“Oh! Mrs. Hungerford! my dear madam,” cried Rosamond, “you have no idea how unjust and imprudent I have been about Caroline.”
“My love,” said Mrs. Hungerford, smiling, and wiping tears from her eyes, “I fancy I can form a competent idea of your imprudence from my own. We must all learn discretion from this dear girl—you, early—I, late in life.”
“Dear Rosamond, do not reproach yourself for your excessive kindness to me,” said Caroline; “in candour and generous feeling, who is equal to you?”
“Kissing one another, I protest,” cried Lady Mary Pembroke, opening the door from the gallery, “whilst we were wondering you did not come after us. Aunt Hungerford, you know how we looked for the bow and arrows, and the peaked shoes, with the knee-chains of the time of Edward the Fourth. Well, they are all behind the great armoury press, which Gustavus has been moving to make room for Elizabeth’s copy of Prince Rupert. Do come and look at them—but stay, first I have a favour to beg of you, Caroline. I know Gustavus will ask my sister to ride with him this morning, and the flies torment her horse so, and she is such a coward, that she will not be able to listen to a word that is said to her—could you lend her your pretty gentle White Surrey?”
“With pleasure,” said Caroline, “and my net.”
“I will go and bring it to your ladyship,” said Rosamond.
“My ladyship is in no hurry,” cried Lady Mary—“don’t run away, don’t go: it is not wanted yet.”
But Rosamond, glad to escape, ran away, saying, “There is some of the fringe off—I must sew it on.”
Rosamond, as she sewed on the fringe, sighed—and worked—and wished it was for Caroline, and said to herself, “So it is all over—and all in vain!”
The horses for the happy riding party came to the door. Rosamond ran down stairs with the net; Caroline had it put on her horse, and Lady Elizabeth Pembroke thanked her with such a look of kindness, of secure faith in her friend’s sympathy, that even Rosamond forgave her for being happy. But Rosamond could not wish to stay to witness her happiness just at this time; and she was not sorry when her father announced the next day that business required his immediate return home. Lamentations, loud and sincere, were heard from every individual in the castle, especially from Mrs. Hungerford, and from her daughter. They were, however, too well bred to persist in their solicitations to have the visit prolonged.