Shall I avow my own meanness? Cordially as I loved the Belfields, I am afraid I saw them arrive with a slight tincture of jealousy. They would, I thought, by enlarging the family circle, throw me at a further distance from the being whom I wished to contemplate nearly. They would, by dividing her attention, diminish my proportion. I had been hitherto the sole guest, I was now to be one of several. This was the first discovery I made that love is a narrower of the heart. I tried to subdue the ungenerous feeling, and to meet my valuable friends with a warmth adequate to that which they so kindly manifested. I found that a wrong feeling at which one has virtue enough left to blush, is seldom lasting, and shame soon expelled it.
The first day was passed in mutual inquiries and mutual communications. Lady Belfield told me that the amiable Fanny, after having wept over the grave of her mother, was removed to the house of the benevolent clergyman, who had kindly promised her an asylum till Lady Belfield's return to town, when it was intended she should be received into her family; that worthy man and his wife having taken on themselves a full responsibility for her character and disposition; and generously promised that they would exert themselves to advance her progress in knowledge during the interval. Lady Belfield added, that every inquiry respecting Fanny, whom we must now call Miss Stokes, had been attended with the most satisfactory result, her principles being as unquestionable as her talents.
After dinner, I observed that whenever the door opened, Lady Belfield's eye was always turned toward it, in expectation of seeing the children. Her affectionate heart felt disappointed on finding that they did not appear, and she could not forbear whispering to me, who sat next her, "that she was afraid the piety of our good friends was a little tinctured with severity. For her part, she saw no reason why religion should diminish one's affection for one's children, and rob them of their innocent pleasures." I assured her gravely I thought so too; but forbore telling her how totally inapposite her application was to Mr. and Mrs. Stanley. She seemed glad to find me of her opinion, and gave up all hope of seeing the "little melancholy recluses," as she called them, "unless," she said, laughing, "she might be permitted to look at them through the grate of their cells." I smiled, but did not undeceive her, and affected to join in her compassion. When we went to attend the ladies in the drawing-room, I was delighted to find lady Belfield sitting on a low stool, the whole gay group at play around her. A blush mixed itself with her good-natured smile as we interchanged a significant look. She was questioning one of the elder ones, while the youngest sat on her lap singing. Sir John entered, with that kindness and good humor so natural to him, into the sports of the others, who, though wild with health and spirits, were always gentle and docile. He had a thousand pleasant things to entertain them with. He, too, it seems, had not been without his misgivings.
"Are not these poor miserable recluses?" whispered I maliciously to her ladyship, "and are not these rueful looks proof positive that religion diminishes our affection for our children? and is it not abridging their innocent pleasures, to give them their full range in a fresh airy apartment, instead of cramming them into an eating-room, of which the air is made almost fetid by the fumes of the dinner and a crowded table? and is it not better that they should spoil the pleasure of the company, though the mischief they do is bought by the sacrifice of their own liberty?" "I make my amende," said she. "I never will be so forward again to suspect piety of ill nature." "So far from it, Caroline," said Sir John, "that we will adopt the practice we were so forward to blame; and I shall not do it," said he, "more from regard to the company, than to the children, who I am sure will be gainers in point of enjoyment; liberty, I perceive, is to them positive pleasure, and paramount to any which our false epicurism can contrive for them."
"Well, Charles," said Sir John, as soon as he saw me alone, "now tell us about this Lucilla, this paragon, this nonpareil of Dr. Barlow's. Tell me what is she? or rather what is she not?"
"First," replied I, "I will as you desire, define her by negatives—she is not a professed beauty, she is not a professed genius, she is not a professed philosopher, she is not a professed wit, she is not a professed any thing; and, I thank my stars, she is not an artist!" "Bravo, Charles, now as to what she is." "She is," replied I, "from nature—a woman, gentle, feeling, animated, modest. She is by education, elegant, informed, enlightened. She is, from religion, pious, humble, candid, charitable."
"What a refreshment will it be," said Sir John, "to see a girl of fine sense, more cultivated than accomplished—the creature, not of fiddlers and dancing-masters, but of nature, of books, and of good company! If there is the same mixture of spirit and delicacy in her character, that there is of softness and animation in her countenance, she is a dangerous girl, Charles."
"She certainly does," said I, "possess the essential charm of beauty where it exists; and the most effectual substitute for it, where it does not; the power of prepossessing the beholder by her look and manner, in favor of her understanding and temper."
This prepossession I afterward found confirmed, not only by her own share in the conversation, but by its effect on myself; I always feel that our intercourse unfolds, not only her powers, but my own. In conversing with such a woman, I am apt to fancy that I have more understanding, because her animating presence brings it more into exercise.
After breakfast, next day, the conversation happened to turn on the indispensable importance of unbounded confidence to the happiness of married persons. Mr. Stanley expressed his regret, that though it was one of the grand ingredients of domestic comfort, yet it was sometimes unavoidably prevented by an unhappy inequality of mind between the parties, by violence, or imprudence, or imbecility on one side, which almost compelled the other to a degree of reserve, as incompatible with the design of the union, as with the frankness of the individual.