This conversation was unintelligible to Selina, yet not uninteresting, as she felt a vague consciousness, that it in some way related to herself, and a momentary distrust of both speakers glanced across her mind. But her attention was quickly attracted by Lady Hammersley, who, on perceiving Lady Eltondale, had advanced from amongst the crowd to pay her compliments. The Viscountess was as minute in her inquiries regarding all that could concern Lady Hammersley, as if she had been sincere in her professions of being glad to meet her; and though Lady Hammersley's eyes were fixed on Selina, it was some minutes before she was sufficiently disengaged to accost her; at length she abruptly exclaimed, "Miss Seymour has, to all appearance, profited as much by her residence in London, as I prophesied she would; possibly amongst her other acquirements she may have learned the art of forgetting old acquaintances." Selina's colour rose, and the implied rebuke checking at once the friendly salutation with which she had prepared to address her, she returned her recognizance with an elegant but frigid compliment, worthy a pupil of Lady Eltondale. "Admirable!" retorted Lady Hammersley with a scornful smile: "My penetration is not baffled. I must write to Mrs. Galton, to notice the improvement I always anticipated." "Why, does your Ladyship know Mrs. Galton?" inquired Selina anxiously; while Lady Eltondale, leaning on Mr. Sedley, took the opportunity of escaping from her "Dear Lady Hammersley." "I do know Mrs. Galton," replied she; "we were together all last winter at Bath; and she, Miss Seymour, was so convinced of your perfection, that she never would believe it was even in Lady Eltondale's power to improve you, as I guessed she would, and see she has done." "Dear, dear aunt Mary!" exclaimed Selina, bursting into tears, as she heard this instance of a disinterested partiality, to which she had lately been unused, even though the recital had been made with more of acrimony than of benevolence. Lady Hammersley looked for some moments steadily at Selina, and then continued in her usual cynical tone, "Pray, Miss Seymour, compose yourself; Lady Eltondale will be shocked at my having betrayed you into so gross an impropriety. I had not the slightest idea that the mention of Mrs. Galton would have roused your feelings, and still less that you could have been tempted to exhibit them." Selina felt hurt at the undeserved censure, which both Lady Hammersley's words and manner expressed, and, with a look of dignity, replied, "I am indeed ashamed of betraying them where they can be so little understood;" and took leave of her Ladyship with a proud politeness, which admitted of no reply. Lady Hammersley for some moments looked after Selina, as she moved to a distant part of the room, where Lady Eltondale was waiting for her. "That girl is still worth knowing," thought she; and for once she turned an unprejudiced eye on the lovely form and heavenly countenance of the innocent girl, who had hitherto so undeservedly shared in the contempt and hatred, which her Ladyship had always been accustomed to feel for every thing, that in the remotest degree appertained to Lady Eltondale.
Meantime Selina joined the Viscountess, while "disdain and scorn rode sparkling in her eyes." "Has Lady Hammersley been entertaining you with any sententious aphorisms?" asked Lady Eltondale. "No," replied Selina, laughing. "For once she has been talking on a subject she does not understand." The Viscountess was not sufficiently interested in her Ladyship's harangues to inquire further, and they continued their walk till it was time to separate for dinner.
The amusement allotted for that evening was a public concert, and Lady Eltondale and Selina had acceded to Sedley's earnest entreaty of attending it. He accordingly took post in the outside room, waiting for their arrival, and anxiously inspecting every passing groupe, as the different parties entered, in hopes of recognizing them. But his expectations were disappointed; no Lady Eltondale or Selina made their appearance: he bewildered himself in conjectures; and at last, in a moment of pique, attributing their delay to caprice, he left the rooms before the concert was finished, cursing woman's inconsistency, and his own folly, in ever having suffered himself to be interested about any. This sage reflection was however chased long before morning, not only by the recollection of Selina's manifold charms, but of his own manifold creditors; and at an early hour he repaired to the well, where he and Lady Eltondale had agreed to meet, in order to finish a conversation neither was particularly anxious Selina should witness.
But Lady Eltondale was not to be found; and when the hour for the general dispersion of the company arrived without his seeing her, he lost patience, and hastened to her house to inquire the cause of her protracted absence.
But there, to his utmost consternation, he learned that an express had arrived, just as the ladies were preparing to go to the rooms the night before, to inform the Viscountess, that Lord Eltondale had suddenly expired at Eltondale, after having partaken of a turtle feast with more enjoyment, and even less restraint, than ordinary. Of course neither Selina nor Lady Eltondale was visible, and Sedley returned home agitated by a thousand conjectures and emotions.
It was not to be expected, that Lady Eltondale would deeply lament the death of a husband, who, notwithstanding his uniform indulgence to her, had never possessed either her esteem or affection; but nevertheless Selina could not help being shocked at the total apathy and ingratitude she displayed; as without even assuming a grief, which it would have been almost more a virtue to dissemble, than thus openly to contemn, she only thought of, only lamented, the change of her circumstances the event would inevitably produce. Selina listened in astonishment to the calm retrospection of past extravagance, and the despairing anticipation of future poverty, in which she indulged even in those first moments of widowhood; and disdaining to offer consolation to the only sorrows she could hear unmoved, at an early hour retired to her own room.
There far, far different reflections agitated her bosom. There is a certain sympathy in misfortune, which, touching a chord that has once jarred, finds an echo in our own breast;
"Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows,
Which show like grief itself."
Thus the sudden dissolution of Lord Eltondale recalled to Selina's mind all the circumstances of her father's death; and though neither in her judgment nor affection they could ever have been compared, yet the last sad scene of mortality blended her recollections of both, and with unrestrained tears she gave way to all the poignancy of regret, in the solitude of her chamber, which the freezing insensibility of Lady Eltondale would have repressed, in the presence of her who should have been the greatest mourner.
In the morning her swollen eyes and pallid cheeks bore testimony to her sleepless night; and as from Lady Eltondale she expected reproof rather than sympathy, she was not sorry to receive a message, stating that her Ladyship wished to breakfast alone, as she was engaged in writing letters.