Eleanor Vane yielded herself up to the brief holiday-time which generally comes once in almost every woman’s life, however desolate and joyless the rest of that life may be. The holiday comes,—a fleeting summer of gladness and rejoicing. The earth lights up under a new sun and moon; the flowers bloom into new colours and scatter new perfumes on the sublimated atmosphere; the waters of the commonest rivers change to melted sapphires, and blaze with the splendour of a million jewels in the sunshine. The dull universe changes to fairyland; but, alas! the holiday-time is very short: the children grow tired of paradise, or are summoned back to school; the sun and moon collapse into commonplace luminaries; the flowers fade into every-day blossoms; the river flows a grey stream under a November sky; and the dream is over.
Launcelot Darrell had been little more than a fortnight in his mother’s house when he declared his love for Miss Mason’s companion. The young people had been a great deal together in that fortnight; wandering in the grassy lanes about Hazlewood, and in the shadowy woods round Tolldale Priory, or on breezy hills high up above the lawyer’s sheltered mansion. In hope of an alliance between Launcelot and Gilbert Monckton’s ward, Mrs. Darrell was obliged to submit to the necessity which threw her son very much into the society of the companion as well as of the heiress.
“He will surely never be so foolish as to thwart my plan for his future,” thought the anxious mother. “Surely, surely, he will consent to be guided by his own interests. Gilbert Monckton must know that it is only likely an attachment may arise between Launcelot and Laura. He would not leave the girl with me unless he were resigned to such an event, and ready to give his consent to their marriage. My son is poor, certainly; but the lawyer knows that he has some hope of inheriting a great fortune.”
While the mother pondered thus over her son’s chances of advancement, the young man took life very easily; spending his mornings at his easel, but by no means over-exerting himself; and dawdling away his afternoons in rustic rambles with the two girls.
Laura Mason was very happy in the society of this new and brilliant companion. She was bewitched and fascinated by Mr. Darrell’s careless talk; which sounded very witty, very profound, sarcastic, and eloquent in the ears of an ignorant girl. She admired him and fell in love with him, and wearied poor Eleanor with her very unreserved rhapsodies about the object of her affection.
“I know it’s very bold and wicked and horrid to fall in love with anybody before they fall in love with one, you know, Eleanor,” the young lady said, in not very elegant English; “but he is so handsome and so clever. I don’t think any one in the world could help loving him.
“‘I have no hope in loving thee,
I only ask to love;
I ber-rood upon my silent heart,
As on its nest a dove;’”