en- tertained by Kate. But this is, you know, possible. " Many men, many minds.'' I am afraid that more than once in the course of this unlucky banquet Mrs. Meriton must have congratulated herself on the ab- sence of her husband. She could only hope that her vexation, and the disappointment of Kate, were less obvious than they were real. She was herself all but perfect in the self-com- mand that society exacts ; but it had really never before, she thought, been so severely taxed. You perhaps imagine that Adela, setting sympathy for her sister aside, was en- joying the day. Not so very much, however ; and there was an almost ridiculous subject of annoyance. As if nothing could go smoothly for any of the Meritons on this unfortunate occasion, young Beauchamp must needs take it into his head to attach himself to them. 268 Felicia's dowry. They had often said laughingly he never could entertain more than one idea in one day ; and on this day his idea decidedly was Adela. He hovered about her, he interrupted her conver- sation with other men, he pestered her for more dances than the one she regretted to have placed his name opposite on her card ; and when she fairly turned her back on him, he attached himself to Mrs. Meriton. They really could not get rid of him — not even when Kate, sharpened by her own vexations, asked him point-blank, " Why he did not return to Miss Wilbraham, who was without attend- ance ?'' " Oh !'' replied this interesting and spwituel youth, "she doesn't want attendance, and I can talk to her at any time. She is not at all angry, you see. She does not like dancing herself, and she has given me leave to dance with you and your sister as much as I please." Felicia's dowry. 2G9 " She is extremely good !" said Kate ; and indeed the perfect equanimity with which the engaged lady — probably because she *' under- stood," as Mrs. Beauchamp had said, her futur — looked upon his proceedings, increased the ridicule of the position, and impelled Mrs. Meriton at the conclusion of the — to her — tedious and painful repast, to join herself and daughters to the party of the county member's lady, notwithstanding the small promise of pleasure such an arrangement af- forded. " Kate, dear," asked Adela, when they found themselves again in the reception-room, separating the banqueting apartment from that in which the band had already commenced a preliminary strain, " may I look at your card ? What dances have you promised?" " I dance the first," Kate said, placing the card in her sister's hand, " with Mr. Dalton.'' 270 Felicia's dowry. " The third and the fifth," said Captain Maitland, ^^ are mine." "• And the second you dance, I see, with Colonel Grant." "Yes, if he remembers it." " Of course," said Adela, as she and Mr. Forester moved off — ^' of course he will re- member it." Now, you can comprehend that Kate would look a little anxiously for the partner of Colonel Grant in the first dance. Only a little, however, for it appeared almost certain that Colonel Grant, as Lord Melford's nephew, would lead some married lady, whose position entitled her to the compliment. Lady A , probably, to the top of the room. Suddenly, however, the spot of bright colour which, with Kate, always indicated some very un- usual surprise or emotion, appeared on her cheek. She had just seen that Lord Melford Felicia's dowry. 271 himself was leading Lady A to the quad- rille, and a moment of extreme suspense succeeded. It was, however, but a moment ; and then she saw Colonel Grant, with Eliza- beth Elliot on his arm, follow close on the footsteps of his uncle, and take his place in the quadrille opposite to Lady A . My Lord A danced with a lady of county consequence, with whom this story has nothing to do. Opposite him stood Margaret Elliot, Avith Mr. Lorimer ; and how the rest of this quadrille, of which Kate and George Dalton formed one of the side couples, was made up, matters very little. It began, and it ended ; and then Adela was right, and Colonel Grant, of course, did remember his engagement to dance with Kate, and came up to claim her. And a very charming waltz it was, though it did not admit of conversation ; and Colonel Grant's praise of Kate's waltzing was very 272 Felicia's dowry. great, and I daresay sincere, for Kate was per- haps the most perfect waltzer in the county. " I really believe," he said, " that some families are born fine dancers. There is Mrs. Fanshawe, for instance — she was married at seventeen, and cannot have had much prac- tice, yet she is the best waltzer in Bengal. Are you rested ? Shall we go on, then ? One moment." In that moment Lord A and Margaret Elliot had whirled past them. Kate was glad at first that he had men- tioned Olivia ; and then a minute afterwards she thought he might have done so designedly, to remind her of the friendliness of the footing on which their acquaintance had commenced ; and this thought suffused her face with a crimson that the waltz itself had not been able to impart. At their next pause he said a few words of Felicia. Felicia's dowry. 