Between music, work, and conversation, the evening passed away cheerfully; nor did Laura mark its flight till the great house clock struck nine. The conversation suddenly paused; Harriet laid aside her work; Mrs De Courcy's countenance assumed a pleasing seriousness; and Montague, quitting his place by Laura's side, seated himself in a patriarchal-looking chair at the upper end of the room. Presently John entered, followed by all the domestics of the family. He placed before his master a reading desk and a large bible, and then sat down at a distance with his fellow servants.
With a manner serious and earnest, as one impressed with a just sense of their importance, Montague read a portion of the Holy Scriptures. He closed the volume; and all present sunk upon their knees. In plain but solemn language, he offered a petition in the name of all, that all might be endowed with the graces of the Christian spirit. In the name of all he confessed that they were unworthy of the blessings they implored. In the name of all, he gave thanks for the means of improvement, and for the hopes of glory. He next, more particularly, besought a blessing on the circumstances of their several conditions. Among the joyous faces of this happy household, Laura had observed one alone clouded with sorrow. It was that of a young modest-looking girl in deep mourning, whose audible sobs attested that she was the subject of a prayer which commended an orphan to the Father of the fatherless. The worship was closed; the servants withdrew. A silence of a few moments ensued; and Laura could not help gazing with delight, not unmingled with awe, on the traces of serene benevolence and manly piety, which lingered on the countenance of De Courcy.
'Happy Harriet,' said she, when she was alone with her friend, 'Would that I had been your sister!' Harriet laughed. 'You need not laugh, my dear,' continued Laura, with most unembarrassed simplicity, 'I did not mean your brother's wife, but his sister, and Mrs De Courcy's daughter.'
Though Miss De Courcy was much less in Montague's confidence than her mother, she was not ignorant of his preference for Laura; but Mrs De Courcy had so strongly cautioned her against even hinting this preference to the object of it, that, though she but half guessed the reasons of her mother's injunction, she was afraid to disobey. That Laura was even acquainted with Hargrave was unknown to Harriet; for De Courcy was almost as tenacious of Laura's secret as she herself was, and would as soon have thought of giving up his own heart to the frolics of a kitten, as of exposing that of Laura to the badinage of his sister. This kind precaution left Laura perfectly at her ease with Harriet, an ease which would quickly have vanished, had she known her to be acquainted with her humiliating story.
The young ladies had rambled over half the grounds of Norwood before the family had assembled at a cheerful breakfast; and as soon as it was ended, Harriet proposed that Laura should assist her with her advice in composing a water-colour drawing from one of her own pictures. 'We'll leave Lady Pelham and my mother in possession of the drawing-room,' said she, 'for the pictures all hang in the library. I wanted them put up in the sitting-room, but Montague would have them where they are—and so he carried his point, for mamma humours him in everything.' 'Perhaps,' returned Laura, 'Mrs De Courcy thinks that he has some right to dictate in his own house.' 'Well, that's true,' cried Harriet. 'I protest I had forgotten that this house was not my mother's.'
The picture which Miss De Courcy had fixed upon, was that of Leonidas, and Laura would far rather have been excused from interference; yet, as she could not with propriety escape, nothing remained but to summon her composure, and to study anew this resemblance of her unworthy lover. She took her work, and began quietly to superintend Harriet's progress. Their employments did not interrupt conversation; and though Laura's was at first a little embarrassed, she soon recovered her ease. 'Do touch the outline of the mouth for me,' said Harriet; 'I can't hit the resemblance at all.' Laura excused herself, saying, that since her fever, her hand had been unsteady. 'Oh, here's Montague; he'll do it. Come hither Montague, and sketch a much prettier mouth than your own.' De Courcy, who had approached his sister before he understood her request, shrunk back. She could scarcely have proposed an employment less agreeable to him; and he was hastily going to refuse it, when, happening to meet the eye of Laura, in the dread that she should detect his consciousness, he snatched the pencil and began.
