“The horses are at the door!” cried Cecilia, as she entered; but “where’s Helen?”
Helen had made her escape out of the room when Lady Davenant had pronounced the words, “Set my mind at rest, Granville,” as she felt it must then be embarrassing to him to speak, and to herself to hear. Her retreat, had not, however, been effected with considerable loss, she had been compelled to leave a large piece of the crape-trimming of her gown under the foot of Lady Davenant’s inexorable chair.
“Here is something that belongs to Miss Stanley, if I mistake not,” said the general, who first spied the fragment. The aid-de-camp stooped for it—Lady Cecilia pitied it—Lady Davenant pronounced it to be Helen’s own fault—Beauclerc understood how it happened, and said nothing.
“But, Helen,” cried Lady Cecilia, as she re-appeared,—“but, Helen, are you not coming with us?”
Helen had intended to have gone in the pony-carriage with Lady Davenant, but her ladyship now declared that she had business to do at home; it was settled therefore that Helen was to be of the riding party, and that party consisted of Lady Cecilia and the general, Beauclerc and herself.
CHAPTER X.
It was a delightful day, sun shining, not too hot, air balmy, birds singing, all nature gay; and the happy influence was quickly felt by the riding party. Unpleasant thoughts of the past or future, if any such had been, were now lost in present enjoyment. The general, twice a man on horseback, as he always felt himself, managed his own and Helen’s horse to admiration, and Cecilia, riding on with Beauclerc, was well pleased to hear his first observation, that he had been quite wrong last night, in not acknowledging that Miss Stanley was beautiful. “People look so different by daylight and by candlelight,” said he; “and so different when one does not know them at all, and when one begins to know something of them.”
“But what can you know yet of Helen?”