"Oh, true, quite true, Lady Aylesbury, I had nearly forgotten it quite; but for the verity of your remark, your spouse, as well as my own, can fully attest, as both are placed in the same state of periclitation!"
Lady Aylesbury looked extremely awkward and mortified at this just rebuke; she bit her nether lip, and hung down her silly head, writhing under the deserved lash which her malicious remark had provoked.
Sir David Bruce, who happened to be at the other end of the room, and seated next to Lady Adelaide, said to her in an under tone, "Lady Aylesbury is so spiteful and malicious, that I am certain she must be nearly related to Euryale, one of the Gorgons, own-sister to Medusa, who was subject neither to old age nor death!"
"It would indeed appear so, Sir David," said Lady Adelaide, with a sportive smile.
The Duke of d'Aremberg at this moment entered the room, who was introduced in due form to Sir David Bruce; they conversed together, and seemed mutually pleased with each other.
The Duke d'Aremberg now approached the Duchess of Tyrconnel: "Pray, has your Grace read the last essay from the pen of——, and what does your Grace think of its merits?"
"As I do, my Lord Duke, of all his writings, which are only calculated to produce mischief, deep, dark, and dangerous; every parent should dread him and his insidious pen—he is the high-priest of infidelity!"
"I knew and anticipated this, for I am always certain to obtain a satisfactory and a decided opinion from your Grace, whose just judgment I can so fully rely upon."
When this praise, so deservedly awarded to the duchess, met the ear of Lady Aylesbury, with a malicious smile she turned her malignant, envious eye on the duchess, to observe if her Grace was elated by this praise: but she looked in vain. But these looks passed not unobserved by the duchess, who deeply blushed, conscious of the mal-motives which directed them; and conscious too that she every way merited the praise which was so justly bestowed: she felt pleased, but not elated; she felt conscious of the talent she possessed, but both her judgment and her modesty prevented her overrating them.
The dinner passed over pleasantly enough, and the gentlemen not tarrying long over their glass, soon joined the ladies in the drawing-room. Lady Adelaide was solicited to play and sing, and complied by seating herself at the harpsichord, supported on the one side by the Duke d'Aremberg, and on the other by Sir David Bruce, who was most attentive in turning over the leaves of the music book, and he seemed quite charmed and entranced with Lady Adelaide's singing. Indeed it was not difficult to a bye-stander to discover that this day the Lady Adelaide had achieved a double conquest, and that she held captive the hearts of the duke and the baronet.