“O no, Sir,” cried she, with pretended innocence, “nobody, I am sure, ever saw you with such a thought.” Then, turning to Cecilia, she added in a whisper, “You cannot imagine, my dear Mrs Mortimer, how I detest this old cousin of mine! Now pray tell me honestly if you don't hate him yourself?”
“I hope,” said Cecilia, “to have no reason.”
“Lord, how you are always upon your guard! If I were half as cautious, I should die of the vapours in a month; the only thing that keeps me at all alive, is now and then making people angry; for the folks at our house let me go out so seldom, and then send me with such stupid old chaperons, that giving them a little torment is really the only entertainment I can procure myself. O—but I had almost forgot to tell you a most delightful thing!”
“What is it?”
“Why you must know I have the greatest hopes in the world that my father will quarrel with old Mr Delvile!”
“And is that such a delightful thing!”
“O yes; I have lived upon the very idea this fortnight; for then, you know, they'll both be in a passion, and I shall see which of them looks frightfullest.”
“When Lady Honoria whispers,” cried Mortimer, “I always suspect some mischief.”
“No indeed,” answered her ladyship, “I was merely congratulating Mrs Mortimer about her marriage. Though really, upon second thoughts, I don't know whether I should not rather condole with her, for I have long been convinced she has a prodigious antipathy to you. I saw it the whole time I was at Delvile Castle, where she used to change colour at the very sound of your name; a symptom I never perceived when I talked to her of my Lord Derford, who would certainly have made her a thousand times a better husband.”
“If you mean on account of his title, Lady Honoria,” said Mr Delvile; “your ladyship must be strangely forgetful of the connections of your family, not to remember that Mortimer, after the death of his uncle and myself, must inevitably inherit one far more honourable than a new-sprung-up family, like my Lord Ernolf's, could offer.”