CHAPTER IV.
“Well, how I am to get up this hill again, Heaven knows!” said Lady Diana Chillingworth, who had been prevailed upon to walk down Clifton Hill to the Wells. “Heigho! that sister of mine, Lady Frances, walks, and talks, and laughs, and admires the beauties of nature till I’m half dead.”
“Why, indeed, Lady Frances Somerset, I must allow,” said Miss Burrage, “is not the fittest companion in the world for a person of your ladyship’s nerves; but then it is to be hoped that the glass of water which you have just taken fresh at the pump will be of service, provided the racketing to Bristol to the play don’t counteract it, and undo all again.”
“How I dread going into that Bristol playhouse!” said Miss Burrage to herself—“some of my precious relations may be there to claim me. My aunt Dinah—God bless her for a starched quaker—wouldn’t be seen at a play, I’m sure—so she’s safe;—but the odious sugar-baker’s daughters might be there, dizened out; and between the acts, their great tall figures might rise in judgment against me—spy me out—stare and curtsy—pop—pop—pop at me without mercy, or bawl out across the benches, ‘Cousin Burrage! Cousin Burrage!’ And Lady Diana Chillingworth to hear it!—oh, I should sink into the earth.”
“What amusement,” continued Miss Burrage, addressing herself to Lady Di., “what amusement Lady Frances Somerset can find at a Bristol playhouse, and at this time of the year too, is to me really unaccountable.”
“I do suppose,” replied Lady Diana, “that my sister goes only to please that child—(Clara Hope, I think they call her)—not to please me, I’m sure;—but what is she doing all this time in the pump-room? does she know we are waiting for her?—oh, here she comes.—Frances, I am half dead.”
“Half dead, my dear! well, here is something to bring you to life again,” said Lady Frances: “I do believe I have found out Miss Warwick.”
“I am sure, my dear, that does not revive me—I’ve been almost plagued to death with her already,” said Lady Diana.
“There’s no living in this world without plagues of some sort or other—but the pleasure of doing good makes one forget them all: here, look at this advertisement, my dear,” said Lady Frances: “a gentleman, whom I have just met with in the pump-room, was reading it in the newspaper when I came in, and a whole knot of scandal-mongers were settling who it could possibly be. One snug little man, a Welsh curate, I believe, was certain it was the bar-maid of an inn at Bath, who is said to have inveigled a young nobleman into matrimony. I left the Welshman in the midst of a long story, about his father and a young lady, who lost her shoe on the Welsh mountains, and I ran away with the paper to bring it to you.”
Lady Diana received the paper with an air of reluctance.