273 " One sees she is a perfect horsewoman, and your brother's purchase is really almost worthy of her. And they are seriously going to Wey- mouth on Wednesday ?'' '' Seriously ! Oh ! yes !'' " Is Weymouth a pleasant place ?" " I fancy so." " And shall you be visiting them there ?" " Oh, no ! I think not." " Shall we take another turn ?" And away they went again. In conclusion, he thanked her very warmly, and again highly complimented her dancing. '^ To whom," he said, " am I to resign you ?" " I am engaged to Captain Maitland for the next quadrille." It seemed to Kate that Captain Maitland was very quickly met with ; and when trans- ferred to him she saw, with little surprise, that VOL. 1. T 274 Felicia's dowry. Colonel Grant instantly betook himself to Margaret Elliot, whom Lord A had not so quickly " resigned. '^ Kate exerted herself, of course, and successfully, but her real de- pression was nearly complete. Colonel Grant, though he had so praised her waltzing, and so warmly thanked her for his dance, had not asked her for another. He did so later in the evening ; but before he did so, Kate had seen and heard enough to make her glad to have it in her power to plead an earlier engagement. I must relate a little incident. You com- prehend that it was still daylight, though the lamps and chandeliers were beginning to make themselves visible, and that the windows were all wide open, and the ladies wearing the light summer bonnets they had worn on the ground. At the moment, however, when the band was already preluding the third dance, Lady Mel- Felicia's dowry. 275 ford, whom some little matter — probably con- nected with the hospitality in course of pro- gress in the Park — had detained, entered the ball-room for the first time, and exclaimed at sight of the young ladies' covered heads. " They would look," she ejaculated, " so much cooler and nicer without their bonnets — they would he so much cooler ! What has Lord Melford — what has Colonel Grant — been thinking about ?" And then it appeared that Lady Melford's own boudoir adjoined the ball-room; and it had been intended that the young ladies — those who chose to do so — should there lay aside their out-door costume. Could they not do so now ? A quadrille was just about to begin, was it? Well, but those who did not join in it — they could take ofi* their bonnets in the boudoir, and the others at the conclusion of the dance. T 2 276 Felicia's dowry. ^^ You are going to stand up, my dear Miss Meriton ? Well, I need hardly have asked ; and you, Margaret ?^' ^' Yes, dear Lady Melford ; but I should like to be without my bonnet, — it is so kind of you to have thought of it; and if one of the gentle- men will be so very good as to carry it for me to the next room, I need not, you know, leave my place in the quadrille." Half-a-dozen young men started forward to do her bidding, as, suiting the action to her words, she simply untied the pale pink chapeau, and took it from her head, thereby suffering the shining mass of fair hair, carried back from her face by a fillet of her favourite colour, to fall out of its crown over her shoulders. There might have been coquetry in the act, or there might not. Kate thought there was ; but then, beholding the look of admiration with which Colonel Grant regarded Felicia's dowry. 