There is so much importance attached to a warm welcome, by those not well initiated in the careless frigidities of general society, that the very sensitive and inexperienced are often more chilled by any such accidental or habitual infringements on this score, than the occasion really requires.
We grow wiser or harder as we pass farther through the world, and learn to look upon it no longer as one large home of loving hearts, such as some may have accounted it; but a stage on which every man is too intent to play his own individual part, to have much respect for these minor charities of social life—the word, the look of kindness, of affection which to the sensitive and unworldly spirit are often of higher price—contribute more to make up the sum of mortal happiness, than the most generous deed, or striking act of beneficence. We grow as we have before said, wiser or more callous, as we pass on through this world of our's—learn to see upon what principle society is founded, and cease to shrink chilled, and wounded, before each touch which falls coldly upon the warm surface of our too exigente heart—each unsympathetic glance which meets our wistful gaze.
Mary Seaham sat down by her window, which commanded a view of the carriage road, through the park, to watch for the return of her cousin's wife.
The evening was lovely, and she could not feel astonished that Mrs. de Burgh should have prolonged her drive. A cool freshness had succeeded the sultriness of the day, and she had perhaps not gone out till late.
The scene too on which Mary looked was pleasant and refreshing to the eye. The wide park with its troop of spotted deer, herding for the night beneath the luxuriant foliage of the trees, which in rich clumps or single majesty were scattered thickly over the demesne, gilded by the still bright but softened sunbeams.
But Mary Seaham was not quite able to enter into the enjoyment, which at any other time would have been amply afforded her.
She raised her eyes and began to feel a regretful longing for the sun-gilt or cloud capped mountains, which for so long had met her gaze, towering above the highest tree-tops of the Glan Pennant gardens—and then a sense of strangeness and desolation came creeping over her feelings.
For the first time she seemed to realize the true nature of her present position—and the sight of some labourers, wending their way across the by-paths from their daily toil, tended to bring her gathering sadness to a crisis.
"They are going home," she murmured, and a few tears stole gently down her cheeks. Then she thought of her sisters—the youngest, in particular, as most lately and intimately associated with her in sympathy and companionship, now so far divided, not only by distance, but by the different ties and interests of her new estate; and then occurred to her the words she had so lately heard.
"Do you think you will find your cousin's house agreeable to you?" and she began to ask herself that question too, though not for the same reason, which had suggested the question to Mr. Temple—not lest it might prove too gay and worldly for her tastes and inclination, but by reason of the loneliness she might therein experience—that worst of loneliness—the loneliness of the heart, or,—