[41] How lively and agreeable she is—how much she has the air of a woman of fashion and of the world.
[42] Not so handsome, perhaps—but there is a something—in short, I think her charming.
[43] I shall come again to-morrow to offer my homage. Adieu! fair, cruel nymph! I place my glory in wearing your chains.
[CHAPTER XI]
Emmeline seemed to be happier since she had confessed to Godolphin his influence over her mind, and since she had made him in some measure the director of her actions. She hoped that she might conceal her partiality 'till she had nothing to fear from Delamere; at present she was sure he had no suspicion that Godolphin was his rival; and she flattered herself, that on his return to England, the conviction of her coldness would by degrees wean him from his attachment, and that he would learn to consider her only as his sister.
These pleasing hopes, however, were insufficient to balance the concern she felt for Mrs. Stafford; who having long struggled against her calamities, now seemed on the point of sinking under their pressure, and of determining to attend, in despondent resignation, the end of her unmerited sufferings.
Emmeline attempted to re-animate her, by repeating all the promises of Lord Westhaven, on whose word she had the most perfect reliance. She assured her, that the moment her own affairs were settled, her first care should be the re-establishment of those of her beloved friend. For some time the oppressed spirits of Mrs. Stafford would only allow her to answer with her tears these generous assurances. At length she said—
'It is to you, my Emmeline, I could perhaps learn to be indebted without being humbled; for you have an heart which receives while it confers an obligation. But think what it is for one, born with a right to affluence and educated in its expectation, with feelings keen from nature, and made yet keener by refinement, to be compelled, as I have been, to solicit favours, pecuniary favours, from persons who have no feeling at all—from the shifting, paltry-spirited James Crofts, forbearance from the claim of debts; from the callous-hearted and selfish politician, his father, pity and assistance; from Rochely, who has no ideas but of getting or saving money, to ask the loan of it! and to bear with humility a rude refusal. I have endured the brutal unkindness of hardened avarice, the dirty chicane of law, exercised by the most contemptible of beings; I have been forced to attempt softening the tradesman and the mechanic, and to suffer every degree of humiliation which the insolence of sudden prosperity or the insensible coolness of the determined money dealer, could inflict. Actual poverty, I think, I could have better borne;
'I should have found, in some place of my soul,
A drop of patience!'