Mrs. Lyddell was pleased, and questioned her son about Mr. Faulkner's thousands a-year; then turning to Marian, said,
"Surely, Marian, you know him; I heard of your meeting him and Lady
Julia at Lady Marchmont's."
"Yes," said Marian, with her face of rigidity.
"Ah! yes, to be sure, he told me so," said Elliot.
"Any one but Marian would be impatient to know what he said of her," said Caroline.
"Do you want to know yourself, Caroline?" said Elliot; "shall I tell you?"
"Yes, do," said Caroline, in her curiosity, forgetting that Marian might be pained.
"Ah! you ought to be warned if you want to set your cap at him, for she has forestalled you. Let me see, what was it he said? O, that Lady Marchmont would scarcely be alone in her glory long, for, for such as liked the style of thing, her cousin was as perfect a piece of carving in white marble as he ever had seen."
White marble was certainly not the comparison for Marian's cheeks at that moment; it was pain and horror to her even to hear that she had been spoken of between Elliot and Mr. Faulkner, and to be told it in this manner, in public, was perfectly dreadful. She could neither sink under the table nor run away, so with crimson face and neck, she kept her post on the sofa, and every one saw she was intensely annoyed. Elliot, who had told it in a mischief-making spirit, fancying he should make his sister jealous, walked away, amusing himself with the notion that he had sown the dragon's teeth; Caroline was very sorry to have caused such painful blushes, yet was proud to hear of Marian's being admired; and Mrs. Lyddell said not a word, but worked on with a jerk at her thread, trying to persuade herself that she was not vexed that, as Elliot said, her daughter had been forestalled.
Marian did not recover herself sufficiently to say one word about Mr. Faulkner till she was in her own room, and then when Caroline came, to pity her for her blushes, and apologize for having occasioned them, she said, "O! how I wish he was not coming!"