Miss Grenville had, however, taken no vow against matrimony. It was merely that she could not bear the idea of so sudden a finality. Even now she refused to picture herself sitting down, as she put it, to count over forks and spoons. Indeed, having returned but two days ago from a visit to a newly married friend, whose chief occupations, so it seemed to her guest, were quoting "what Henry says," and trying to out-do other young married women of her acquaintance in dress, she was still full of an almost passionate wonder that people could shut down their lives to that kind of thing. Yet, deep in her heart, perhaps she realised—perhaps she did not—that in six or seven years' time, when the fatuities of the recently-wed had dropped away from Henry and Emilia, when there were children round them, they would have full lives, whereas she...
But Horatia greatly desired her life to be full. She wanted to express herself somehow. Sitting there by the sunflowers and the phloxes, she thought of the many women of the day who had succeeded in doing this. She thought of Mrs. Somerville, of Miss Mitford, of Hannah More and of Mrs. Fry; of Joanna Baillie and Miss Edgeworth; of Miss Jane Porter, whose Scottish Chiefs had delighted her childhood; and of Lady Morgan. Most of these celebrated women were unmarried. And she considered also the women of the past: Joan of Arc, St. Catherine of Siena, Madame de Rambouillet, Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu.
It was not that Horatia Grenville wished definitely either to lead a nation to battle or to write plays, to be an astronomical genius, or to sway the councils of princes. She wanted to do something, but knew not what that something was. This afternoon she was more conscious than usual both of her desire and of its vagueness. It occurred to her that she was rather like the sleepy wasp who, having painfully climbed up the skirt of her gown and attained the open page of the Republic, was now starting discontentedly to crawl down again.
"Really, I am getting morbid!" thought Miss Grenville; "and here is Papa!"
The Honourable and Reverend Stephen Grenville, Rector of Compton Regis, was seen indeed to issue at that moment from the long window of the drawing-room and to approach her over the grass, comfortable, benignant, and of aristocratic appearance. He held a half-written letter in one hand, and a quill pen in the other; his spectacles were pushed down his nose. His daughter jumped up.
"Do you want me, Papa?"
"My dear, only for this," replied Mr. Grenville, holding up the letter. "I am writing to your Aunt Julia, and you must really make up your mind whether you will pay her a visit this autumn. In her last letter she mentions the matter again."
Horatia looked up at her parent. "Papa," she answered gravely, "I don't like staying with people who disapprove of me." A sudden little smile came about the corners of her mouth. "I shouldn't stay with you if you didn't appreciate me, you know!"
The twinkle which was never far from the Rector's eyes came into them at this pronouncement. "Of that I have no doubt, my child," he said. "But it is a mercy that your aunt cannot hear your filial sentiments."
Horatia caught at his arm. "Sit down, dearest Papa," she said half imperiously, half coaxingly, "and let us discuss the visit to Aunt Julia."