277 her — a look of admiration so naive and un- concealed, that it was absolutely amusing to those who were not specially interested spec- tators — Kate can hardly be considered an im- partial judge. Well, the little incident is still to come. I have said that half-a-dozen young men were aspirants for the honour of bearing the pale pink bonnet to the boudoir. The one who received it, and with it a very sweet smile from Margaret, was S. Mildmay, who never danced. At the moment, however, that it left the hand of the fair owner, one of its ribbons became detached, fell to the ground, and had nearly been trodden under a male foot unconscious of its own audacity, when Colonel Grant sprang forward, rescued it from the impending profanation, and, the quadrille commencing at the moment, wrapped it with one rapid movement round his arm, and so went through the dance. After seeing this, 278 Felicia's dowhy. Kate had no longer any wish for a second waltz with Colonel Grant. It was no such wonderful demonstration, however; but then a great deal was made of it. The elderly ladies were delighted. It really, they said, was more as things were carried on in their own young days, when gentlemen were not so cold, so guarded, so on the defence against ridicule, so afraid of com- mitting themselves as now. As for Lady Melford, she went further. " Upon my word!" she said, "it is like the old times of chivalry, when the bravest knights were the proudest to wear their lady's colours, and made no more secret of their love than of their loyalty or their faith. Between you and me and the post I wish there was a little more of the same kind of thing; but I suppose it is all old-fashioned and obsolete, and as different from the way of the world in the present year Felicia's dowry. 279 of our Lord, as a novel of Sir Walter Scott's from Miss What's-her-name's stories." And then to her particular friends she said, *^ It mayn't mean anything, you know, or it may; I don't say which I wish!" And to her very particular friends she whispered, *^ If it should be so, Lord Melford and I shall be delighted." And as Colonel Grant danced a waltz with Margaret subsequent to the quadrille, and after a short interval was again her partner in a mazourka, it really looked very much as if it did *^ mean" something, and as if it would *^ be." Lord Melford was unmistakably happy in what he believed to be going on, and, when Colonel Grant danced a quadrille with Lady A., stood up himself with Margaret; while Kate, sour, and weary of the scene, beheld almost indignantly her sister Adela accepting, with more complacent smiles than she could 280 FELICIA'S DOWRY. at all approve, the always coveted and alw^ays conspicuous attentions of Lord A. Happily, a ball has certain limits, and the limits allotted to this ball were, Kate thank- fully remembered, extremely reasonable. After the affair of the bonnet, she had looked directly at the list of dances, and it had seemed to her a very long one yet to come; but the con- ductor of the band had his instructions, and waltz succeeded quadrille, and mazourka suc- ceeded waltz with such rapidity, that she presently began to see her way to an early termination of her troubles — so far, at least, as this unlucky fete was concerned. Indeed, it was not quite eleven o'clock when ^^ God save the Queen" was played, and the com- pany — a very few of whom had already departed — began to make their compliments and adieus. Kate hoped they might have got away without the necessity of exchanging FELICIA'S DOWRY. 281 politenesses with Colonel Grant ; but in cross- ing an ante-room they encountered him re- turning, they thought, from attending Lady A. to her carriage. They themselves, how- ever, were adequately escorted. Mrs. Meriton was on the arm of George Dalton, Kate on that of Captain Maitland; while the cavalier of Adela was no other than Mr, Lorimer, who had in the course of the evening been introduced to her. They met Colonel Grant full, but Mrs. Meriton was, I am glad to say, equal to the occasion. *^ Mrs. Meriton," said Colonel Grant, "have youtaken refreshment? Have your daughters?" " Everything, thank you, we can possibly require. We have had a charming day." " Is there anything I can do for you?" '^Nothing whatever. Only let us see you soon — I hope for a letter from Olivia by this next mail." 282 Felicia's dowry. '^ From the hills. I should not be surprised to get one myself from Fanshawe. If I do, I will bring it over." "Thanks! Good mgWr At last they w^ere in the carriage, and Adela, who was the third to enter it, having bestowed a smile of proper gratitude on her new acquaintance, and one of proper friend- liness on her older ones, and drawn up the window as the carriage moved off, threw herself back into her corner with the ex- clamation — "What an odious day it has been!" For a little while neither Kate nor Mrs. Meriton spoke. Perhaps both felt that she expressed less her own feelings than sympathy with theirs, and for some little time both were silent. To Kate, indeed, on whose nerves there had now been several hours' strain, the silence was repose, and the absence of light a Felicia's dowky. 