“All right!” cried Norwood, gayly, as he arose and adjusted the curls beneath his hat. “My compliments to the old gent, and tell George not to make himself uneasy. He 's in safe hands. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye, my Lord, good-bye,” said Grounsell, who, as he looked after him, felt, as it were, unconsciously recurring to all his former prejudices and dislikes of the noble Viscount “Those fellows,” muttered he, “are as inexplicable to me as a new malady, of which I neither know the stages nor the symptoms. The signs I take for those of health may be precisely the indications of corruption; and what I deem unsound may turn out to be exactly the opposite.” And so be fell into a musing fit, in which certainly his estimate of Lord Norwood continued steadily to fall lower and lower the longer he thought of him. “He must be a rogue!—he must be a scoundrel! Nature makes all its blackguards plausible, just as poison-berries are always brilliant to look at They are both intended to be the correctives of rash impressions, and I was only a fool ever to be deceived by him. Out of this, at all hazards,—that's the first thing!” muttered Grounsell to himself, as he walked hastily up and down the room. “The place is like a plague district, and we must not carry an infected rag away from it! Glorious Italy, forsooth! There's more true enlightenment, there's a higher purpose, and a nobler view of life in the humblest English village, than in the proudest halls of their Eternal City!”
In such pleasant reflections on national character he entered Sir Stafford's room, and found his friend seated at a table covered with newly arrived letters; the seals were all unbroken, and the sick man was turning them over, and gazing at the different handwritings with a sad and listless apathy.
“I 'm glad you 've come, Grounsell. I have not courage for this,” said he, pointing to the mass of letters before him.
“Begging impostors, one half of them, I 'll be sworn!” said Grounsell, seating himself to the work. “Was I not right? Here's a Cabinet Minister suing for your vote on an Irish question, and entreating your speedy return to England, 'where, he trusts, the object you are both interested in may be satisfactorily arranged.' Evasive rascal! Could n't he say, 'you shall have the Peerage for your support'? Would n't it be more frank and more intelligible to declare, 'We take you at your price'? These,” said he, throwing half a dozen contemptuously from him, “are all from your constituents. The 'independent borough' contains seventy electors; and if you owned the patronage of the two services, with a fair share of the public offices and India, you could n't content them. I 'd tell them fairly, 'I have bought you already; the article is paid for and sent home. Let us hear no more about it!' This is more cheering. Shoenhals, of Riga, stands firm, and the Rotterdam house will weather the gale. That's good news, Onslow!” said he, grasping the old man's hand. “This is from Calcutta. Prospects are brightening a little in that quarter, too. Come, come,—there's some blue in the sky. Who knows what good weather 's in store for us?”
Onslow's lip trembled, and he passed his hand over his eyes without speaking.
“This is from Como,” said Grounsell, half angrily, tossing away a highly perfumed little three-cornered note.
“Give it to me,——let me see it,” said Onslow, eagerly; while with trembling fingers he adjusted his spectacles to read. Grounsell handed him the epistle, and walked to the window.
“She's quite well,” read Sir Stafford, aloud; “they had delightful weather on the road, and found Como in full beauty on their arrival.” Grounsell grumbled some angry mutterings between his teeth, and shrugged up his shoulders disdainfully. “She inquires most kindly after me, and wishes me to join them there, for Kate Dalton's betrothal.”
“Yet she never took the trouble to visit you when living under the same roof!” cried Grounsell, indignantly.