"I flatter myself, Sir John, we think alike on many subjects. I shall retire to tranquillity and repose in my cottage of gentility, and the young people will make the walls of Bedinfield ring with festivity. I trust we may claim your daughter in a very short time. The settlements will not be long in my agent's hands, and Ennismore is so anxious to present his lady in Staffordshire! May I make interest to salute my real daughter in a month? I am now equally anxious to make my own arrangements; and my first wish must be to secure my son's comfort, before I allow myself to consider my own gratifications."
Sir John admitted that suspense was useless when both parties understood the nature of their engagements; and the marriage was fixed to take place as soon as the settlements should be ready for signature. There was great ceremony in presenting jewels; and Lady Wetheral was the head and front of every thing. There was immense preparation in the wardrobe department, far exceeding, in extent and expense, the ample and handsome dresses prepared for Mrs. Boscawen. Her ladyship explained the necessity of a very distinct line of demarkation in the wardrobe of the sisters.
"Julia marries a peer, consequently she will require a certain style of magnificence in her appearance. Isabel married a man of considerable wealth, but still the young wife of an elderly commoner is not of material importance in society. Isabel must nurse Boscawen, who is scarcely ever free from ague since he visited Holland, and these splendid silks would be useless, fading at Brierly; it would have been worse than folly to have given a peeress's trousseau to poor Isabel, but they will both attend your marriage, my dear Julia. It will be a proud day to us all, when you become the wife of Ennismore, a young nobleman possessing peculiar steadiness of character; and, though slightly delicate, his mind is elastic, and his love strongly developed towards you. Independently of his rank and title, I should prefer Ennismore to the young men of the present day. The necklace he presented to you so gallantly are diamonds of the first water."
"Lady Ennismore presented them to Julia, mamma," observed Clara, with simplicity.
"Fiddle faddle! they were presented in excellent taste. Isabel has no jewels, poor girl."
CHAPTER VI.
When the Wetheral party entered the crowded dancing-room at Lady Spottiswoode's, they caused considerable sensation. It was now publicly known that Lord Ennismore was the accepted lover of Miss Julia Wetheral, and the young couple were gazed at with untired wonder. Each countenance was well known to the company: Miss Julia Wetheral and young Lord Ennismore had frequented every fashionable place of rendezvous for the last three months, yet their engagement evidently procured each personage extraordinary power of novelty.
Eyes which had scarcely allowed a glance to the uninviting figure of Lord Ennismore, gazed now earnestly upon his person, because he came as the acknowledged lover of the handsome Julia Wetheral, and every gentleman glanced with heightened interest and admiration at Julia, because she was no longer of their number to win and to receive their homage. Julia Wetheral now belonged to Lord Ennismore, and her brilliant light must soon disappear from their hemisphere: she was going to throw herself away, they affirmed, upon a fellow unworthy of such a prize. Could she really love such a poor, sickly creature? far better have taken Tom Pynsent.