Before you be on with the new."
CHAPTER IX.
Among the companions of Agnes and Marion Dunbar, none was more calculated to excite a feeling of enthusiastic tenderness and regard than Clara Granville, whom all approached with a feeling of nearly romantic interest, occasioned by the etherealized delicacy of her lovely countenance and fragile form. Sir Patrick, from her earliest childhood, had always mentioned Clara in terms of such exaggerated enthusiasm, that Agnes, imagining his taste to be very different, believed him to be more than half in jest, though his language and manner seemed daily to become more in earnest, while in terms of rapture he admired her eloquent and intelligent conversation, so different from the flippant nonsense of most girls, and the light gracefulness of her step, saying she looked like some beautiful apparition, less encumbered with body, and more endowed with spirit, than any one who ever before stepped upon the earth. Her pale golden hair, falling like a halo round her fair bright countenance, and the rare beauty of her large downcast eyes, which were generally veiled with a look of deep thought and sensibility, gave a charm so peculiar to her aspect, that the eye loved to dwell upon it as upon some lovely twilight scene, over which the light of heaven was casting its pure and peaceful, yet fading refulgence. None looked at Clara without fearing that she could not be long intended for this world, as the fervor of her mind and feelings appeared so little in proportion to the extreme delicacy of her complexion, which was tinted like a rose-leaf on her transparent cheek, the color flitting with every passing emotion. It did indeed seem as if the sword within must quickly wear out the scabbard; yet Clara enjoyed society beyond measure, and mingled in it with a zest which caused Sir Patrick often to say she must be stronger certainly than she looked, and there was nothing, he thought, more odious in a woman than rude health—a sort of rudeness never certainly attributable to Miss Granville.
Agnes's favorite aversion had always been Clara, formerly her cotemporary and rival at school, though the rivalship was only felt on one side, as Miss Granville would have remained unconscious of its very existence, but for the bitter taunts occasionally levelled at her, and the tone of evident irritability in which Agnes took it always for granted that the jealousy was mutual, attributing thoughts and motives perpetually to her gentle companion, of which so amiable and well-regulated a disposition was incapable. It may generally be observed, that many more quarrels arise from people wilfully taking offence, than from people wilfully giving it; and there is quite as much ill-temper in the one case as in the other. Clara had suffered much on account of her every inadvertent word or action being purposely misconstrued; but she very properly viewed the annoyance as a salutary lesson in circumspection, before entering the great arena of society, and mildly avoided all collision of interests or opinions with Agnes, though her whole powers of conciliation on the part of Sir Patrick gave his sister reason to apprehend that his affections might by possibility be engaged to her. Nothing could be more painfully irritating than the tone of contempt with which Agnes "spoke at" Clara respecting the art and cunning with which some manœuvring misses endeavored to push their fortune in the matrimonial world, by making advances to gentlemen, which she would despise herself for condescending to, and that lookers on see more of the game than is intended. All this was said in such an accidental tone, and in such general terms, that no decided notice could be taken of it by Clara, who nevertheless felt so painful a consciousness of what was meant and insinuated, that she ceased almost entirely to visit Agnes, or to associate with her.
About the time when Mrs. Smythe left Portobello, Sir Patrick returned from spending a month at Lady Towercliffe's in Fife, evidently laboring under a depression of spirits very unusual with him; and when Agnes, perplexed by observing that he did not attempt to throw off the cloud of melancholy, tinged very strongly with ill-humor, which had so suddenly come over him, tried to guess or discover the cause, she found it for some time impossible to gain a glimpse of the truth, though she asked as many questions as might have filled a volume of Pinnock's Catechisms.
At length, after some miscellaneous conversation one day, Agnes inquired for the twentieth time whether the party in Fife had been agreeable, when Sir Patrick shortly and drily replied,
"Clara Granville was there!"
"But had you any new beauties?"
"Clara Granville!"
"Pshaw! Well, then! were there any agreeable people?"