“Yes, I remember—I saw you look at me.”
“Undesignedly, believe me.”
“Undesignedly, I am sure; but I was afraid you would think—”
“The truth.”
“No; but more than the truth. The truth you shall hear; and the rest I will leave to your judgment and to your kindness.”
Belinda gave a full account of her acquaintance with Clarence Hervey; of the variations in his manner towards her; of his excellent conduct with respect to Lady Delacour (of this, by-the-by, she spoke at large). But she was more concise when she touched upon the state of her own heart; and her voice almost failed when she came to the history of the lock of beautiful hair, the Windsor incognita, and the picture of Virginia. She concluded by expressing her conviction of the propriety of forgetting a man, who was in all probability attached to another, and she declared it to be her resolution to banish him from her thoughts. Lady Anne said, “that nothing could be more prudent or praiseworthy than forming such a resolution—except keeping it.” Lady Anne had a high opinion of Mr. Hervey; but she had no doubt, from Belinda’s account, and from her own observations on Mr. Hervey, and from slight circumstances which had accidentally come to Mr. Percival’s knowledge, that he was, as Belinda suspected, attached to another person. She wished, therefore, to confirm Miss Portman in this belief, and to turn her thoughts towards one who, beside being deserving of her esteem and love, felt for her the most sincere affection. She did not, however, press the subject farther at this time, but contented herself with requesting that Belinda would take three days (the usual time given for deliberation in fairy tales) before she should decide against Mr. Vincent.
The next day they went to look at a porter’s lodge, which Mr. Percival had just built; it was inhabited by an old man and woman, who had for many years been industrious tenants, but who, in their old age, had been reduced to poverty, not by imprudence, but by misfortune. Lady Anne was pleased to see them comfortably settled in their new habitation; and whilst she and Belinda were talking to the old couple, their grand-daughter, a pretty looking girl of about eighteen, came in with a basket of eggs in her hand. “Well, Lucy,” said Lady Anne, “have you overcome your dislike to James Jackson?” The girl reddened, smiled, and looked at her grand-mother, who answered for her in an arch tone, “Oh, yes, my lady! We are not afraid of Jackson now; we are grown very great friends. This pretty cane chair for my good man was his handiwork, and these baskets he made for me. Indeed, he’s a most industrious, ingenious, good-natured youth; and our Lucy takes no offence at his courting her now, my lady, I can assure you. That necklace, which is never off her neck now, he turned for her, my lady; it is a present of his. So I tell him he need not be discouraged, though so be she did not take to him at the first; for she’s a good girl, and a sensible girl—I say it, though she’s my own; and the eyes are used to a face after a time, and then it’s nothing. They say, fancy’s all in all in love: now in my judgment, fancy’s little or nothing with girls that have sense. But I beg pardon for prating at this rate, more especially when I am so old as to have forgot all the little I ever knew about such things.”
“But you have the best right in the world to speak about such things, and your grand-daughter has the best reason in the world to listen to you,” said Lady Anne, “because, in spite of all the crosses of fortune, you have been an excellent and happy wife, at least ever since I can remember.”
“And ever since I can remember, that’s more; no offence to your ladyship,” said the old man, striking his crutch against the ground. “Ever since I can remember, she has made me the happiest man in the whole world, in the whole parish, as every body knows, and I best of all!” cried he, with a degree of enthusiasm that lighted up his aged countenance, and animated his feeble voice.
“And yet,” said the honest dame, “if I had followed my fancy, and taken up with my first love, it would not ha’ been with he, Lucy. I had a sort of a fancy (since my lady’s so good as to let me speak), I had a sort of a fancy for an idle young man; but he, very luckily for me, took it into his head to fall in love with another young woman, and then I had leisure enough left me to think of your grandfather, who was not so much to my taste like at first. But when I found out his goodness and cleverness, and joined to all, his great tenderness for me, I thought better of it, Lucy (as who knows but you may do, though there shall not be a word said on my part to press you, for poor Jackson?); and my thinking better is the cause why I have been so happy ever since, and am so still in my old age. Ah, Lucy! dear, what a many years that same old age lasts, after all! But young folks, for the most part, never think what’s to come after thirty or forty at farthest. But I don’t say this for you, Lucy; for you are a good girl, and a sensible girl, though my own grand-daughter, as I said before, and therefore won’t be run away with by fancy, which is soon past and gone: but make a prudent choice, that you won’t never have cause to repent of. But I’ll not say a word more; I’ll leave it all to yourself and James Jackson.”