Kenelm sighed, and, with the air of a martyr stretching himself on the rack, took his place beside the fairest girl in the county.
“You were at college with Mr. Belvoir?”
“I was.”
“He was thought clever there?”
“I have not a doubt of it.”
“You know he is canvassing our county for the next election. My father takes a warm interest in his success, and thinks he will be a useful member of Parliament.”
“Of that I am certain. For the first five years he will be called pushing, noisy, and conceited, much sneered at by men of his own age, and coughed down on great occasions; for the five following years he will be considered a sensible man in committees, and a necessary feature in debate; at the end of those years he will be an under-secretary; in five years more he will be a Cabinet Minister, and the representative of an important section of opinions; he will be an irreproachable private character, and his wife will be seen wearing the family diamonds at all the great parties. She will take an interest in politics and theology; and if she die before him, her husband will show his sense of wedded happiness by choosing another lady, equally fitted to wear the family diamonds and to maintain the family consequences.”
In spite of her laughter, Cecilia felt a certain awe at the solemnity of voice and manner with which Kenelm delivered these oracular sentences, and the whole prediction seemed strangely in unison with her own impressions of the character whose fate was thus shadowed out.
“Are you a fortune-teller, Mr. Chillingly?” she asked, falteringly, and after a pause.
“As good a one as any whose hand you could cross with a shilling.”