“Then we will remain at home this summer, lord F——, thank you. Our wives both prefer it, I see.”
And Mr. Waldie put some cheerfulness into his manner as he handed lady F—— into the carriage. At the first opening in the trees, Letitia saw him draw his wife’s arm within his own, and walk with her towards the house.
“It cannot be the blight that has soured him so,” observed lady F—— to her husband. “That must be a mere pretence.”
“Blights destroy other things besides Portugal laurels,” replied her husband. “Did not you see how I was forbidden to enlarge upon hops?”
“What can he have to do with hops? O! I begin to see. Speculation is to be his ruin,—not wine, or gaming.”
“Must he be ruined?” enquired lord F——.
“Yes. There is wide ruin in success, where it comes from speculation. Ruin of peace.—Who would possess paradise, if it were on an island which might be sunk in the sea at any moment? O! poor Maria!”
Chapter III.
DISCUSSION.
Week after week the steward sent reports from Weston of the beauty of the place, and the high order it was kept in for its lady’s approval, and the impatience of the tenants and the villagers for my lord and lady’s arrival. Week after week did friends and acquaintance leave town, till it became what the inhabitants of Westminster call a desert, though it would still puzzle a child to perceive the resemblance between it and the solitary places where lions await the lonely wayfarer. Week by week did Mrs. Philips expatiate on the delights of watering-places, and the charms of the country, and the intolerableness of town in the summer,—and still neither master nor mistress seemed to dream of stirring. “A few weeks in the autumn! Was that all the change they were to have? And how were they to exist till the autumn, she should like to know?” Lady F—— was so far from wishing that Philips should not exist, that on learning her discontents, she took immediate measures for forwarding her to her dear lady Frances, more than half of whose pleasure at Brighton had been spoiled by her having no one to manage her toilet on whose taste she could rely as a corroboration of her own. The day which saw Philips deposited in a Brighton coach brought ease not only to herself, but to those who lost, and her who gained her. Philips was certainly right. Her talents were not appreciated in her new home; and she would indeed never be able to make anything of her new lady. Like other persons of genius, mere kindness was not enough for Philips; she pined for sympathy, congeniality, and applause, for which London affords no scope in the summer season.