'What say your letters from England, my fairest cousin?' said he, advancing and trying to shake off his chagrin.
'Will you do me the honour to peruse them, my Lord?' said she, half smiling.—'They will not take you up much time.'
He read them. 'It is a settled thing then I find. Lady Westhaven, your's are, I presume, from Berkley-Square?'
'They are,' answered she.—'Never,' and she took out her handkerchief—'never have I received any less welcome!'
She gave one from Lady Frances Crofts to his Lordship, in which, with many details of her own affairs, was this sentence—
'Before this, you have heard from my father or my mother that Lord Delamere has entirely recovered the use of his reason, and accepts of Miss Otley with her immense fortune. This change was brought about suddenly. It was settled in Norfolk, immediately after Lord Delamere's return from Ireland. I congratulate you and Lord W. on an event which I conclude must to both of you be pleasing. I have seen none of the family for near three weeks, as they are gone back into Norfolk; only my brother called for a moment, and seemed to be greatly hurried; by which, as well as from other circumstances, I conclude that preparations are making for the wedding immediately.'
May 18.
Lady Westhaven, who saw all hopes of being allied to the friend of her heart for ever at an end—who believed that she had always cherished an affection for her brother, and who supposed that in consequence of his desertion she was left in mortifying dependance on Lord Montreville, was infinitely hurt at this information. The letter from her father to Emmeline confirmed all her apprehensions. There was a freezing civility in the style, which gave no hopes of his alleviating by generosity and kindness the pain which her Ladyship concluded Emmeline must feel; while Lord Westhaven, knowing that to her whom he thus insulted with the distant offer of fifty or an hundred pounds, he really was accountable for the income of an estate of four thousand five hundred a year, for near nineteen years, and that he still withheld that estate from her, could hardly contain his indignation even before his wife; whom he loved too well not to wish to conceal from her the ill opinion he could not help conceiving of her father.
Emmeline, who was far from feeling that degree of pain which Lady Westhaven concluded must penetrate her heart, was yet unwilling to shew that she actually received with pleasure (tho' somewhat allayed by Lord Montreville's coldness) an emancipation from her engagement. Of her partiality to Godolphin, her friend had no idea; for Emmeline, too conscious of it to be able to converse about him without fearing to betray herself, had studiously avoided talking of him after their first meeting; and she now imagined that Lady Westhaven, passionately fond of her brother as she was, would think her indifference affected thro' pique; and carried too far, if she did not receive the intelligence of their eternal separation with some degree of concern. These thoughts gave her an air of vexation and embarrassment which would have saved her the trouble of dissimulation had she been an adept in it's practice. Extremely harrassed and out of spirits before, tears now, in spite of her internal satisfaction, and perhaps partly arising from it, filled her eyes; while Lady Westhaven, who was greatly more hurt, exclaimed—
'My brother then marries Miss Otley! After all I have heard him say, I thought it impossible!'
'He will however, I doubt not, be happy,' answered Emmeline. 'The satisfaction of having made Lord and Lady Montreville completely happy, must greatly contribute to his being so himself.'