"You are very kind, sweet cousin, but if you only knew how very little I care about the matter;" and she laughed heartily at the idea of its being a subject of the least importance.
"But, Lord Albert D'Esterre," said Lady Mary, appealing to him as he sat on the other side of Lady Adeline, "you will interfere, will you not? You will not be pleased, I am sure, lovely as Adeline is, to see her a figure at a drawing-room."
"What sort of figure do you mean?" he asked, smiling.
"Oh dear! you know well enough what I mean—unbecomingly attired."
"I think," he replied, "that although some figures will always be admired, still there is no merit in disdaining the usages of society or the advantages of dress, and that the neglect of appearance may in a young person be produced by some causes which are not desirable." He looked fixedly at Adeline as he spoke, and she blushed very deeply; but answered with an unhesitating voice:
"I shall be always desirous of pleasing those I love, even in trifles; but I should be sorry that trifles occupied their thoughts."
Lord Albert was silent; he felt a kind of chill come over him, for the remembrance of Lady Hamlet Vernon's instructions recurred to him; and he thought he saw a species of puritanical pride in the general tenour of Lady Adeline's manner of thinking and speaking, which seemed to justify the observations she had made upon her character. Then again he feared, that in other points he might discover more reason still to be dissatisfied—points on which his vital happiness rested. He looked instinctively round the room; but the person who at that moment crossed his thoughts was not present, and he again wrapped himself up in that mood of suspicion, which is ever on the alert to seek out the object which would give it most pain; under this influence he returned to the subject of Adeline's presentation dress, and said, addressing Lady Dunmelraise:
"I am not particularly an advocate for splendid attire; but I am sure, Lady Dunmelraise, you will agree with me in thinking, that there is an affectation in going unadorned to a court, which is a sort of disrespect to the place."
"Indeed," said Lady Adeline, in her wild eager way, "I will not go to much expenditure on my dress, for I have a plan for doing some good going on, which will require all the money I can collect, and I should be very sorry to see mamma wasting her's on any thing which I so little prize as my court-dress."
Lady Dunmelraise only smiled, and replied, "We must all subscribe to Adeline's toilette, for she is the veriest miser on that score herself. However, Lord Albert, do not be uneasy, I think she will not disgrace us," and the pleased mother passed on to other discourse.