283 relief ; and Mrs. Meriton judged well in leav- ing her for a time to benefit from them. I am not holding up Mrs. Meriton as quite an ex- ample to mothers — I think she was too worldly : but she was, at least, incapable of increasing her daughter's annoyance by any bitter manifestation of disappointment of her own. So it was not till they had driven some little distance, and she might hope that the quiet and the darkness, and the sweet cool air of the summer night, had not been without a tranquillising effect on the young lady's mind that she said, '' My dear Kate !^' " Yes, mamma !" '' Well, my love ?" ^' Well, mamma ! I am disappointed, and there is an end of it. I do not know that I have any right to be so." 284 Felicia's dowry. "No right to be so !" exclaimed Adela. " I think, my dear," said Mrs. Meriton, " that you have some right to feel that Colonel Grant has acted in an inconsiderate, and now in a capricious manner." " To say the least of it !" observed Miss Adela. " I do not know, mamma." " Your behaviour, my dear," said Mrs. Meriton, putting out her hand for her daugh- ter's — " your behaviour, my dear, during the whole day, has been beyond praise." " But, mamma " "My dear, I cannot say that Colonel Grant's conduct has raised him in my estima- tion. If we have been desirous to offer him civility on Olivia's account, and Captain Fanshaw's, he has really met us much more than half-way ; and if he has not distinctly sought your society, he has sought the society Felicia's dowry. 285 of those with whom you were to be found. While you were with rae he visited Elm Green ; when you went to Felicia, he trans- ferred his visits to Cole worth. Now, he did not visit Coleworth — he could not wish you to suppose that he visited Coleworth — on Felicia's account." ^' No. Still, mamma, he has never said a syllable to me that he might not have said to Felicia herself." ^' Of course not. I am not imputing to him anything absolutely dishonourable. Simply, he has been selfish, or inconsiderate. And, now, the less we think of him in future the better." ** But, mamma, I cannot quite agree with you — about his having been selfish or incon- siderate, I mean. You know our acquaint- ance with him started from a very friendly point, and I think he was really rather 286 Felicia's dowry. pleased with me. Olivia, you see, says that he is a marrying man — a man meaning to marry — and if he thought the least that I might suit him, naturally you know he would wish to acquaint himself with my tastes and temper, and so forth, before proposing to me.'' ^' It does not seem to me that he is at pre- sent acting very cautiously." " Oh, no ! but then I do not pretend to say for a moment that he was ever in love with me — only just thinking, in a very sober, widower-like way, that I might suit him. Of course he has fallen in love with Margaret — desperately in love, at first sight — and it is ' quite another matter." " But at his age," said Adela ; ^^ and from Olivia's letter, one might have expected a superior character. I believe he is a thorough flirt !" Felicia's dowry. 287 " At any rate," rejoined Kate, " 1 have no right to call him one. He has not flirted with me. And it would have been very bad taste if he had not fallen in love with Margaret Elliot," she continued in a different tone, and her eyes filling with tears. ^' \il had known she was to return, I should have known that it would all happen just as it has happened." ^' I am sure," exclaimed Adela, '' I wish she had stayed away !" " Well — I wish so too," said Kate, drying her eyes, and with a little feeble attempt at cheerfulness that, I think, did her honour. '^ We are all very angry with Colonel Grant, but I think he is very nice, nevertheless, and will make a sort of husband that any woman may reasonably be sorry to lose. Of course, I am not going to break my heart about him. I own to being disappointed, and — as I said before — there is an end of it." 288 Felicia's dowry. There was not, however, quite an end of it; for Adela, when she had been in bed a couple of hours or so, woke with a sort of sense that something had gone wrong, and found that Kate had risen and opened the window, and was walking about the room — a most un- usual proceeding, for both girls were excellent sleepers. '' My dear Kate V' " Don't be frightened. I believe it must be a very close night, for I could not sleep, or get the music and the lights out of my ears and eyes ; so I have opened the window, and am taking a turn about the room." " You may leave the window open, if you like," said Adela, ^^ it will not hurt us. But it is miserable to see you gliding about like an old ghost." Kate came up and gently pinched her sister's cheek and kissed her. FELICIA'S DOWRY. 