George Gage paid Margaret the most devoted attentions whenever he wished to pique Harriet, and at other times consigned her to the care of Hubert, as if he had too much delicacy to interfere with his brother's pretensions. Fortunately, she found amusement in the society of both brothers, without allowing their courtesies to penetrate her heart.
CHAPTER XIII.
And she will die ere she make her love known; and
she will die if he woo her, rather than she will 'bate one
breath of her accustomed coyness.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
It was the last day of Margaret's stay. Harriet was also to leave Chirke Weston the next morning. She was standing with Margaret in one of the drawing-room windows after breakfast, making her promise over and over again that she would come and see her at her uncle Singleton's, when Lord Raymond drove up to the house in his dog-cart. He produced out of this vehicle the two pointers which Harriet had been anxious to see; and, on a signal from her hand, he brought them up to the window where she was standing.
As soon as she had done admiring and commenting upon these pointers, Lord Raymond delivered them to his groom to pack up in their box again, and joined Harriet in the drawing-room. Elizabeth looked up from her carpet-work, and received Lord Raymond with her usual graceful calmness; and George Gage who was writing at the other end of the room, rising from his letters, took a chair by the side of that distinguished nobleman, and engaged him in conversation; and as he did this with an air of extreme politeness, Margaret did not guess that his sole motive was to expose his rival's deficiency in that useful art.
But Lord Raymond never actually conversed, he only answered questions. So, when he had told Mr. Gage that John Baldwin was a connexion of his, but that it was Ferdinand Baldwin who married Miss Thoresby; that he believed her fortune had been greatly overrated; that Ferdinand was a first cousin of John's;—that certainly Miss Thoresby had been engaged to a Colonel Carpenter, who had thought himself very much ill-used when she broke off the engagement; that Henry Baldwin was a Roman Catholic, and that there were a great many of that name in Staffordshire, he had nothing more to say for himself; and rising to depart, he asked Harriet whether she had any message to send to her sister at Wardenscourt.
"Tell Lucy," said Harriet looking archly at Lord Raymond, "that I should be disposed to envy her if I were any where but at Chirke Weston."
As soon as Lord Raymond was gone, Mr. Gage stalked back to his writing, and Harriet, calling Margaret to her side, began a panegyric on his Lordship; vaunting his good principles, his kindness of heart, and above all his even temper.