"Well done art and nature both!" added Captain De Crespigny; "we have not existed in vain after seeing that matchless view! I shall give bail to live contented and happy during the rest of my life, if you will only endow me with all I see, and let it be shared with the person in this company whom I like best, though perhaps she might tire of me."
Agnes bit her scarlet lip with scorn at words which would once have thrilled to her very heart, but she turned away with an insufferably haughty air on perceiving that her ci-devant admirer had turned his most irresistible looks towards Marion, who was earnestly talking in an undertone to Miss Smythe, while a look of anxious alarm had become depicted on the countenances of both.
"Such moments as these are like the colors of a rainbow, very bright and very fleeting," observed Sir Arthur. "If I had a place magnificent as this, even with the power of choosing my own society, yet, as Dr. Johnson says, 'such possessions make men unwilling to die!'"
"Allow me to differ, then, from Dr. Johnson," replied Mr. Granville. "It is not our possessions, but our affections that could ever make me grieve to forsake this bright green earth. I would rather be loved by one than envied by thousands. I can imagine no happiness that does not spring from the heart, and the most splendid mansion that ever adorned the earth, would be a desert without the smile of those who loved me to welcome my entrance there."
"Who that knows the worth of friendship would not say the same," added Marion, in a deep, low tone. "My wishes never grasp at great possessions, as their very vastness appears disproportioned to our nature and powers. The most superb houses are those most generally deserted by their owners, but I scarcely ever see a retired and peaceful cottage without whispering to myself, 'There I could be happy.'"
"Take my word for it, the whole thing would be odious in a week," said Captain De Crespigny. "I have been a great observer of life from the windows of the New Club, and my serious opinion is, that poetry is all written to mislead our unsuspecting youth into an effervescence of empty enthusiasm about rural felicity on an income of nothing per annum; but I drew the cork out of that bottle long ago, and found it all froth. Once upon a time I was betrayed into living a month at one of those little bird's nests, a gaudy, stuccoed gimcrack, all plaster and green paint, surrounded with roses, hollyhocks, and the flaring trash people call flowers. There were within the walls, three noisy dogs, four ditto children, a roasting-jack and a mangle, all screeching at once! It was distracting! No! no! I hate money myself, but that cured me of ever making a mere bread-and-butter match."
"Yet I could live on the bread without the butter, for any one I really liked, or even the butter without the bread," said Mr. Granville, smiling. "Money is only the raw material of enjoyment, which must be raised into a fabric of solid strength, and embellished with taste, to suit my wishes and hopes. The hook and eye will never be of gold that attaches me, and nothing has ever been so difficult to my comprehension as that any one can possibly form the nearest ties of life upon a mere calculation of profit and loss!"
"Well," exclaimed Sir Patrick, who always assumed an air of bravado before Mr. Granville, to conceal his real feelings, "I am above all the follies of inferior mortals, but I do say, that to me, the most interesting object in nature is a young lady of large, independent fortune, ready to throw herself away on the first man who asks her!"
At this moment, Miss Smythe's sketch-book fell to the ground, while, with a sudden exclamation of affright, she started up, but instantly endeavored to recover herself, and when Sir Patrick had gathered up her pencils, she received them back with blush of double-dyed carnation, as if she could never unblush again, and making an apology for having been startled by the sudden apparition of a hare, she silently resumed her occupation, and Sir Patrick continued to rattle on at his full pitch of nonsense, as if nothing had occurred.
"I wonder Lady Sarah Marchmont did not wait another season for me! I was hastening rapidly to my last shilling, and might possibly have been driven, by stress of weather, to propose, if she had not accepted the Duke of Middlesex, in despair; yet had she possessed a thousand pounds for every shilling, I am not certain that the most golden of her gold could have gilded her.——"