The school he had chosen for his daughter was a religious and remarkably select academy; but there were plenty of spare minutes during the day, when the young ladies could tell each other who had looked at them at church, and who they could not help smiling at when they took their daily walk. While the girls were discussing the eyes and waistcoats of the young men they knew by sight, Saint Margaret, as she was called, would steal away to her books, and endeavour by study to drive from her head the trifling conversations that went on around her.
Still, histories like the one hinted at, possessed to her imagination a fearful interest. She regarded Love as a mysterious agency which swept into its vortex all those who suffered themselves to approach its enchanted confines. She imagined that the first steps to this delusion might be avoided; but that once entranced, the helpless victim followed the steps of the blind leader through danger, or neglect, or guilt, without the will or the power to shake off its deadly influence. She had much to learn and to unlearn.
"But what was that affair in Calabria? Not another entanglement, I hope," said Mr. Warde, content in seeing Margaret still at the window arranging her books.
"Oh! that was a harmless affair enough," said Mr. Grey; "if you mean that encounter with the brigands?"
"I heard something of brigands," said Mr. Warde, "and something about a lady and her daughter."
"Aye—aye! the lady and daughter had taken shelter in a hut, having received intelligence that there were brigands on the road. It was a lonely spot, and you may suppose that Haveloc and his servant, chancing to come up at the time, were pressed into their service. The brigands were as good as their word, and did come; but found the hut so well lined that they marched off again. Still, in the scramble, Haveloc was hurt by a shot from one of their carbines, which I dare say rendered him very interesting in the eyes of the ladies. I think he mentioned in one of his letters to me, that he fell in again with them at Sorrento; but I imagine that they were nothing more than a passing acquaintance. That was before his stay at Florence."
"Oh, yes! a very satisfactory version of the business," said Mr. Warde; "but I must now be going. I have a sick person to visit. Good bye, Miss Capel. I expect you to be wonderfully improved by the time I come again."
Margaret rose, bade the old gentleman good bye, and offered him her best thanks for his kind instructions.