She thought she was original, perhaps, in her remarks; she thought also possibly—and this thought chanced to be perfectly true—that Alick Dudley delighted in her observations; and yet her talk was but as the talk of other girls of her own age and temperament throughout the length and breadth of England.
It was the nought is everything and everything is nought creed of our own girls at the present hour; of those who, whether they take refuge from their own luxuriously sad thoughts in earnestness or frivolity, in balls or soup-kitchens, in fashionable follies or house-to-house visitings, are yet agreed on one point, viz., their conviction that the round world and all that therein is cannot be considered otherwise than hollow and unsatisfactory.
They believe fully, not only that it is all a fleeting show, but that it was “for man’s illusion given,” and they smile compassionately on the poor souls who are deluded with such a transparent mockery, and go about raving in a fine melancholy about the sins and sorrows, the snares and the pitfalls, of our very imperfect earth.
Did the girls who read Evelina and Cecilia share this doctrine, or were they, less sceptical, gulled, sweet simpletons, into believing the Almighty intended them for happiness instead of misery?
It would have been a clever person who could have persuaded Bessie Ormson into such a faith, at all events; and as, for most young people, talk of the kind to which I have referred—melancholy, dreamy, romantic, unsatisfying talk—has a singular charm, she might, with her conversation, have done Alick Dudley a considerable amount of mischief, had it not been for a little circumstance that occurred on the very same Sunday afternoon of which I am speaking, and set the lad thinking about a much more possible calamity than had been contained in any of Bessie’s imaginative sentences.
On, over the fields they walked; they left the Kemm and Mr. Raidsford’s property far behind; they strolled leisurely through the pleasant Hertfordshire meadows, and stood here and there to watch the sheep scuttling away from them, or to notice the placid contentment of the cattle lying on the smooth grass whence the hay had just been carried.
On, past cottage and homestead; on, to where more woods met their sight; on, through the little hamlet of North Kemms, and then by a short lane to the church surrounded by a graveyard, where the mounds were many, and the headstones few.
The service was half over by the time they stood within the porch, but the sexton experienced no difficulty in providing the new comers with seats. There were more empty than full in that church, so he ushered the pair into a great family pew near the pulpit, and shut the door carefully after them.
Only to open it, however, again next instant, and give admittance to a tall handsome man, who might have belonged to the same party, so quickly did he follow on their heels.
A very handsome man—when the stranger took his face out of his hat, where he held it for the orthodox period; Alick Dudley was quite satisfied on this point, and glanced curiously round to ascertain whether Bessie chanced to be of the same opinion; but Bessie’s eyes were fastened on her prayer-book, and so Alick turned again to the new comer to discover what effect Bessie had produced on him.