"Perhaps I may," replied Agnes, looking rather startled.
"Then, whether do you think ladies or gentlemen are the greatest humbugs?"
"Gentlemen, certainly; for they often pretend to feel what they do not, but ladies conceal what they do."
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Marion and Sir Arthur were engaged next morning to meet the Granvilles at breakfast in the private parlor of Mrs. Crawford, and they had advanced considerably in the consumption of their muffin and first cup of tea, when a very plainly dressed young lady glided into the room with a timid, agitated step, and giving a slight nod to the party, silently seated herself beside Marion, who, in compassion to her apparent shyness, averted her eyes. She seemed recently recovered from an illness, being thin and emaciated to excess, while it appeared as if her hair had been entirely shaved off, as she wore a cap fitting close to her face, and neither curl nor braid to vary the almost spectral whiteness of her whole aspect. Marion ventured a second glance at the interesting invalid, and observed a smile quivering about her mouth, which she seemed vainly endeavoring to suppress, and a sly glance towards herself, which enlightened her in a moment, for, with an exclamation of joy, she sprang from her seat and was instantly embraced, with laughing delight, by her old friend Caroline, whom she had lately learned to know as Miss Howard, the heiress of countless thousands,—not the more, nor the less dear to her on that account, but still the beloved companion of all her early frolics and school enjoyments.
"I wished to try your powers of recognition, and Sir Arthur's," said Caroline, with tears of laughing and almost hysterical joy. "I am changed—greatly changed, so that my best friends could scarcely recognise me, and if my enemies were also deceived it would be well. Dear Marion! I am still pursued and persecuted by that wretched madman, the terror of our school days, the horror of all my subsequent life! My aunt finds her nerves so shattered with the whole affair, that our kind friends here have undertaken me for a week or two, and it is thought that, amidst the crowd collected at Harrowgate, I may be in comparative safety. My life has been rendered almost a burden to me in the country, where not a corner of the earth seemed safe from that wretched creature's intrusions, and it is thought that he must bribe some of our servants to betray all my plans; yet, among them all, I scarcely know whom to suspect or whom to trust! Remember, dear Marion, that here I am to be treated as some humble cousin of Mr. Crawford's, and on no account let your brother, or a living soul in the house, suspect that you ever saw me before. Agnes also must keep my secret, and Mrs. O'Donoghoe, who has heard nothing of my real history, agrees to be my chaperon."
"Then you should adopt her name, for Patrick always calls the widow, 'Mrs. I-don't-know-who.'"
The most agreeable conversations are those of which there is generally least to be repeated, and that which followed round the cheerful breakfast-table at Mr. Crawford's, was carried tranquilly on, in a pleasing animated tone, on subjects of immediate interest as well as of permanent importance, showing, in the most prepossessing colors, characters, and feelings, inspired by the finest impulses which adorn the heart and mind of a Christian. Amidst the enlightened discussions and unreserved vivacity of a conversation, displaying the ease and fascination of high life, without its flippancy, frivolity, and pretension, those who have lived to discover that what is called the gay world, is sometimes but a dull world after all, might there have learned for what important purposes the power of speech and the power of thought have been given, if rightly used and enjoyed. There was the joyous relaxation of happy hearts and well-ordered minds, without the effervescence of empty affectation, or the flash of bewildering excitement, which Marion had lately been accustomed to find among those who seemed little better employed than Domitian of old, in catching flies, and who prefer living upon exaggerated trifles, to enjoying that calm, rational and intellectual intercourse which is registered in the heart for ever.
With feelings of deep and animated pleasure, Marion gathered from Mr. Granville a rich harvest of sound opinions, amiable sentiments, and original ideas, while, with the free-masonry of real attachment, many a sentence, which seemed addressed by him to the whole company, attained its full meaning only in her heart. Richard was very seldom, as Agnes expressed it, "tuned up to nonsense pitch." He wasted none of his hours on the mere flummeries of conversation, but the frequent sparkling of his wit shone the brighter for its occasional gravity; and never had Marion seen him in a more buoyant and happy frame than now, when developing the thoughts and affections of a mind and heart cultivated to the highest tone of refinement, fortified by the strongest principles of religion, and imbued with a supreme regard for all that is noble, generous, or graceful in the conduct and characters.
To Sir Arthur, the social circle imparted feelings of inestimable happiness. He had long considered human life as having nothing left for him now, but the one great opportunity to prepare for eternity, not to be trifled away in its smallest details; and he had remarked to Marion the evening before, after spending an hour in the public saloon, "I tire more of that Vanity Fair in the next room, than I would of breaking stones on the road! I should become an idiot before long, if I lived the sort of butterfly-life they do here, in a whirl of exhausting and frivolous amusement."