Harriet having thus transferred her work, quickly found out other occupation. 'Oh, by the by, my dear,' said she to Laura, 'your Leonidas is the greatest likeness in the world of my old beau, Colonel Hargrave. Bless me, how she blushes! Ah! I see Hargrave has not been so long in Scotland for nothing!' 'Take away that thing, Harriet,' cried De Courcy, quite thrown off his guard, and pushing the drawing from him. 'I see no reason why everybody should do for you what you ought to be doing for yourself.' 'Hey-day, what ails the man,' cried Harriet, looking after her brother to the window, whither he had retreated. 'You need not be so angry at me for making Laura blush. I dare say she likes it; it becomes her so well.' 'If you are accustomed to say such strange things to your friends, my dear Harriet,' said Laura, 'the blushes you raise will not always have that advantage. The colourings of anger are not generally becoming.' 'So, with that meek face of yours, you would have me believe that it is downright rage that has made you all scarlet. No, no, my dear—there is rage, and there is the colour of it, too, (pointing to Montague's face); and if you'll put your two heads together before the glass, you will see whether the colours are a bit alike!' Montague, recovering his temper, tried to laugh, and succeeded very ill. 'I don't wonder you laugh,' said Laura, not venturing to look round to him, 'at hearing Harriet, on such slender grounds, exalt such a matter-of-fact person as myself, into the heroine of a romance. But, to spare your imagination, Harriet, I will tell you, that your old beau, as you call him, being the handsomest man I had seen, I saw no harm in making use of his beauty in my picture.' 'Well, I protest,' cried Harriet, 'it was quite by accident I thought of mentioning it, for I had not the least idea that ever you had seen Hargrave.' 'And, now that you have made that mighty discovery,' said De Courcy, endeavouring to appear unconcerned, 'I suppose you'll poison Miss Montreville; for you know you were so in love with Hargrave, that I was obliged to put a rail round the fish-pond to prevent felo de se.' 'In love,' said Harriet, yawning, 'ay, so I was indeed, for three whole days when I had nothing else to do. But only think of the sly girl never even to name him to me! Well! well! I shall worm it all out of her when we are by ourselves, though she won't blab before you.' 'I will give you an opportunity this moment,' said De Courcy, who, quite unable to bear the subject any longer, determined to make his mother interrupt it, and immediately went in search of her. In a few minutes Mrs De Courcy appeared, and dismissed her unwilling daughter to escort Lady Pelham to the flower-garden, while Laura preferred remaining at home.
At the next opportunity, Harriet executed her threat, in so far as depended upon her. She did what she could to rally Laura out of her secret, but she totally failed of success. Laura, now upon her guard, not only evaded making any discovery, but, by the easy indifference of her answers, convinced Harriet that there was nothing to discover. Indeed, her suspicion was merely a transient thought, arising from Laura's confusion at her sudden attack, and scarcely outlived the moment that gave it birth; though the emotion which Montague had shewn, confirmed his sister in the belief of his attachment to Laura.
The subject thus entirely dropped which Laura could never approach without pain, the time of her visit to Norwood glided away in peace and comfort, every day lessening the dejection which she had believed, nay almost wished, would follow her to the grave. Still, however, the traces of it were sufficiently visible to the observant eye of love; and Montague found in it an interest not to be awakened by the brightest flashes of gaiety. 'There is a charm inexpressible in her sadness,' said he to Mrs De Courcy. 'I think,' said Mrs De Courcy, 'I can observe that that charm is decaying. I think, if it should entirely disappear before your fates are more closely united, you need not lament its departure. These cypresses look graceful bending over the urn there in the vista, but I should not like them to darken the sitting-room.'
The only habit, common to love-lorn damsels, in which Laura indulged, was that of preferring solitary rambles; a habit, however, which had been imbibed long before she had any title to that character. Delighted with the environs of Norwood, she sometimes wandered beyond the dressed ground into the park, where art still embellished without restraining nature. The park might, indeed, have better deserved the name of an ornamented farm; for the lawns were here and there diversified by cornfields, and enlivened by the habitations of the labourers necessary to the agriculturist. These cottages, banished by fashion far from every lordly residence, were contrived so as to unite beauty with usefulness; they gave added interest to the landscape even to the eye of a stranger, but far more to that of De Courcy, for he knew that every one of them contained useful hands or graceful hearts; youth for whom he provided employment, or age whose past services he repaid. Here the blue smoke curled from amidst the thicket; there the white wall enlivened the meadow; here the casement flashed bright with the setting sun; there the woodbine and the creeping rose softened the colouring that would have glared on the eye.