“Deep blue! shocking: and this is a blue breakfast, and all the people at it are true bores, and a blue bore is, as Horace Churchill says, one of the most mischievous creatures breathing; and he tells me the only way of hindering them from doing mischief is by ringing them; but first you must get rings. Now, in this case, for Katrine not a ring to be had for love or money. So there is no hope for me.”
“No hope for me,” thought Lady Cecilia, throwing herself back in her chair, submissive, but not resigned.
“If it had but pleased Heaven,” continued Lady Castlefort, “in its mercy, to have sent Katrine a husband of any kind, what a blessing it would have been! If she could but have been married to any body—now any body—”
“Any body is infinitely obliged to you,” said Cecilia, “but since that is out of the question, let us say no more about it—no use.”
“No use! that is the very thing of which I complain; the very thing which must ever—ever make me miserable.”
“Well, well, my dear,” cried Lady Cecilia, no longer capable of patience; “do not be miserable any more just now; never mind Katrine just now.”
“Never mind her! Easy for you to say, Cecilia, who do not live with Katrine Hawksby, and do not know what it is to have such a plague of a sister, watching one,—watching every turn, every look one gives—worse than a jealous husband. Can I say more?”
“No,” cried Cecilia; “therefore say no more about it. I understand it all perfectly, and I pity you from the bottom of my heart, so now, my dear Louisa——”
“I tell you, my dear Cecilia,” pursued Lady Castlefort, continuing her own thoughts, “I tell you, Katrine is envious of me. Envy has been her fault from a child. Envy of poor me! Envy, in the first place, of whatever good looks it pleased Providence to give me.” A glance at the glass.—“And now Katrine envies me for being Lady Castlefort, Heaven knows! now, Cecilia, and you know, she need not envy me so when she looks at Lord Castlefort; that is, what she sometimes says herself, which you know is very wrong of her to say to me—unnecessary too, when she knows I had no more hand in my marriage——”
“Than heart!” Cecilia could not forbear saying.