“And Lady Eleanor?” said Miss Daly, as if suddenly desirous to change the theme: “Bagenal tells me her health has been but indifferent; how does she bear our less genial climate here?”
“She 's better than for many years past; I could even say she 's happier. Strange it is, Maria, but the course of prosperity, like the calms in the ocean, too frequently steep the faculties in an apathy that becomes weariness; but when the clouds are drifted along faster, and the waves rustle at the prow, the energies of life are again excited, and the very occasion of danger begets the courage to confront it. We cannot be happy when devoid of self-esteem, and there is but little opportunity to indulge this honest pride when the world goes fairly with us, without any effort of our own; reverses of fortune—”
“Oh, reverses of fortune!” interrupted Miss Daly, rapidly, “people think much more about them than they merit; it is the world itself makes them so difficult to bear; one can think and act as freely beneath the thatch of a cabin as the gilded roof of a palace. It is the mock sympathy, the affected condolence for your fallen estate, that tortures you; the never-ending recurrence to what you once were, contrasted with what you are; the cruelty of that friendship that is never content save when reminding you of a station lost forever, and seeking to unfit you for your humble path in the valley because your step was once proudly on the mountain-top.”
“I will not concede all this,” said the Knight, mildly; “my fall has been too recent not to remind me of many kindnesses.”
“I hate pity,” said Miss Daly; “it is like a recommendation to mercy after the sentence of an unjust judge. Now tell me of Lionel.”
“A fine, high-spirited soldier, as little affected by his loss as though it touched him not; and yet, poor boy! to all appearance a bright career was about to open before him,—well received by the world, honored by the personal notice of his Prince.”
“Ha! now I think of it, why did you not vote against the Minister?”
“It was on that evening,” said Darcy, sorrowfully,—“on that very evening—I heard of Gleeson's flight.”
“Well,”—then suddenly correcting herself, and restraining the question that almost trembled on her lip, she added, “And you were, doubtless, too much shocked to appear in the House?”
“I was ill,” said Darcy, faintly; “indeed, I believe I can say with truth, my own ruin preyed less upon my mind than the perfidy of one so long confided in.”