“She will get no farther this time, sir, if you annihilate her with your pleasantry,” said Betty, fully convinced by this time.
“Ah! young Love has made himself more dazzling than ever,” continued the Major, too delighted to be stopped. “The fullest dress uniform, I declare; M. le Capitaine is bent on doing honour to the occasion.”
“Would that it were on for no other reason, sir,” said Sir Amyas; “but the King and Queen have taken it into their heads to go off to Kew and here am I under orders to command the escort. I verily believe it is all spite on the Colonel’s part, for Russell would have exchanged the turn with me, but he sent down special orders for me. I have but half an hour to spend here, and when I shall be able to get back again Heaven only knows.”
However, he and Aurelia were permitted to improve that half hour to the utmost in their own way, while the Major and Betty were reading a long and characteristic letter from Mrs. Arden, inquiring certainly for her sister’s fate, but showing far more solicitude in proving that she (Harriet Arden) had acted a wise, prudent, and sisterly part, and that it was most unreasonable and cruel to treat her as accountable for her sister’s disappearance. It was really making her quite ill, and Mr. Arden was like a man—so disagreeable about it.
Betty was very glad this epistle had not come till it was possible to laugh at it. She would have sat down to reply to it at once, had not a billet been brought in from the widow of one of her father’s old brother officers who had heard of his being in town, and begged him to bring his daughter to see her, excusing herself for not waiting on Miss Delavie, as she was very feeble and infirm.
It was a request that could not be refused, but Aurelia was not equipped for such a visit, and shrank timidly from showing herself. So when Mr. Belamour came down it was agreed that she should remain at home under his protection, in which she could be very happy, though his person was as strange to her as his voice was familiar. Indeed she felt as if a burden was on her mind till she could tell him of her shame at having failed in the trust and silence that he had enjoined on her.
“My child,” he said, “we have carried it too far. It was more than we ought to have required of you, and I knew it. I had made up my mind, and told my nephew that the first time you really asked I should tell the whole truth, and trust to your discretion, while of course he wished for nothing more.”
“As my sister said, it was my fault.”
“Nay, I think you had good cause to stand on your defence, and I cannot have you grieve over it. You have shown an unshaken steadiness under trial since, such as ought indeed to be compensation.”
“I deserved it all,” said Aurelia; “and I do hope that I am a little wiser and less foolish for it all; a little more of a woman,” she added, blushing.