CHAPTER XI.
A LETTER.
Griselda was glad to escape to her own room that she might have time to think over her position and decide what was best to do, and what was the next step to take.
She laid aside her dress and hoop, and put on a long morning-gown which Lady Betty had discarded because the colour was unbecoming; and then, opening her desk, chose a very smooth sheet of Bath-post paper, and sat with her quill pen in her hand as if uncertain what to write.
But her face was by no means troubled and anxious; on the contrary, it was happy, almost radiant, in its expression.
Griselda had not had an experience of many lovers; indeed, the sweet story had never been told to her till Leslie Travers told it; and there was a charm for her in thinking that her heart had responded so fully to him and given him her first love.
Foolish protestations like Sir Maxwell Danby's had indeed been made to Griselda since her arrival at Bath, but a certain stately dignity had kept triflers at a distance, and it might be said of Griselda, that she
"Held a lily in her hand—
Gates of brass could not withstand
One touch of that enchanted wand."
It was the lily of pure unsullied womanly delicacy, which contact with the world of fashion in every town is too apt to touch, and even wither with its baleful breath.
It would not be fair to say that in the Bath assemblies this baleful influence was all-pervading. Then, as now, there were many who, by their own guilelessness and purity, repelled the approach of what was harmful in word or jest.