The Miss Crawleys, now, running to the little boy, called out, 'The Loddard! the Loddard! 'tis the Loddard has set up the new costume!'
Mrs Ireton, though affecting to laugh, had now done with the subject; and, while she was taking a pinch of snuff, to gain time to suggest some other, Sir Jaspar Herrington, advancing to Juliet, said, 'Has this young lady no place?' and, gallantly taking her hand, he led her to his own chair, and walked to another part of the room.
A civility such as this from Sir Jaspar, made all the elders of the company stare, and all the younger titter; but the person the most surprized was Mrs Ireton, who hastily called out, 'Miss Ellis would not do such a thing! Take Sir Jaspar's own seat! That has his own particular cushions! She could not do such a thing! I should think not, at least! I may judge ill, but I should think not. A seat prepared for Sir Jaspar by my own order! Miss Ellis can dispense with having an easy chair, and three cushions, I should presume! I may be wrong, to be sure, but I should presume so!'
'Madam,' answered Sir Jaspar, 'in days of old, I never could bear to sit, when I saw a lady standing; and though those days are past, alas! and gone,—still I cannot, even to escape a twitch of the gout, see a fair female neglected, without feeling a twitch of another kind, that gives me yet greater pain.'
'Your politeness, Sir Jaspar,' replied Mrs Ireton, 'we all know; and, if it were for one of my guests,—but Miss Ellis can hardly desire, I should suppose, to see you drop down with fatigue, while she is reposing upon your arm-chair. Not that I pretend to know her way of thinking! I don't mean that. I don't mean to have it imagined I have the honour of her confidence; but I should rather suppose she could not insist upon turning you out of your seat, only to give you a paroxysm of the gout.'
However internally moved, Juliet endured this harangue in total silence; convinced that where all authority is on the side of the aggressor, resistance only provokes added triumph. Her looks, therefore, though they shewed her to be hurt and offended, evinced a dignified forbearance, superiour to the useless reproach, and vain retaliation, of unequal contention.
She rose, nevertheless, from the seat which she had only momentarily, and from surprise occupied, and would have quitted the room, but that she saw she should again be publicly called back; and hers was not a situation for braving open enmity. She thankfully, however, accepted a chair which was brought to her by Sir Marmaduke Crawley, and placed next to that which had been vacated by the old Baronet; who then returned to his own.
She now hoped to find some support from his countenance; as his powerful situation in the house, joined to his age, would make his smallest attention prove to her a kind of protection. Her expectation, however, was disappointed: he did not address to her a word; or appear to have ever beheld her before; and his late act of politeness seemed exerted for a perfect stranger, from habitual good breeding.
And is it you, thought the pensive Juliet, who, but a few minutes since, spoke to me with such flattery, such preference? with an even impassioned regard? And shall this so little assembly guide and awe you? There, where I wished upon me your compliments;—while here, where a smile would be encouragement, where notice would be charity, you affect to have forgotten, or appear never to have seen me! Ah! mentally continued the silent moralist, if we reflected upon the difficulty of gaining esteem; upon the chances against exciting affection; upon the union of time and circumstance necessary for obtaining sincere regard; we should require courage to withhold, not to follow, the movement of kindness, that, where distress sighs for succour, where helplessness solicits support, gives power to the smallest exertion, to a single word, to a passing smile,—to bestow a favour, and to do a service, that catch, in the brief space of a little moment, a gratitude that never dies!
But, while thus to be situated, was pain and dejection to Juliet, to see her seated, however unnoticed, in the midst of this society, was almost equally irksome to Mrs Ireton; who, after some vain internal fretting, ordered the butler to carry about refreshments; consoled with the certainty, that he would as little dare present any to Juliet, as omit to present them to every one else.