CHAPTER XV.
Lady Anne Mellent was seated alone in her drawing-room, in the large and handsome town-house which had been inhabited for many years by her father and grandfather. She looked less gay--more thoughtful than usual. Perhaps the weather might have some share in depressing; for most people born in England are more or less barometers, and subject to be raised or depressed by the state of the atmosphere.
Foreigners, I believe, generally imagine that the cause of two Englishmen, as soon as they meet, beginning to talk of the weather, is that they have nothing else to talk of; or that the variation of our changeable climate is the most prominent fact in the natural history of the land; or because the weather is the only open question, free from all tinge of the party spirit which affects all other things in our native country. But the real cause lies deeper. It is, that in almost all instances the fibres of an Englishman's body are affected by the changes of the weather, like the strings of a fine instrument--more or less, of course, according to the constitution of the individual. But still, as I have said, in most men it is so; and the mind, being in tune or out of tune in consequence, emits sounds accordingly.
Now, one of the strange vicissitudes of climate had taken place which are so common under our skies. A day or two of fine, clear summer weather had been succeeded by a morning covered with thick grey clouds, while the east wind hurried a sort of dim and filmy mist through the air, cutting to the marrow all who exposed themselves to its influence. It was the true picture of a reverse of fortune--the summer sun of prosperity clouded, dim uncertainty pervading the atmosphere, and the cold and cutting blast of ingratitude, and neglect, and contemptuous pity chilling the very soul.
Nevertheless, although I do not mean to say that Lady Anne Mellent was not at all affected by the weather, yet her grave and meditative mood had other, stronger causes. She had a great deal to think of just then; and she leaned her fair brow upon her hand, the thick glossy ringlets falling over her taper fingers, and her eyes fixed upon a sheet of writing-paper, whereon her other hand was fancifully sketching all sorts of strange figures. Her mind had nothing to do with what her hand was about or what her eye was fixed upon. I do not know what part or portion of the strange mixed whole, expressed by the little monosyllable man, it is that occupies itself with trifles, while the high spirits, the sensitive soul, and the intellectual mind are engaged in reasonings deep of other, mightier things; but so it often is, that when the brain and heart are most busy with strong thoughts, something--I know not what--gives employment to the corporeal faculties: just as a nurse amuses a sick child with playthings while two learned doctors are consulting of its state.
Thus it was now with Lady Anne. Her mind saw not the things she was drawing--the dancing men and women, the flowers, the fruits, the trees, the wild and graceful arabesques, the ruined towns and castles, the volutes, the capitals, the columns: she had not an idea of what she was about; but, deep in some little chamber of the brain, with the doors and windows closed, while Imagination held a taper and Memory spread out a map before her, the mind sat and studied the chart of the past, trying to lay out plans for carrying on into the unexplored future the roads along which her destiny had hitherto run.
She was startled from her reverie by a servant opening the drawing-room door and announcing Mr. Charles Marston; and, raising her head, with a slight glow upon her cheek, she held out her hand to him with frank and kindly greeting.
"Well, you have come to see me at length," she said, "and I suppose I must take your yesterday's apologies in good part, especially as I find that one of the two letters did arrive; and I have been reading this morning all the nonsense it contains, with a great deal of interest and satisfaction. There is nothing in the world like nonsense, either for pleasure or amusement. Sense is so hard, so square, and so sharp in the points, that it is always scratching one somewhere. I am sure Adam and Eve must have been talking nonsense to each other all day long in paradise, otherwise it would not have been half so pleasant a place as it is represented."
Charles Marston took a seat by her side, with a very faint smile, saying--
"I am afraid, dear Lady Anne, that I must give up nonsense for the future, and devote myself to dull, hard, dry sense."