289 " Now," said Adela, " you know, you are not to break your heart." " Certainly not — I have no intention of do- ing so. Still," said the young lady as she got into her own bed, **my idea is, that I shall never like any one so well again." ^^ I wish," exclaimed Adela, '^ Margaret Elliot was in the moon, I quite detested her to-night !" ^' I do not detest her," replied Kate, "and I do not wish her in the moon — but I do wish that Frank had married her. I like Felicia ; she was very kind when I stayed at Cole- worth last ; but, somehow, things have never seemed to go quite right since she married Frank." " Heigh ho !" sighed Adela. " We must not talk all night, however. Try to go to sleep. Good morning!" VOL. T. u 290 CHAPTER XVI. ' A BRACELET. ^' 111 AMMA/' asked Adela a few hours later, '^ what are we going to do to-day ?" " I have written a little note to Felicia, to say that we will be with her immediately after luncheon. It was only proper we should go and see her before she leaves ; and, indeed, I want to have some talk with her.'' The young ladies were silent. ** I hope," said Mrs. Meriton, " it does not interfere with any plan of yours ? I wish to get Frank to ride over to Melford Castle, and leave our cards with his own. It will save the horses." Felicia's dowry. 291 ^^ Otherwise, shall we have to go ?" asked Adela. " We shall, indeed. Lord Melford must be inquired after. I shall really be glad, to know that he has not suiFered. I think he exerted himself yesterday far too much — more than was at all necessary." The Misses Meriton were too well trained to think of objecting to any arrangement made by their mother ; and besides, their belief in her — in her kindness, her reasonableness, and her savoir faire, was perfect. Still, an after- noon's occupation more entirely distasteful to Kate could hardly have been planned. In a visit to Coleworth she could not but vividly remind herself of much that it must now be her business to forget ; she would have pre- ferred not to meet Felicia, or even Frank, while the mortification of the day before was still so recent ; she would greatly have pre- u 2 . 292 Felicia's dowry. ferred not to see George Dalton ; while in the further drive to Melford Castle she would be uneasy in the , expectation of encountering Colonel Grant at every inch of the road. This further drive, however, was spared her. Frank undertook to make the inquiries, and leave the names of the family at Melford Castle, though, with the inattention to such matters for which young married folks are conspicuous, he and Felicia had failed to see the propriety of such a measure till pointed out to them. George Dalton, moreover, had — Kate incidentally heard — gone to a croquet party at the Maitland's ; and Felicia — with a delicacy her sister-in-law appreciated — said scarcely anything of either review, banquet, or ball. She just asked what time they got home, and whether Lord Melford danced at all himself ; and then passed from the subject to that of her own and her husband^s departure for Weymouth. Felicia's dowry. 293 " And all," said the elder Mrs. Meriton, " has been settled about the house in the manner you wished ?" *' Yes — at least it has been settled. We found, you know, that in taking the house we were to take one of the people^s servants with it." '^ Yes ; that I believe is a very usual ar- rangement." '* Well — it was the cook ; and it seemed to be expected that we would employ her as cook. Of course we utterly declined to do that ; as our chief object in taking a house was to have Watson with us. Otherwise, you know, we might have gone to an hotel." " Exactly. Indeed, I almost thought it might have been the better plan." " Only Watson is such a good manager. We get to value her, I think, more than ever." 294 Felicia's dowry. *' She is an excellent cook, undoubtedly/' " So every one says. She might not per- haps be equal to very large dinners — I do not know — but in sending up small ones she is really perfect. We should have missed her — I was going to say every hour in the twenty- four — but at least, three times a day. I wrote, therefore, to the agent to say that the thing was impossible — that we brought our own cook, and that if the woman was to be left, she must be housemaid. " The furniture to suffer,'' added Felicia, laughing, " is not ours, and Marie will see that the things that im- mediately concern us are as they should be, so I hope Frank will be comfortable." " Your proposal has been accepted, then ?" " Oh, yes !" ^' And you leave Eebecca at Coleworth ?" "Eebecca and Ellen. Watson says that things come so nicely from the fishmonger's Felicia's dowry. 