The Heroine

by Eaton Stannard Barrett

'It is, Sir.'

'After Mr. Higginson's accusation of you,' said Stuart, 'I feel myself called upon, as the friend of this lady's father, to insist on your apologizing for the designs which you have dared to harbour against her; and to demand an unequivocal renunciation of those views for the future.'

'You are an honest fellow,' said Betterton, 'and I respect your spirit. Most sincerely, most humbly, Miss Wilkinson, do I solicit your forgiveness; and I beg you will believe, that nothing but a misrepresentation of your real character and history tempted me to treat you with such undeserved insult. I now declare, that you have nothing further to fear from me.'

'But before I can feel perfectly satisfied,' said Stuart, 'I must stipulate for the discontinuance of your visits to Miss Wilkinson, as a proof that you have relinquished all improper projects against her.'

'I had formed that resolution before you spoke,' answered Betterton, 'though many a bitter pang it will cost me. Now then we are all friends. I may have my faults, but upon my soul, I am a man of honour;—I am, upon my soul. As for you, Mr. Stuart, without flattery, you have evinced more discretion and coolness, throughout this affair, than I have ever seen in so young a man. Sir, you are an honour to the human race, and I wish you would dine with me this evening at the Crown and Anchor. Some friends of us meet there to discuss a radical reform. Do, my dear fellow. We want nothing but men of respectability like you; for our sentiments "are the finest in the world."'

'You will excuse me,' said Stuart, 'though I am told that your wines are as fine and as foreign as your sentiments.'

'Well, adieu, good people,' said Betterton. 'Think of me with kindness. Faults I may have, but my heart——' (tapping at it with his forefinger), 'all is right here.'

After he had left us, I reprimanded Stuart so severely, for his officiousness in having interfered about Betterton, that he went away quite offended; and, I much fear, will never return. If he does not, he will use me basely, to leave me here in this unprotected state, after all his anxieties about me—anxieties too, which (I cannot tell why) have pleased me beyond expression. I confess, I feel a regard for the man, and should be sorry to have hurt his feelings seriously. Would Sir Charles Bingley have deserted me so, I ask? No. But Stuart has no notion of being a plain, useful, unsuccessful lover, like him. Well, I must say, I hate to see a man more ready to fall out with one, than to fall in love with one.

But Montmorenci—what shall I say of him? How can he possibly exculpate himself from his treacherous intrigue with the landlady? I confess I am predisposed to credit any feasible excuse which he can assign, rather than find myself deceived, outrivalled, and deprived of a lover, not alone dear to me, but indispensible to the progress of my memoirs.

Then, that closet-scene, from which I had a right to expect the true pathetic, what a bear-garden it became! In short, I feel at this moment disgusted with the world. I half wish I were at home again. Now too, that Stuart has reminded me of our early days, I cannot avoid sometimes picturing to myself the familiar fireside, the walks, frolics, occupations of our childhood; and well I remember how he used to humour my whims. Oh, these times are past, and now he opposes me in every thing.