“So you are going to propose to Miss Mordaunt, the Warwickshire Mordaunts I suppose? Lady Glenalvon says she is a very lovely girl, and will stay with her before the wedding. And as the young lady is an orphan Lady Glenalvon’s uncle the Duke, who is connected with the eldest branch of the Mordaunts, will give her away. It will be a very brilliant affair. I am sure I wish you happy; it is time you should have sown your wild oats.”
Two days after the consent thus formally given, Kenelm quitted Exmundham. Sir Peter would have accompanied him to pay his respects to the intended, but the agitation he had gone through brought on a sharp twinge of the gout, which consigned his feet to flannels.
After Kenelm had gone, Lady Glenalvon went into Cecilia’s room. Cecilia was seated very desolately by the open window. She had detected that something of an anxious and painful nature had been weighing upon the minds of father and son, and had connected it with the letter which had so disturbed the even mind of Sir Peter; but she did not divine what the something was, and if mortified by a certain reserve, more distant than heretofore, which had characterized Kenelm’s manner towards herself, the mortification was less sensibly felt than a tender sympathy for the sadness she had observed on his face and yearned to soothe. His reserve had, however, made her own manner more reserved than of old, for which she was now rather chiding herself than reproaching him.
Lady Glenalvon put her arms round Cecilia’s neck and kissed her, whispering, “That man has so disappointed me: he is so unworthy of the happiness I had once hoped for him!”
“Whom do you speak of?” murmured Cecilia, turning very pale.
“Kenelm Chillingly. It seems that he has conceived a fancy for some penniless girl whom he has met in his wanderings, has come here to get the consent of his parents to propose to her, has obtained their consent, and is gone to propose.”
Cecilia remained silent for a moment with her eyes closed, then she said, “He is worthy of all happiness, and he would never make an unworthy choice. Heaven bless him—and—and—” She would have added, “his bride,” but her lips refused to utter the word bride.
“Cousin Gordon is worth ten of him,” cried Lady Glenalvon, indignantly.
She had served Kenelm, but she had not forgiven him.