“At church, I suppose,” replied she, “unless your business chances to bring you here again at the precise moment when I happen to be walking by.”
“I could always manage to have business here, if I knew precisely when and where to find you.”
“But if I would, I could not inform you, for I am so immethodical, I never can tell today what I shall do tomorrow.”
“Then give me that, meantime, to comfort me,” said he, half jestingly and half in earnest, extending his hand for the sprig of myrtle.
“No, indeed, I shan’t.”
“Do! pray do! I shall be the most miserable of men if you don’t. You cannot be so cruel as to deny me a favour so easily granted and yet so highly prized!” pleaded he as ardently as if his life depended on it.
By this time I stood within a very few yards of them, impatiently waiting his departure.
“There then! take it and go,” said Rosalie.
He joyfully received the gift, murmured something that made her blush and toss her head, but with a little laugh that showed her displeasure was entirely affected; and then with a courteous salutation withdrew.
“Did you ever see such a man, Miss Grey?” said she, turning to me; “I’m so glad you came! I thought I never should get rid of him; and I was so terribly afraid of papa seeing him.”
“Has he been with you long?”
“No, not long, but he’s so extremely impertinent: and he’s always hanging about, pretending his business or his clerical duties require his attendance in these parts, and really watching for poor me, and pouncing upon me wherever he sees me.”
“Well, your mamma thinks you ought not to go beyond the park or garden without some discreet, matronly person like me to accompany you, and keep off all intruders. She descried Mr. Hatfield hurrying past the park-gates, and forthwith despatched me with instructions to seek you up and to take care of you, and likewise to warn—”
“Oh, mamma’s so tiresome! As if I couldn’t take care of myself. She bothered me before about Mr. Hatfield; and I told her she might trust me: I never should forget my rank and station for the most delightful man that ever breathed. I wish he would go down on his knees tomorrow, and implore me to be his wife, that I might just show her how mistaken she is in supposing that I could ever—Oh, it provokes me so! To think that I could be such a fool as to fall in love! It is quite beneath the dignity of a woman to do such a thing. Love! I detest the word! As applied to one of our sex, I think it a perfect insult. A preference I might acknowledge; but never for one like poor Mr. Hatfield, who has not seven hundred a year to bless himself with. I like to talk to him, because he’s so clever and amusing—I wish Sir Thomas Ashby were half as nice; besides, I must have somebody to flirt with, and no one else has the sense to come here; and when we go out, mamma won’t let me flirt with anybody but Sir Thomas—if he’s there; and if he’s not there, I’m bound hand and foot, for fear somebody should go and make up some exaggerated story, and put it into his head that I’m engaged, or likely to be engaged, to somebody else; or, what is more probable, for fear his nasty old mother should see or hear of my ongoings, and conclude that I’m not a fit wife for her excellent son: as if the said son were not the greatest scamp in Christendom; and as if any woman of common decency were not a world too good for him.”
“Is it really so, Miss Murray? and does your mamma know it, and yet wish you to marry him?”
“To be sure, she does! She knows more against him than I do, I believe: she keeps it from me lest I should be discouraged; not knowing how little I care about such things. For it’s no great matter, really: he’ll be all right when he’s married, as mamma says; and reformed rakes make the best husbands, everybody knows. I only wish he were not so ugly—that’s all I think about: but then there’s no choice here in the country; and papa will not let us go to London—”
“But I should think Mr. Hatfield would be far better.”
“And so he would, if he were lord of Ashby Park—there’s not a doubt of it: but the fact is, I must have Ashby Park, whoever shares it with me.”
“But Mr. Hatfield thinks you like him all this time; you don’t consider how bitterly he will be disappointed when he finds himself mistaken.”
“No, indeed! It will be a proper punishment for his presumption—forever daring to think I could like him. I should enjoy nothing so much as lifting the veil from his eyes.”
“The sooner you do it the better then.”
“No; I tell you, I like to amuse myself with him. Besides, he doesn’t really think I like him. I take good care of that: you don’t know how cleverly I manage. He may presume to think he can induce me to like him; for which I shall punish him as he deserves.”
“Well, mind you don’t give too much reason for such presumption—that’s all,” replied I.
But all my exhortations were in vain: they only made her somewhat more solicitous to disguise her wishes and her thoughts from me. She talked no more to me about the
