Her friendship for Mrs. Stafford was enlivened by the warmest gratitude. To her she owed the acquisition of much useful knowledge, as well as instruction in those elegant accomplishments to which she was naturally so much attached, but which she had no former opportunity of acquiring. The charms of her conversation, the purity of her heart, and the softness of her temper, made her altogether a character which could not be known without being beloved; and Emmeline, whose heart was open to all the enchanting impressions of early friendship, loved her with the truest affection. The little she had seen of Augusta Delamere, had given that young lady the second place in her heart. They were of the same age, within a few weeks. Augusta Delamere extremely resembled the Mowbray family: and there was, in figure and voice, a very striking similitude between her and Emmeline Mowbray.
Lady Montreville, passionately attached to her son, as the heir and representative of her family, and partial to her eldest daughter for her great resemblance to herself, seemed on them to have exhausted all her maternal tenderness, and to have felt for Augusta but a very inferior share of affection.
Of the haughty and supercilious manners which made Lady Montreville feared and disliked, she had communicated no portion to her younger daughter; and if she had acquired something of the family pride, her good sense, and the sweetness of her temper, had so much corrected it, that it was by no means displeasing.
Elegantly formed as she was, and with a face, which, tho' less fair than that of Emmeline was almost as interesting, her mother had yet always expressed a disapprobation of her person; and she had therefore herself conceived an indifferent opinion of it; and being taught to consider herself inferior in every thing to her elder sister, she never fancied she was superior to others; nor, though highly accomplished, and particularly skilled in music, did she ever obtrude her acquisitions on her friends, or anxiously seek opportunities of displaying them.
Her heart was benevolent and tender; and her affection for her brother, the first of it's passions. She could never discover that he had a fault; and the error in regard to Emmeline, which his father so much dreaded, appeared to his sister a virtue.
She was deeply read in novels, (almost the only reading that young women of fashion are taught to engage in;) and having from them acquired many of her ideas, she imagined that Delamere and Emmeline were born for each other; though she dared not appear to encourage hopes so totally opposite to those of her family, she found, after she had once seen and conversed with Emmeline, that she never could warmly oppose an union which she was convinced would make her brother happy.
She fancied that Emmeline could not be insensible to Delamere's love; she even believed she saw many symptoms of regard for him in her manner, and that she made the most heroic sacrifice of her love to her duty, when she resigned him: a sacrifice which heightened, almost to enthusiasm, the pity and esteem felt for her by Augusta Delamere; and though they had known each other only a few days, a sisterly affection had taken place between them.
But from these two friends, so tenderly and justly beloved, Emmeline was now to depart, and to be thrown among strangers, where it was improbable she would meet with any who would supply the loss of them. Her duty however demanded this painful effort; and she determined to execute it with courage and resolution.
Delamere was so perpetually about his father, that it was judged improper for him to hold any private conference with Emmeline, lest something should be suspected.