"Will you allow me to tell you what those few words are?" said I. "Lady Broadhem little imagines the real state of the case, because she knows what you do not know, that I am engaged in clearing off her own pecuniary liabilities, and making arrangements by which the old-standing claims on the Broadhem estates may be met. You may never have heard how seriously the family is embarrassed, and how unlucky all Lady Broadhem's attempts to retrieve its fortunes by speculation have been. I could only account to her for the pecuniary sacrifices she knows I am making by allowing her to suppose that I was incurring them for your sake." I could not resist letting a certain tone of pique penetrate this speech, and the puzzled and pained expression of Lady Ursula's face afforded me a sense of momentary gratification, of which I speedily repented. As she looked at me earnestly, her large blue eyes filled slowly with tears. "Is she crying because this last speech of mine proves me hopelessly mad?" thought I; "or does she feel herself in a pecuniary trap, and is she crying because she does not see her way out of it?" and I felt the old sensation coming over me, and my head beginning to swim. Why, oh why, am I denied that method in my madness which it must be such a comfort to possess? It is just at the critical moment that my osseous matter invariably plays me a trick. I seemed groping for light and strength, and mechanically put out my hand; the soft touch of one placed gently in it thrilled through my nerves with an indescribable current, and instantaneously the horrid feeling left me, and I emerged from the momentary torpor into which I had fallen. I don't think Ursula remarked it, for she said, and her eyes were now overflowing, in a voice of surpassing sweetness, "Lord Frank, I have discovered your real secret; it is no longer possible for you to conceal the noble motives which have actuated you under your pretended——"
"Hush!" I said, interrupting her; "what I did, whether rightly or wrongly, I did for the best. Now I will be guided by your wishes. What am I to do?"
"Allow no worldly consideration, however unselfish, either for myself or those dearest to me, to induce you to swerve from the course which truth and honour distinctly point out. Whatever may seem to be the consequences, we are both bound to follow this, and we have but to feel that, if need be, we are ready to make great sacrifices to receive the requisite faith and strength. Believe me," she concluded, and her voice trembled slightly, "whatever happens, I shall feel that you have given me proofs of a friendship upon which I may depend."
I pressed the hand I still held, and I felt the touch was sacred. "Ah," thought I, as I left the room, and was conscious that the gentle influence of her I had parted from was still resting upon me, "that is the right kind of spirit-medium. There is a magnetism in that slender finger which supports and purifies." O my hardened and material readers! don't suppose that because I know you will laugh at the idea of a purifying or invigorating magnetism I shall hesitate to write exactly what I feel on such matters. If I refrain from saying a great deal more, it is not because I shrink from your ridicule but from your ignorance. You may not believe that the pearls exist; I honestly admit that they are not yet in my possession, but I have seen those who own them, and, unfortunately, also I have seen the animals before whom they have been cast. And you, my dear young ladies, do not ignore the responsibility which the influence you are able to exercise over young men imposes upon you. You need not call it magnetism unless you like, but be sure that there is that conveyed in a touch or a glance which elevates or degrades him upon whom it is bestowed, according as you preserve the purity and simplicity of your inmost natures. If you would only regard yourselves in the light of female missionaries to that benighted tribe of lavender-gloved young gentlemen who flutter about you like moths round a candle, you would send them away glowing and happy, instead of singeing their wings. If, when these butterflies come to sip, you would give them honey instead of poison, they would not forsake you as they do now for the gaudy flowers which are too near you. I know what you have to contend against—the scheming mothers who bring you up to the "Daughticultural Show," labelled and decorated, and put up to competition as likely prize-winners—who deliberately expose you to the first rush of your first seasons, and mercilessly watch you as you are swept along by the tearing stream—who see you without compunction cast away on sandbanks of worldliness, where you remain till you become as "hard" and as "fast" as those you find stranded there before you. Here your minds become properly, or rather improperly, opened. You hear, for the first time, to your astonishment, young men talked of by their Christian or nick names—their domestic life canvassed, their eligibility discussed, and the varied personal experiences through which your "hard and fast" friends have passed, related.
Then, better prepared for the rest of the voyage, you start again, and venture a little on your own account. What bold swimmers you are becoming now! How you laugh and defy the rocks and reefs upon which you are ultimately destined to split! Already you look back with surprise to the time when almost everything you heard shocked you. What an immense amount of unnecessary knowledge you have acquired since then, and how recklessly you display it! Do you think it has softened and elevated you? Do you think the moral contact which should be life-giving to those who know you, benefits them?
It is not true, because young men behave heartlessly, that you must flirt "in self-defence," as you call it. When a warfare of this kind once begins, it is difficult to fix the responsibility; but if one side left off, the occupation of the other would be gone. If you want to revenge yourselves on these fickle youths—strike! as they do in the manufacturing districts. Conceive the wholesome panic you would cause, if you combined into "unions" like the working-classes, and every girl in London bound herself not to flirt for the entire season!
Unless you do something of this kind soon, you will reverse the whole system of nature. The men will be the candles and you the moths; they will be the flowers, and you the butterflies. If all the brothers in London persist in trying to imitate their sisters, and all the sisters ape their brothers, what a nice confusion we shall arrive at! The reason I preach to you and not to them now, is, because I think I have a better chance with the mind of a masculine young woman than with that of a feminine young man. If you only knew what a comfort it would be to talk sense instead of that incessant chaff, you would read a little more. I don't object to your riding in the Park—the abominable constitution of society makes it almost the only opportunity of seeing and talking to those you like without being talked about; but you need not rush off for a drive in the carriage immediately after lunch, just because you are too restless to stay at home.
First, the Park and young men, then lunch, then Marshall and Snelgrove, then tea and young men again, then dinner, drums, and balls, and young men till three A.M. That is the tread-wheel you have chosen to turn without the smallest profit to yourself or any one else. If I seem to speak strongly, it is because my heart yearns over you. I belonged once to the lavender-gloved tribe myself, and though I have long since abandoned the hunting-grounds of my youth, I would give the world to see them happy and innocent. Moreover, I know you too well to imagine that I have written a word which will offend you. Far from it. We shall be warmer and closer friends ever after; but I am strongly afraid mamma will disapprove. She will call 'Piccadilly' "highly improper," and say that it is a book she has not allowed any of "her girls" to read. I don't want to preach disobedience; but there are modes well known to my fair young friends of reading books which mamma forbids, and I trust that they will never read one against her wish which may leave a more injurious impression upon their minds than 'Piccadilly.'
