“My grandmother died without giving me her blessing,” said Virginia; “but now I have been blessed by my father! Happy, happy moment!—O that she could look down from heaven, and see us at this instant!”
Virginia was so much astonished and overpowered by this sudden discovery of a parent, and by the novelty of his first caresses, that after the first violent effervescence of her sensibility was over, she might, to an indifferent spectator, have appeared stupid and insensible. Mrs. Ormond, though far from an indifferent spectator, was by no means a penetrating judge of the human heart: she seldom saw more than the external symptoms of feeling, and she was apt to be rather impatient with her friends if theirs did not accord with her own.
“Virginia, my dear,” said she, in rather a reproachful tone, “Mr. Hervey, you see, has left the room, on purpose to leave you at full liberty to talk to your father; and I am going—but you are so silent!”
“I have so much to say, and my heart is so full!” said Virginia.
“Yes, I know you told me of a thousand things that you had to say to your father, before you saw him.”
“But now I see him, I have forgotten them all. I can think of nothing but of him.”
“Of him and Mr. Hervey,” said Mrs. Ormond.
“I was not thinking of Mr. Hervey at that moment,” said Virginia, blushing.
“Well, my love, I will leave you to think and talk of what you please,” said Mrs. Ormond, smiling significantly as she left the room.
Mr. Hartley folded his daughter in his arms with the fondest expressions of parental affection, and he was upon the point of telling her how much he approved of the choice of her heart; but he recollected his promise, and he determined to sound her inclinations farther, before he even mentioned the name of Clarence Hervey.