"Dear, dear!" said Mrs. Vincent; "leg-of-mutton ménage and batter-pudding, perhaps; no soup or fish. Dear, dear! what unwholesome things these love-marriages are!"
"But nobody said that it is a love match," said Miss Townshend. "Perhaps the lady is an heiress, whom Mr. Churchill has captivated by his talent."
"Yes," growled Sir Marmaduke, with a sardonic grin; "an heiress who has been struck with his articles on the Reformatory question, or has become completely dazzled by the lucidity of his views on the Maynooth Grant. A leader-writer in a daily newspaper is just the romantic youth that heiresses fall in love with."
"Now do be quiet, Sir Marmaduke, with your horrid sarcasm, and let us hear what the lady is like. Do tell us, Mr. Beresford," said Miss Townshend.
"Oh, I have no idea of her personal appearance," replied Beresford. "Every body says she's very nice, and that the marriage is coming off at once--that's all I know."
"Your curiosity will soon be gratified, with a very little trouble," interrupted Lyster. "You can ask Mr. Churchill himself--he's coming back to-morrow."
"Coming back!" exclaimed Beresford.
"Yes, to-morrow," replied Lyster, and added, between his teeth, "your little plot will soon be spoilt, my boy."
Shortly afterwards, when the ladies left the table, Barbara did not accompany the rest, but went straight to her own room. There she seated herself at the open window, which looked out upon the lawn and upon the high downs beyond, over which the yellow-faced moon was rising in solemn beauty. And Barbara nestled into the great easy-chair, which she had pulled forward, and rested her chin on her hand, and looked upon the grand picture of varied light and shade with eyes that saw nothing of the beauty, and with a heart that comprehended it not. Down in the hollow lay a little farm, gray and cold and stony, as are such buildings in Sussex, and containing at that time a sleeping, snoring family; for the farmer, a thrifty man, had to be up betimes, and candlelight might as well be spared, and hard-working folk must rest. He did not think much about the moon, this Sussex farmer, nor did his hinds, two of whom were then snoring in the red-tiled barn just on the shoulder of you hill; but the glorious lamp of night was as much in their thoughts as she was in those of Barbara Lexden, who had copied out "The moon is up, by Heaven! a lovely eve," from Childe Harold, and knew Alfred de Musset's wild lines on the same subject by heart, and had gone in for the romantic business about it, and done some very effective bits of flirtation, in which the goddess Luna was made good use of. But the moon was nothing now to Barbara, whose mind was full of a far more worldly object, and whose foot was tapping impatiently on the floor. Going to be married? Then it was all accounted for--that letter with the feminine griffe, which he had pocketed immediately and read apart, and his hurried departure for town. Going to be married! What business had he, then, to come down there, and talk and act as though no engagement fettered him--to talk, indeed, as though no notion of matrimony had ever crossed his mind? Could he--? No; that was impossible. He could not have been playing with her--making a fool of her? What was that he had said about difference of class in marriage? Ay, that settled the question; the fiancée was probably some dowdy woman, who could make a pie, and mend his clothes, and keep their maid-of-all-work in order. Well, the man was nothing to her--but she hoped he might be happy. It was getting very dull at Bissett, and she should suggest their departure to her aunt. They had invitations for several nice houses; and General Mainwaring's was not far off, and Boyce Combe was there, and Harvey Grenville; so that she should be sure of plenty of fun. She had not seen Boyce Combe since the last Woolwich ball, and then he had been so horribly absurd, and had talked such ridiculous nonsense. He was so amusing, Major Combe; and--and then Major Combe's handsome, vacuous, simpering countenance, which for a moment had risen in Barbara's mind, faded again, and in its place there came a genial, clever, sensible face, with merry eyes and laughing mouth, and Major Combe's "ridiculous nonsense" seemed wretched balderdash as contrasted with Frank Churchill's pleasant talk.
A knock at the door, following which promptly little Miss Townshend glides into the room. A nice little girl, as I have remarked; a charming little being, bright and winning, but not the sort of person for a companion when one is in that state so well described as "out of sorts." Who, I wonder, is pleasant company for us in a real or fancied trouble? Certainly not the enthusiastic gusher who flings his or herself upon our necks, and insists upon sharing our sorrow,--which is a thorough impossibility. Certainly not the pseudo-moralist who tells us that all is for the best, and quotes Scripture, and suggests that, though we have had to retire from Palace Gardens and live in Bedford Row, there are many outcasts then sleeping on the steps of Whitechapel Church; and that, though our darling's life may be trembling in the balance, there are fever-courts and pestilence-alleys, in no house of which "there is not one dead." Certainly not the lively friend who thinks that "rallying" is the best course for binding the broken heart and setting at rest the perturbed spirit, and who accordingly indulges in one perpetual effervescence of mild sarcasm and feeble teasing. Miss Townshend belonged to this latter class; and entered the room with a little skip and a long slide, which brought her to Barbara's side.