But I forgave all her oddness, when she saw my child; for praise of her child always finds its way to a mother's heart; and she was in raptures with its beauty. She pitied me too for being forced to give her up to a nurse; but she added, "I hope she is not, to use the words of the bard, a
| 'Stern rugged nurse, with rigid lore, |
| Our patience many a year to bore.'" |
Then renewing her caresses and her praises, she banished from my remembrance for a while all but her affectionate heart.
At dinner, however, she restored to me my fears of her, and my dislike to her visit; for she called my husband Mr. Seymour Pendarves at every word, though my mother she called Julia, and me Helen;—wishing, as I saw, to point out to every one that he was not in her good graces. But why? Alas! I doubted not but I should hear too soon; and, feeling myself a coward, I carefully avoided being alone with her that evening.
What she had to tell I knew not, and whether it regarded Charlotte Jermyn or Lady Bell; but I summoned up resolution to ask Pendarves whether he had ever visited Lady Bell Singleton in company with Lord Charles; and without hesitation, though with great confusion, he owned that he had.
"What! more than once?"
"Yes."
"Why did you not tell me of it?"
"Because I thought, after what you had heard, it might make you uneasy."
"Should you ever do," I replied, forcing a smile, "what in our relative situation it would make me uneasy to be informed of?"