295 and poulterer's in a place like Weymouth, that she will do without a kitchenmaid, or get oc- casional assistance. We only take, therefore, Marie, Watson, and James." ^'And Kichard, 1 suppose, with the horses ?'' ^' Eichard, of course, with the horses." " My dear Felicia, it will be rather an ex- pensive business." " Not so very expensive, I hope. We are to give six guineas a week for the house, which is, I think, moderate ; and then Watson manages so well ; and if we had gone to Brighton, or Dover, or even to the Isle of Wight, the expense, I think, would have been greater." "Very true. And you are going for a month — or six weeks is it ? " " We have taken the house for six weeks ; but we may have it for longer, if we wish." 296 FELICIA'S DOWRY. Frank was not very long in driving himself over to Melford Castle and back again. He returned at the moment his mother and Adela were taking their departure. Lord Melford was quite as well as usual, and Frank had met Colonel Grant riding with EUzabeth and Margaret Elliot and Mr. Loriraer. There was nothing very surprising in this last fact ; still, it was a new picture — and vivid from its novelty — placed before Kate's eyes for the remainder of the evening. This remainder — till about ten o'clock, that is to say — was spent by Kate at Coleworth, To Felicia's very cordial invitation to her to remain, Kate had, in the first instance, replied • by pleading the fatigue of the previous day and night. Mrs. Meriton, however (whether judiciously or otherwise), overruled the objec- tion ; and, I think, felt rather satisfied that she had done judiciously, though her own FELICIA'S DOWRY. 297 elder daughter might not be in her thoughts, when, in a horseman riding slowly towards the gate tlirough which her carriage had just passed, she recognized Lord A . Kate did not congratulate herself equally. She detested the very little she knew or had heard of Lord A . In the midst of her own troubles during the review she had remarked the unusual air and attitude of admiration he had preserved towards her beautiful — yes, Felicia was certainly beautiful — sister-in-law; and had seen more than one significant, even insolent eye-glass levelled in their direction. After a single civil inquiry for Adela, he took no notice whatever of herself; and, crocheting silently, she wondered whether good-breeding was the invariable and necessary attribute of a lord, or whether she might permit herself to think of this individual nobleman as she would have thought of any other man. At last, the 298 Felicia's dowry. visit was over, and Felicia, in welcoming George Dalton and S. Mildmay to dinner, was once more as Kate liked best to see her. There was something, however, further un- usual about this evening. When the ladies had retired for the solitary half-hour that hospitable Frank was sometimes apt to make a whole one, Marie — packing for Weymouth — brought down to her mistress a trinket-box, for the latter to select from and arrange ; and Kate, by whom many of Felicia's ornaments had never been seen, naturally assisted in this charming task, in which the two ladies were still engaged, when the gentlemen entered the drawing-room. The unmarried sister-in- law then abdicated the chair she had occupied close to the mistress of the house, and be- took herself to her crocheting near a table, at which she was joined by Mr. Dalton. Still, however, partly to interrupt a tete-a-tete. Felicia's dowry. 299 partly because the ornaments now the objects of male admiration had so lately been in- spected by herself, Kate added, ever and anon, a remark to those that were being ex- changed around the trinket-box. She was not too far removed from it to do so with propriety, and was not the less inclined to do so, because she saw in Mr. George Dalton a desire to monopolize her attention. To some extent he succeeded, for, amongst other things, he spoke innocently, unconsciously, naively, of Margaret Elliot and Colonel Grant. ^^ Fee !" she suddenly heard said by Frank, ^^ what a jolly bracelet this is ! Have I ever seen you wear it ?" " I should suppose so,'' Felicia replied. ^' I have worn it often." " Often !" " Sometimes, at any rate. One does not wear diamonds very often." 