"I am sure I should love your father very much," she added, "for I have read several of his letters--especially toward the last years of my own parent's life--and in them he spoke in as beautiful and touching affection of his wife and her loss as if she had not been dead a year. I am sure I should love him."
"I think you would," replied Ralph; "though that one deep grief, which he experienced so early, has made him very negligent of all those graces which I am told he at one time possessed. He is now immersed in studies, curious and abstruse, and heeds little else besides his books."
"Well, you see," replied Lady Danvers, "I have, at all events, an hereditary right to your friendship; and all I can say is, that if I can promote your views in any way, Mr. Woodhall, I shall be very happy."
"To have a right to call you friend, dear lady," replied Ralph, warmly, "is quite enough, without taxing your kindness further. The picture you have of my mother must be, I suppose, a copy of that which my father possesses; and yet I should like to see it."
"Oh, no, it is no copy," answered the lady; "she sat expressly at my mother's request, shortly after her marriage. It is very beautiful; the face so full of love, and tenderness and self-devotion. Hers was a noble sacrifice and I am sure, if she had possessed millions to give as well as her hand, she would not have hesitated. I can read it in her face."
"I am glad to hear you speak thus," replied Ralph; "the world judges hardly of such sacrifices. Her own relations blamed and cast her off."
"The world is very foolish in its estimates," replied Lady Danvers; "surely the best wealth, and jewels, and rank, and station are happiness and high qualities, peace of heart and contentment. Case me in gold, and I am no better, no happier; put me on a throne, I am no wiser, no better contented; but give me the society of those I love, health, and enough, and the riches of the world can add very little--their want take very little away. I would not be the slave to all this decoration--to the mere ornaments of the human frame or of human life, which I see the greater number of the women of this land become, for all that earth can give."
"Nor I either," replied Ralph; "but yet, dear lady, wealth and station are sometimes needful, not to happiness, but to the means of attaining that better wealth of the heart."
"Never, I should think," replied the lady. "Let us suppose a case," said Ralph. "Imagine that a man, in other respects not ill endowed, but wanting in riches and in high rank, dares to fix his eyes upon some 'bright particular star,' and hopes to win it; suppose even that he has gained love for love, what chance has he of being made happy--of obtaining her he loves, in short? Friends, relations, guardians interpose, obstacles of every kind arise, which can only be overcome by gaining that wealth and station, the want of which is the impediment."
"Not so, not so!" replied Lady Danvers, eagerly. "Let her he loves be nobly firm, and bold in affection. Let her do as your mother did; and, if there be competence, there will be happiness; but really, let us look about us. We are talking so eagerly," she said, while a warm blush fluttered over her cheek, "that people will say we are making love, and the duke will ask me about the gardens, and I shall be able to tell him nothing. Then will his grace have his good joke at poor me. However, Mr. Woodhall, whenever you like to see that picture, you can. It is at my seat in Somersetshire, and if I am absent when you pass that way, you have but to use my name, and the servants will show it to you. Bid them treat you hospitably, too, for their mistress's sake; now tell me, what is this we are coming to?"