"Now I could understand that, Dr. Wilton," said the young fox-hunter, "if you ever mounted a red coat and followed the hounds. But you never hunt nor shoot; and, unless your magisterial capacity afford you some amusement, I cannot conceive how you can like the country, which, without hunting or shooting, is dull enough."
"Never dull to me!" replied Dr. Wilton; "never dull, and always tranquil; and in it shall I be well contented to pass my life away, saying with Seneca,
'Sic cum transiêrint mei
Nullo cum strepitu dies
Plebeius moriar senex!'"
A Latin quotation was of course enough to put an end to the session, and the whole party rose.
It would seem that the purpose of assembling to dine together, the mere act and fact of which assimilates one to the hog--as somebody has said before me--is solely with a view to familiarize people with each other by the open submission to a general infirmity--teaching the most conceited that he must gulp and guzzle like the rest, and showing the most diffident that the brightest and the best he can meet with, is but a beast of prey like himself. Men therefore assemble at dinner, and then generalize best. After dinner--when the tea and the coffee, and the various tables laid out with their various calls upon attention, prompt people to break into smaller parties--then is the time to choose your own little knot, and individualize.
It matters very little how or why--though the arrangement was made by the simplest process imaginable--but after dinner, Henry Burrel found himself seated, in the far part of the room, with a sofa-table, and innumerable books of drawings and prints upon it before him, and by the side of Blanche Delaware. It is wonderful what stepping-stones prints and drawings and annuals are to pleasant conversation, even though the first be not quite so well handled as the pictures of Prout or Stanley, and the latter contain nothing half so beautiful as Liddell's "Lines upon the Moors."
Burrel had managed his approaches well, though he did it unconsciously. He first stooped over the book of drawings that Miss Delaware was examining, to look at one of those fair Italian scenes where the long sunshine seems to stream forth from a spot beyond the picture, and pour onward, till one can absolutely see its wavy softness skip from point to point in its advance. He then spoke a few words, in a quiet everyday tone, upon Italian scenery. Miss Delaware said, that she had never had an opportunity of visiting Italy, but had often heard her brother speak of it, with all his own wild rapture. Burrel instantly took up the topic of her brother, well knowing that it was one, round which that tender-footed thing, a woman's heart, could play at ease; and while he spoke of Captain Delaware, he glided quietly into the vacant place by her side, and proceeded with a conversation which was destined to wander far and wide before it ended.
There was a kindly gentleness in Burrel's tone as he began, a sort of dreamy enthusiasm, slightly touched by a more gay and laughing spirit as he went on, together with a general leaven of the gentlemanly feeling that springs from a noble heart, softening and tempering the whole,--which united, addressed to Miss Delaware the most flattering compliment that woman can receive, by showing that he knew her to be worthy of very different conversation from that which he held with any one else. Such conversation is the adulation of respect, esteem, and admiration, expressed but not spoken.
Burrel's words were uttered with no particular emphasis--his eyes, fine and expressive as they were, gave no peculiar meaning to his sentences--the vainest beauty that ever grew old and ugly, could never have persuaded herself that he was making love to her--and yet Blanche Delaware could not but feel that there was a charm in the manners of Henry Burrel, which might turn the head of many a one, with a heart less cold and indifferent than her own. A cold and indifferent heart in a girl of nineteen! Ye gods! Such, however, she fancied it to be--and, consequently, she talked with Henry Burrel of poetry, and painting, and beautiful scenes, and sweet music, and noble deeds, and generous feelings, and all those whirling spots of brightness that dance unconnected through the sunshine of enthusiastic minds, with all the ardour of innocence and youth, and unblighted feelings, and never dreamed of its becoming any thing more. Mrs. Darlington, for her part, had soon perceived that Burrel and Miss Delaware were deep in what seemed interesting conversation. She did not pretend to divine what might happen--she prognosticated nothing--she took no notice, and let things take their course--but she carefully abstained from giving any interruption; and, by a few slight but skilful turns, prevented their little tête-à-tête from being broken in upon so soon as it otherwise would have been.
It was Dr. Wilton, who, in the simplicity of his heart, dissolved it for the night; for after having been talking earnestly for a few minutes with the little surgeon of Emberton, about some of his poor parishioners who were sick, his eye met that of Blanche Delaware, as she still sat beside Burrel on the sofa, and it lighted up for a moment with a glance of gay meaning, that called the blood into her fair cheek. Burrel marked it all; and the next two answers which Miss Delaware made to what he was saying were sufficiently à travers to show him that the conversation, on her part at least, rolled no longer at its ease. To prolong it under such circumstances would be a crime, as he well knew; and therefore he soon furnished her with an excuse to join Mrs. Darlington.