"Yet I often wished myself at the farm again, or at Rosewood, where I had nobody I desired to deceive, and scarcely knew what deceit was; but it was not required there, while here it was in daily requisition: for I had always some fault of my schoolfellows, if not of my own, to hide; and though from them I learnt to laugh at my aunt's finical ways, as they used to call them, I was obliged to put on all the courtesy and feigned politeness my governess taught me, whenever she came to see me.
"My father could never be brought to visit me in London, for he said he hated the smoke of it, and would by no means put himself in sight of a ladies' boarding-school, who would laugh at the manners of a fox-hunter, and teach his daughter to despise him. But when in the summer vacations I accompanied my aunt into Leicestershire, he would visit us for a day or two, and was evidently pleased when my aunt told him I was wonderfully improved, and knew as much as any young lady of my age. 'Well, well, I am no judge,' said he, 'but I hope she will make a good woman, and not disgrace her mother's memory. Ah! she was a woman, Lady Meridith, which is not to be met with in these days.'
"'But have you forgot your old friends, the Campbells?' said he to me.
"'No, indeed, papa,' I replied, their kindness rushing on my mind, 'and I hope I never shall;' and my inquiries were renewed after them and their family, without dissimulation.
"He told me that your father and mother were grown very old, and that you and Edward were nice boys, with every promise of making as good men as your father was. From my pocket allowance I was enabled to send my good old nurse some token of my remembrance, as my father said he would not wish me to forget either her or her children.
"'They will be her tenants by and bye,' said he to my aunt, 'and then what sort of figure will she make if she has forgotten them?'
"I was then about eleven years old, and I remained at this school till I was fifteen. My father died, as you know, very suddenly, and I was not apprized of his illness till he was no longer in this world. I was then thirteen, and was at first very much hurt, as his strong attachment to me, though singularly expressed, had never suffered him to see a fault in any thing I said or did; and I was sure to meet with indulgence from him, whenever I needed it. He appeared to have been doubly kind to me after I had lost him, but the new mourning I now appeared in, and the increased consequence I gained in the school, and with my aunt, on being the heiress of Rosewood and Coombdale, both my father's estates, made me soon forget it; and in two years afterwards I left the school highly accomplished, as my aunt's flattering friends told her (in my hearing), both in mind and person; and my vanity led me to think they told her true, though from the many lessons I had taken of dissimulation, I ought to have known the value of their commendations.
"I was now to be introduced to the world, but who was to introduce me was the question. My aunt was too old, and devoted to the card-table and her little coterie, to attend me to balls, routs, and dinner parties. Sir Robert had now given up even the appearance of civility to his wife, and lived in a distant county with another woman: but there was the widow of a brother of Sir Robert's, whom I had occasionally visited with my aunt, whose circle of acquaintance was much larger, and very different from hers. My aunt went round to about a dozen houses, while Mrs. Meridith visited all who lived at the west end of the town, and was intimate with but a very few: to her therefore I was consigned to see the world, which, in the meaning they attach to it, is to dance at several balls, dine at different houses, yet mostly meet the same company; and be able to speak of the merits and demerits of the principal performers at both theatres, and at the opera house; yet in this I was to be careful not to deviate from the general opinion, lest I should be called singular, and positively to know nothing. A few noblemen's ladies, or their titled daughters, might venture to differ in their likes and dislikes; but such an avowal would not do for me, who was only a commoner."
Mr. Campbell smiled at these distinctions, and began to hope the recital of their friend would not cost her all the anguish he had apprehended, since she could so cheerfully speak of her introduction to them.