Abbeychurch by Charlotte M. Yonge (best english novels for beginners TXT) 📖

like her, a little darker certainly,' said Sir Edward, 'but she reminds me of her constantly--there--that smile is my sister's exactly.'

Elizabeth had just then re-entered the room, and was assuring her mamma that Winifred had been as playful as ever all the remainder of the evening, and was now fast asleep in bed.

'I am only afraid she is too fragile and delicate a creature,' said Mrs. Bouverie; 'is her health strong?'

'Strong? no, not very,' said Sir Edward, 'she requires care, but there is nothing much amiss with her; I know most people about here are in the habit of lamenting over her as in a most dangerous state; but I believe the fact is, that Mrs. Woodbourne is a nervous anxious person, and frightens herself more than there is any occasion for.'

'Then I hope she generally looks less delicate than she does to-night,' said Mrs. Bouverie.

'Oh! she may well look over-worked to-night,' said Sir Edward; 'she has a spirit in her which would not let her rest on such a day as this.--Come here, Miss Lizzie,' said he, beckoning to her, 'I want you to account for those two red spots upon your cheeks. Do you think they ought to be there?'

'Yes, if they come in a good cause, Uncle,' said Elizabeth.

'Do you mean, then, to wear them any longer than necessary?' said Sir Edward; 'pray have you sat still for five minutes together to-day?'

'Yes, while I was at tea,' said Elizabeth.

'And why are not you in bed and asleep at this moment?' asked her uncle.

'That is the very question Mamma has been asking,' said Elizabeth; 'and I have been promising to depart, as soon as I can make my escape; so good night, Uncle Edward--good night,' said she, giving her hand to her uncle and to Mrs. Bouverie with almost equal cordiality.

'Good night, Lizzie, get you gone,' said Sir Edward; 'and if you can carry off my girl with you, I shall be all the better pleased.'

Elizabeth succeeded in touching Anne's arm; and the two cousins flitted away together, and soon forgot the various delights and annoyances of the day in sleep.


CHAPTER VI.

The next morning was gloomy and rainy, as Elizabeth informed Anne at about seven o'clock; 'and I am not sorry for it,' said she, 'for I want to have you all to myself at home, so we will turn the incubi over to Kate and Helen, and be comfortable together.'

'Will they submit to such treatment?' said Anne.

'Oh yes, my dear,' said Elizabeth; 'they want us as little as we want them; they only want a little civility, and I will not be so sparing of that useful commodity as I was yesterday evening. And now, Anne, I am going to beg your pardon for being so excessively rude to Harriet, as I was last night. She did not mind it, but you did, and much more than if it had been to yourself.'

'I believe I did,' said Anne; 'other people do not know what you mean when you set up your bristles, and I do. Besides, I was sorry for Lucy, who looks as if she had sensitiveness enough for the whole family.'

'Poor Lucy!' said Elizabeth;

"A weary lot is thine, fair maid,
A weary lot is thine."

Yes, Lucy has very deep feeling; you may see it in the painful flushing of her cheek, and the downcast look of her eye, when her mother and sister expose themselves. I really believe that that poor girl has more to endure than most people.'

'O Lizzie,' said Anne, 'how differently you spoke of her yesterday!'

'Yes,' said Elizabeth, 'but then I was furious with Mrs. Hazleby; and besides, I believe the truth was, that I was very tired and very cross, not exactly the way in which I intended to conclude the Consecration day; and now I am in my senses, I am very sorry I behaved as I did. But, Anne, though I hereby retract all I said in dispraise of Lucy, and confess that I was rude to Harriet, do not imagine that I disavow all I said about society last night, for I assure you that I expressed my deliberate opinion.'

'Your deliberate opinion, my dear?' said Anne, laughing.

'Yes, my deliberate opinion, my dear,' repeated Elizabeth. 'Pray why should not I have a deliberate opinion, as well as Hannah More, or Locke on the Human Understanding, or anyone else?'

'Because,' rejoined Anne, 'I think that if the rest of the world were of your deliberate opinion, there would soon be a lock on the human understanding.'

'I am sure I think there is at present,' returned Elizabeth; 'did you see Aunt Anne last night wasted upon Mrs. Dale, obliged to listen to the dullest stuff that ever was invented, and poor Mamma frightened out of her wits? I should not wonder if she had dreamt of mad dogs all night.'

'I do not defend Mrs. Dale's powers of intellect,' said Anne, 'but I should have thought that you at least had little reason to complain. You were very well off next to Mrs. Bouverie.'

'Oh! Mrs. Bouverie is a rara avis, an exception to the general rule,' said Elizabeth; 'but you know, she or my uncle, or aunt, or Papa, are generally forced to put a lock on their understanding. Why, Anne, what are you laughing at?'

