The children spread the sulphurs upon a little table, and all the company gathered round it.
“Here are all the nine muses for you,” said the least of the boys, who had taken his seat by Clarence Hervey at dinner; “here are all the muses for you, Mr. Hervey: which do you like best?—Oh, that’s the tragic muse that you have chosen!—You don’t like the tragic better than the comic muse, do you?”
Clarence Hervey made no answer, for he was at that instant recollecting how Belinda looked in the character of the tragic muse.
“Has your ladyship ever happened to meet with the young lady who has spent this winter with Lady Delacour?” said Clarence to Lady Anne.
“I sat near her one night at the opera,” said Lady Anne: “she has a charming countenance.”
“Who?—Belinda Portman, do you mean?” said Mrs. Delacour. “I am sure if I were a young man, I would not trust to the charming countenance of a young lady who is a pupil of Mrs. Stanhope’s, and a friend of—Helena, my dear, shut the door—the most dissipated woman in London.”
“Indeed,” said Lady Anne, “Miss Portman is in a dangerous situation; but some young people learn prudence by being placed in dangerous situations, as some young horses, I have heard Mr. Percival say, learn to be sure-footed, by being left to pick their own way on bad roads.”
Here Mr. Percival, Dr. X——, and some other gentlemen, came up stairs to tea, and the conversation took another turn. Clarence Hervey endeavoured to take his share in it with his usual vivacity, but he was thinking of Belinda Portman, dangerous situations, stumbling horses, &c; and he made several blunders, which showed his absence of mind.
“What have you there, Mr. Hervey?” said Dr. X——, looking over his shoulder—“the tragic muse? This tragic muse seems to rival Lady Delacour in your admiration.”
“Oh,” said Clarence, smiling, “you know I was always a votary of the muses.”