So saying he departed; and all other considerations were again swallowed up in Adeline's mind by the idea of Glenmurray's danger.
'Is it possible that my marrying you would have such a blessed effect on your health?' cried Adeline after a pause.
'It certainly would make my mind easier than it now is,' replied he.
'If I thought so,' said Adeline: 'but no—regard for my supposed interest merely makes you say so; and indeed I should not think so well of you as I now do, if I imagined that you could be made easy by an action by which you forfeited all pretensions to that consistency of character so requisite to the true dignity of a philosopher.'
A deep sigh from Glenmurray, in answer, proved that he was no philosopher.
In the morning the lovers set off for London, Dr Norberry having preceded them by a few hours. This blunt but benevolent man had returned the evening before slowly and pensively to his lodgings, his heart full of pity for the errors of the well-meaning enthusiasts whom he had left, and his head full of plans for their assistance, or rather for that of Adeline. But he entered his own doors again reluctantly—he knew but too well that no sympathy with his feelings awaited him there. His wife, a woman of narrow capacity and no talents or accomplishments, had, like all women of that sort, a great aversion to those of her sex who united to feminine graces and gentleness, the charms of a cultivated understanding and pretensions to accomplishments or literature.
Of Mrs Mowbray, as we have before observed, she had always been peculiarly jealous, because Dr Norberry spoke of her knowledge with wonder, and of her understanding with admiration; not that he entertained one moment a feeling of preference towards her, inconsistent with an almost idolatrous love of his wife, whose skill in all the domestic duties, and whose very pretty face and person, were the daily themes of his praise. But Mrs Norberry wished to engross all his panegyrics to herself, and she never failed to expatiate on Mrs Mowbray's foibles and flightiness as long as the doctor had expatiated on her charms.
Sometimes, indeed, this last subject was sooner exhausted than the one which she had chosen; but when Adeline grew up, and became as it were the rival of her daughters in the praises of her husband, she found it difficult as we have said before, to bring faults in array against excellencies.
Mrs Norberry could with propriety observe, when the doctor, was exclaiming, 'What a charming essay Mrs Mowbray has just written!'
'Aye,—but I dare say she can't write a market bill.'