LADY GLENALVON.—“In urging Chillingly Gordon’s suit?”
CECILIA.—“Commanding me to reconsider my rejection of it. He has contrived to fascinate my father.”
LADY GLENALVON.—“So he has me. Of course you might choose among other candidates for your hand one of much higher worldly rank, of much larger fortune; yet, as you have already rejected them, Gordon’s merits become still more entitled to a fair hearing. He has already leaped into a position that mere rank and mere wealth cannot attain. Men of all parties speak highly of his parliamentary abilities. He is already marked in public opinion as a coming man,—a future minister of the highest grade. He has youth and good looks; his moral character is without a blemish: yet his manners are so free from affected austerity, so frank, so genial. Any woman might be pleased with his companionship; and you, with your intellect, your culture,—you, so born for high station,—you of all women might be proud to partake the anxieties of his career and the rewards of his ambition.”
CECILIA (clasping her hands tightly together).—“I cannot, I cannot. He may be all you say,—I know nothing against Mr. Chillingly Gordon,—but my whole nature is antagonistic to his, and even were it not so—”
She stopped abruptly, a deep blush warming up her fair face, and retreating to leave it coldly pale.
LADY GLENALVON (tenderly kissing her).—“You have not, then, even yet conquered the first maiden fancy; the ungrateful one is still remembered?”
Cecilia bowed her head on her friend’s breast, and murmured imploringly, “Don’t speak against him; he has been so unhappy. How much he must have loved!”
“But it is not you whom he loved.”
“Something here, something at my heart, tells me that he will love me yet; and, if not, I am contented to be his friend.”