CHAPTER IV.
PROPHECIES FULFILLED.
"What makes you so serious to-day, Mrs. St. John?" said Violet, about a week afterwards.
"I am getting anxious about my protégé. It was my Julius who introduced her to the notice of Sir Chetsom Chetsom; and I fear no good will come of it."
"Are you, then, of the Walton party?" asked Violet. "And do you lend an ear to all the scandal of that miserable place? Consider Sir Chetsom's age."
"Yes," said Rose; "but consider also his pretensions. We knew Sir Chetsom is old; but he wants to be thought young."
"I assure you," said Mrs. St. John, "it makes me very uneasy. Julius has already taken the liberty of speaking to him on the subject, as strongly as he could; but Sir Chetsom only laughed at what he called virtuous scruples. My only hope is, that Hester looks upon their difference of age and station as a sufficient warrant for an intimacy which she would not otherwise allow. And yet I fear it is not so. I hope I may wrong her. I do not wish to think uncharitably; but from what I have observed of late, I think she is ambitious and unscrupulous."
"We must remember," said Violet, "that her very opinions on the emancipation of woman would lead her to adopt a freedom of manner, which, though it might be very innocent, would be so unlike the conduct of well-educated girls, that we, judging her by the ordinary rules, should be guilty of great injustice."
Mrs. St. John shook her head.
"Mrs. St. John demurs," said Rose.
"I do, indeed. I look with suspicion on those opinions. When I see a woman disdaining the ordinary notions of society, I expect to see her follow out her own opinions, and disdain the ordinary practices of society."