"Oh, for a ride," said Mabel, "far off into the country—would it not be delightful—why do you not go?"
"The very thing," said Hargrave, "let us take the day while we have it. You will go, will you not," he said, referring the matter to Caroline.
She readily agreed, and after a short discussion about the horses, which he engaged to procure from the livery stables where his own horse was kept, she went to prepare for the ride, with her sisters, while Hargrave hurried off, full of sparkling good humour.
Mabel would willingly have joined them, but she had no riding dress, and she checked the expression of a regret, lest it might damp their pleasure, little thinking, poor girl, how little they cared for her; and though she sighed for the air of her own Cotswold hills, she took up her needle and tried to work cheerfully. But accustomed as she had been, to the bracing air of Gloucestershire, her health had begun to vary under the enervating influence of the Bath air. Added to which, she had lately endured much fatigue, varied only by the pleasures derived from the industrious workings of a happy spirit, and she now began to feel, what she had before only readily sympathized in, the seemingly causeless depression which weak health so often engenders. For this, however, she severely reproached herself, for so slow and imperceptible had become its progress, that, unconscious of bodily weakness, she attributed her mental depression to a faulty principle. And now she taxed herself, thinking she must have relaxed the reins of self-government, or she never could feel so slight a disappointment so acutely, for she felt the tears starting to her eyes, when her cousins entered, fully equipped. Caroline and Selina looked overpoweringly charming, in becoming hats of the very last fashion, and even Maria seemed determined to rival her sisters, and partly succeeded, by the air of fun and off-hand carelessness, which, as she had once explained, never left a person time to scan her features.
Presently, in Hargrave hurried, looking pleased, healthy, and doubly handsome; he could not refrain from complimenting the sisters, but he had hardly heard their smiling reply, before he perceived Mabel sitting by the window, and struggling to look indifferent.
"What!" said he, in a tone of pique, "are you not ready, Miss Lesly—was not the ride your own proposition?"
Mabel never knew how very easy it was to cry before, but with affected calmness she replied, as she tried to smile—
"I would willingly have accompanied you, but I have neither hat nor habit."
He looked at her for an instant, half angrily, but there was something so constrained in her smile, that it led him, for the first time, to observe that the color was waning on her cheek, and he looked earnestly at her as she hastily laid down her work and left the room.
"Selina," he said, gravely, for it was evident that something vexed him, "you said one day that you had two habits—cannot you lend her one?"