To her inquiries if he would join her circle in the evening, and if he were one of those invited to the water-party the following day, he answered with apparent indifference; and, with a doubtful half-formed promise to attend her in the evening, he left the house. He was bewildered and uneasy; dissatisfied with himself, and consequently with all the world; and Lady Hamlet Vernon was miserable on her part at witnessing his change of manner, and remarking the serious and preoccupied expression of his countenance, which seemed totally at variance with her wishes.
That evening Lord Albert dedicated to a few hours of quiet in his own apartments; but the habit, of any kind, which has once been broken through, is not so easily resumed; and in particular the power of sober application to serious pursuits is hardly by any man to be laid by and recovered at will. The mind which is suffered to float about, driven by the winds of chance, becomes unfitted for fixed attention to any one particular point; and the effort is painful which must be made before it can be brought to bear on reflective subjects, after having been suffered to follow the vague direction of the feelings, or the yet more debilitating influence of dissipation.
Lord Albert acknowledged this, as he had recourse to various books for amusement. His attention wandered; and now he was at Lady Dunmelraise's, now at Lady Hamlet Vernon's—but never was he on the subject of the leaves which he vainly turned over; and after an evening spent in vacuity, he felt as fatigued, and more dispirited than had he been deeply engaged in some mental effort. The consciousness of this lowered state of being was exceedingly uneasy to him. He was one who, for so young a man, had learnt thoroughly to know the value of time, and when it was thus utterly lost or misapplied, he could not forgive himself for the irreparable fault.
Lord Albert, too, had an impression fixed indelibly on his mind, that when we are not advancing we are retrograding in our mental or moral course of existence; and fortunately for him, he was yet keenly sensible to the reproaches of conscience. His determination at the moment, therefore, to redeem this heavy loss was salutary and sincere; and he felt a renovation in his whole being when he took his early walk next day to Lady Dunmelraise's, full of the good resolutions he had formed the preceding day. To be in the presence of Lady Adeline Seymour, was like being in the sunshine of spring. There was an habitual serenity about her, which seemed to animate all around her; every thing and every sentiment of Adeline's was in its right place—no one took undue precedence of the other; the harmony of her form and features was a true reflection of her happily disposed nature; but that nature owed its very essence and continuance to the great ruling feeling of her mind. Every thought, and every action, were immediately or remotely under the guidance of pious belief: the nature of her happiness could not be uprooted by any earthly power; she might suffer anguish here; but she had a secret and secure joy that those only know who, like her, fix the anchor of their trust on an hereafter.
Having spent the greater part of the morning in such society, Lord Albert tacitly acknowledged its superiority to that in which he had lately lived, and the invitation he received to dine in South Audley Street was eagerly accepted. The party which he found assembled at Lady Dunmelraise's consisted chiefly of her family,—Lord and Lady Delamere, their two sons and daughter, and a few other persons who came in the evening. Lord Delamere was a shy man, and his shyness had sometimes the effect of pride; but the estimable points in his character were of such sterling value, that his friends loved him with a zeal of attachment which spoke volumes in his praise; and he was looked up to by his family, not only as their father, but their companion: nothing could be more beautiful than the union which subsisted between them; nothing more truly worthy of imitation than the virtuous dignity with which they filled their high station.
Lady Delamere still possessed great beauty; and the charm that never dies, the charm of fascination of manner and of air, defied the inroads which time makes on mere personal beauty. She was one of those very few women, who unite to feminine gentleness the qualities ascribed to a masculine mind. At the time she married, her husband's affairs were so much involved, that nothing but the utmost self-denial could possibly retrieve them: and she entered into his plans of retrenchment with an alacrity and vigour, which proved her to be a wife indeed; not the play-thing of an hour, to deck the board, or gratify the vanity of the possessor, but a companion, a friend, a helpmate, one who in retirement possessed resources that could enliven and cheer the solitary hour: who knew she was loved, and felt she deserved to be so, with that security of honest pride, which the consciousness of desert never fails to impart in married life, and yet whose refinement and delicacy of feeling never lost the elegancies of polished manners, because there were no novel objects to excite a sickly appetite for admiration.
To please is certainly the peculiar attribute and business of woman, in every relation of life; and those who neglect to foster and keep alive this power, reject one of the greatest means which Providence has placed in their hands to effect mighty operations of good. But there is a false and spurious kind of pleasing which must not be confounded with the true. Every woman will know how to distinguish these in her own conscience. When the wish to please is a mere gratification of vanity, when it lives always beyond the circle of her own hearth, and dies as soon as it is called upon for exercise within domestic walls; then, indeed, it may be known for what it is: but when, as in Lady Delamere's case, this virtue shone most splendidly confined to the sphere of home, its price was above rubies; in short it might truly be said of her, "the heart of her husband doth safely trust in her."