300 Felicia's dowry. ^^ It must have cost a pretty high figure. Did your uncle come down with this?" '^ I could not tell you who gave me half the things in this box — only that they were all wedding presents." '^A reason," said Kate, '^against giving wedding presents as souvenirs" But George Dalton looked down upon the table. He did not want to be talking about wedding presents just then. He would have preferred, I believe, to talk about a wedding. " Mrs. Frank Meriton," said Surplice, who had, by this time, the bracelet in his hand, '^Mrs. Meriton, you have a short sleeve — pray let us have the pleasure of seeing this beauti- ful bracelet on your arm. Allow me " Now, Mrs. Frank Meriton had not a short sleeve, but one of those loose sleeves that make a charming arm nearly as visible; and Felicia's was a charming arm — nay, more than Felicia's dowry. 301 cliarming. Her arm was one of her stronp^ points; it was incomparable. When, therefore, she extended it for the bracelet, Surplice, who probably did not understand bracelets, grew awkward and clasped it the wrong way; at which everybody laughed, even George Dalton, who was now compelled to give his attention to what everybody else w^as attending to, and look up from the table. ^^You have fastened it, my good sir,'' said Frank, "upside down. I am the better lady's maid!" and he rectified the curate's mistake with perfect ease, saying, when he had done so, *' By Jove! it is the most beautiful thing of the sort I ever saw in my life!" Kate smiled her acquiescence, and turned by a natural impulse to her companion, on beholding whom the smile quitted her face — nay, was replaced by a look of unmixed aston- ishment. And at what? There was the beau- 302 Felicia's dowry. tiful arm extended, and the bracelet of bril- liants flashing in the lamp-light which rendered its unique and exquisite pattern distinctly visible; there was S. Mild may bending over it, with admiration gleaming through his double eye-glass; there was Frank regarding it with perfect approval from a little greater distance; and, by her own side, gazing at the same object, there was George Dalton, with a face almost as white as the table-cloth he had lately quitted, and every feature of which a sort of incredulous horror held in possession. Suddenly the latter — perhaps at Kate's gaze — recollected himself, and commanded his coun- tenance. He threw himself back into a corner of the sofa, which the brighter light did not reach, and where he was less exposed to ob- servation. By this time Frank had again the bracelet in his, hand. ^' This might be made," he said, ^* to carry a picture. Look here, George " Felicia's dowry. 303 ^* In a momeiit, my good fellow," replied George, and vanished out of the room. Long before he returned, both bracelet and trinket-box had been carried off by Marie; and Felicia, who had been all that afternoon and evening at her best, was singing with S Mildmay gloriously, when George Dalton's still pale face w^as again seen in the doorway. Kate looked up as he entered, but though his eye met hers, he did not come towards her. Benedict was asleep on the sofa, an error he sometimes — not often, but sometimes — in- dulged in; and his friend took a book to a remote reading-chair, from which it made Kate nervous to believe that his eyes were occasionally directed towards her sister-in-law, with something of the same extraordinary ex- pression she had noticed in them at the moment the bracelet was flashing on that sister-in-law's arm. AYhen, however, the Elm Green carriage was announced, and Kate rose to leave, George 304 Felicia's dowry. Dalton rose too, and, witliSut any adieux to the party in the drawing-room that could give an idea of his not intending to return to it, accompanied her to the outer door. He still seemed strange and pre-occupied, she thought. Indeed he almost pressed her arm to his side; and when she was seated in the carriage and ..put out her hand to him, there was a sort of painful meaning in his clasp and in his eye, that she could not understand. As the car- riage drove round the sweep, moreover, she saw that he only returned for a second to the hall to fetch his hat, and then walked away through a small gate into the lane leading to the Vicarage. '^ What in the world," thought Kate to herself, "can be the matter?" END or THE FIRST VOLUME.