'Lizzie, I beg your pardon,' said Anne, trying to check herself, 'but I could not help it. Your speech put me in mind of the prints from Albano's four elements. Do not you remember Juno's visit to AEolus, where he is opening the door of a little corner cupboard where he keeps the puff-cheeked winds locked up? Do you mean to say that Mamma keeps her mighty powers of mind locked up in the same way, for fear they should burst out and overwhelm everybody?'

Elizabeth heartily joined in her cousin's merriment. 'I will tell you what I do mean, Anne, what the great law of society is. Now, do not put on that absurd face of mock gravity, or I shall only laugh, instead of arguing properly.'

'Well, let us hear,' said Anne.

'It is almost more important than the law that you must eat with a knife and fork,' said Elizabeth. 'There is one level of conversation, fit for the meanest capacity; and whoever ventures to transgress it, is instantly called blue, or a horrid bore, &c., &c.'

'Nonsense, Lizzie,' said Anne, laughing; 'I am sure I have heard plenty of clever people talk, about sensible things too, and never did I hear them called bores, or blue, or any of your awful et ceteras either.'

'Because people did not dare to do so,' said Elizabeth, 'but they thought it all the same.'

'What do you mean by people?' said Anne.

'The dull, respectable, common-place gentry, who make up the mass of mankind,' said Elizabeth.

'Do they?' said Anne.

'Do not they?' said Elizabeth.

'I do not know what the mass of mankind may be at Abbeychurch,' said Anne, 'but I am sure the people whom we see oftenest at home, are such as I think it a privilege to know.' And she began to enumerate these friends.

'Oh! Anne,' interrupted Elizabeth, 'do not, for pity's sake, make me discontented; here am I in Abbeychurch, and must make the best of it. I must be as polite and hypocritical as I can make myself. I must waste my time and endure dullness.'

'As to waste of time,' said Anne, 'perhaps it is most usefully employed in what is so irksome as you find being in company. Mamma has always wished me to remember, that acquiring knowledge may after all be but a selfish gratification, and many things ought to be attended to first.'

'That doctrine would not do for everybody,' said Elizabeth.

'No,' said Anne, 'but it does for us; and you will see it plainer, if you remember on what authority it is said that all knowledge is profitable for nothing without charity.'

'Charity, yes,' said Elizabeth; 'but Christian love is a very different thing from drawing-room civility.'

'Not very different from bearing and forbearing, as Helen said,' answered Anne.

'Politeness is not great enough,' said Elizabeth, 'to belong to charity.'

'You are not the person to say so,' said Anne.

'Because I dislike it so much,' said Elizabeth, 'but that is because I despise it. It is such folly to sit a whole evening with your hands before you doing nothing.'

'But do you not think,' said Anne, 'that enduring restraint, and listening to what is not amusing, for the sake of pleasing others, is doing something?'

'Passively, not actively,' said Elizabeth; 'but it is not to please others, it is only that they may think you well bred, or rather that they may not think about you at all.'

'It is to please our father and mother,' said Anne.

'Yes, and that is the reason it must be done,' said Elizabeth; 'it is the way of the world, and cannot be helped.'

'Rather say it is the trial which has been ordained for us,' said Anne.

'Well,' said Elizabeth, smiling, 'I know all the time that you have the best of the argument. It would not be so if it was not good for us.'

'And as it is,' said Anne, 'I believe that there is more enjoyment in the present order of things, than there would be in any arrangement we could devise.'

'Oh! doubtless,' said Elizabeth, 'just as the corn ripens better with all the disasters that seem to befall it, than it would if we had the command of the clouds.'

'Of course,' said Anne, 'you really are a much more reasonable creature than you pretend to be, Lizzie.'

'Am I?' said Elizabeth. 'Well, I will just tell you my great horror, and I suppose you will laugh at me. I can endure gossip for old people who cannot employ themselves, and must talk, and have nothing to talk of but their neighbours; but only think of those wretched _faineants_ who go chattering on, wasting their own time and other people's, doing no good on the face of the earth, and a great deal of harm.'

'But these unfortunates are probably quite as unable to talk on any very wise subjects, as your beloved old people, to whom you give a license to gossip,' said Anne; 'and you do not wish to condemn them to perpetual silence. They are most likely to be estimable people, who ought to be amused.'

'Estimable--yes, perhaps,' said Elizabeth, 'but then I cannot esteem a silly gossip.'

'Why, Lizzie,' cried Anne, 'you are still at the old story that it is better to be wicked than stupid; at least, you reason upon that foundation, though you do not really think so.'

'I believe,' said Elizabeth, 'that there must be some great crook in my mind; for though I know and believe as firmly as I do any other important thing, that mere intellect is utterly worthless, I cannot feel it; it bewitches me as beauty does some people, and I suppose always will, till I grow old and stupid, or get my mind into better