"No longer, and never more, the Miss Ethel of my quiet Malory recollections. Going out at last! If any one can survive the ordeal and come forth scathless, you, I think, will. But to me it seems that this is a farewell, and that my pupil dies to-night, and a new Miss Ethel returns. You cannot help it; all the world cannot prevent it, if so it is to be. As an old friend, I knew I might bring you these."
"Oh, Mr. Carmel, what beautiful flowers!" I exclaimed.
It was certainly an exquisite bouquet; one of those beautiful and costly offerings that perish in an hour, and seems to me like the pearl thrown into the cup of wine.
"I am so grateful. It was so kind of you. It is too splendid a great deal. It is quite impossible that there can be anything like it in the room."
I was really lost in wonder and admiration, and I suppose looked delighted. I was pleased that the flowers should have come from Mr. Carmel's hand.
"If you think that the flowers are worthy of you, you think more highly than I do of them," he answered, with a smile that was at once sad and pleased. "I am such an old friend, you know; a month at quiet Malory counts for a year anywhere else. And as you say of the flowers, I may say more justly of my pupil, there will be no one like her there. It is the compensation of being such as I, that we may speak frankly, like good old women, and no one be offended. And, oh, Miss Ethel, may God grant they be not placed like flowers upon a sacrifice or on the dead. Do not forget your better thoughts. You are entering scenes of illusion, where there is little charity, and almost no sincerity, where cruel feelings are instilled, the love of flattery and dominion awakened, and all the evil and enchantments of the world beset you. Encourage those good thoughts; watch and pray, or a painless and even pleasant death sets in, and no one can arrest it."
How my poor father would have laughed at such an exhortation at the threshold of a ball-room! No doubt it had its comic side, but not for me, and that was all Mr. Carmel cared for.
This was a ball at an official residence, and besides the usual muster, Cabinet and other Ministers would be there, and above all, that judicious rewarder of public virtue, and instructor of the conscience of the hustings, the patronage secretary of the Treasury. Papa had at last discovered a constituency which he thought promised success, he had made it a point, of course, to go to places where he had opportunities for a talk with that important personage. Papa was very sanguine, and now, as usual, whenever he had a project of that kind on hand, was in high spirits.
He came into the drawing-room. He always seemed to me as if he did not quite know whether he liked or disliked Mr. Carmel. Whenever I saw them together, he appeared to me, like Mrs. Malaprop, to begin with a little aversion, and gradually to become more and more genial. He greeted Mr. Carmel a little coldly, and brightened as he looked on me; he was evidently pleased with me, and talked me over with myself very good-humouredly. I took care to show him my flowers. He could not help admiring them.
"These are the best flowers I have seen anywhere. How did you contrive to get them? Really, Mr. Carmel, you are a great deal too kind. I hope Ethel thanked you. Ethel, you ought really to tell Mr. Carmel how very much obliged you are."