“Johnson’s preface to Shakspeare.”
Miss Georgiana Falconer was vexed, for she recollected that Miss Caroline Percy had just been speaking of it with admiration.
Mrs. Falconer wondered how it could have happened that she had never read it.
Lady Kew persevered in her story. “Sir James Harcourt, I know, who is the most polite creature in the whole world, and who never speaks an ill word of any body, I assure you, said of Miss Caroline Percy in my hearing—what I shall not repeat. Only this much I must tell you, Mrs. Falconer—Mrs. Falconer!—She won’t listen because the young lady is a relation of her own—and we are very rude; but truth is truth, notwithstanding, you know. Well, well, she may talk of Miss Percy’s beauty and abilities—very clever she is, I don’t dispute; but this I may say, that Mrs. Falconer must never praise her to me for simplicity of character.”
“Why, no,” said Miss Georgiana; “one is apt to suppose that a person who has lived all her life in the country must, of course, have great simplicity. But there is a simplicity of character, and a simplicity of manner, and they don’t always go together. Caroline Percy’s manner is fascinating, because, you know, it is what one does not meet with every day in town—that was what struck my poor brother—that and her great talents, which can make her whatever she pleases to be: but I am greatly afraid she is not quite the ingenuous person she looks.”
Count Altenberg changed colour, and was putting down his book suddenly, when Mrs. Falconer caught it, and stopping him, asked how far he had read.
Whilst he was turning over the leaves, Lady Trant went on, in her turn—“With all her practice, or her simplicity, whichever it may be—far be it from me to decide which—I fancy she has met with her match, and has been disappointed in her turn.”
“Really!” cried Georgiana, eagerly: “How! What! When!—Are you certain?”
“Last summer—Oh! I have it from those who know the gentleman well. Only an affair of the heart that did not end happily: but I am told she was very much in love. The family would not hear of it—the mother, especially, was averse: so the young gentleman ended by marrying—exceedingly well—and the young lady by wearing the willow, you know, a decent time.”
“Oh! why did you never tell me this before?” said Miss Georgiana.