Amanda could not refrain smiling; but disengaging herself from the good woman, she arose, and going to the servant, desired him to tell his lord, she thanked him for his polite attention; but that in future it would not be in her power to go to the library. When she returned to the room, the nurse bitterly lamented her not writing. “Great matters,” she said, “had often arisen from small beginnings.” She could not conceive why his lortship should be treated in such a manner: it was not the way she had ever served her Edwin. Lort, she remembered if she got but the scrawl of a pen from him, she used to sit up to answer it. Amanda tried to persuade her it was neither necessary or proper for her to write. An hour passed in arguments between them, when two servants came from Tudor Hall to the cottage with a small bookcase, which they sent in to Amanda, and their lord’s compliments, that in a few minutes he would have the honor of paying his respects to her.
Amanda felt agitated by this message; but it was the agitation of involuntary pleasure. Her room was always perfectly neat, yet did the nurse and her two daughters now busy themselves with trying, if possible, to put it into nicer order: the garden was ransacked for the choicest flowers to ornament it; nor would they depart till they saw Lord Mortimer approaching. Amanda, who had opened the bookcase, then snatched up a book, to avoid the appearance of sitting in expectation of his coming.
He entered with an air at once easy and respectful, and taking her hand, besought forgiveness for his intrusion the preceding day. Amanda blushed, and faltered out something of the confusion she had experienced from being so surprised; he reseated her, and drawing a chair close to hers, said he had taken the liberty of sending her a few books to amuse her, till she again condescended to visit the library, which he entreated her to do; promising that, if she pleased, both it and the music-room should be sacred to her alone. She thanked him for his politeness; but declared she must be excused from going. Lord Mortimer regarded her with a degree of tender admiration; an admiration heightened by the contrast he drew in his mind between her and the generality of fashionable women he had seen, whom he often secretly censured for sacrificing too largely at the shrine of art and fashion. The pale and varied blush which mantled the cheek of Amanda at once announced itself to be an involuntary suffusion; and her dress was only remarkable for its simplicity; she wore a plain robe of dimity, and an abbey cap of thin muslin, that shaded, without concealing, her face, and gave to it the soft expression of a Madonna; her beautiful hair fell in long ringlets down her back, and curled upon her forehead.
“Good heaven!” cried Mortimer, “how has your idea dwelt upon my mind since last night: if in the morning I was charmed, in the evening I was enraptured. Your looks, your attitude, were then beyond all that imagination could conceive of loveliness and grace; you appeared as a being on another world mourning over a kindred spirit. I felt
“Awe-struck, and as I passed, I worshipped.”
Confused by the energy of his words, and the ardent glances he directed towards her, Amanda, scarcely knowing what she did, turned over the leaves of the book she still held in her hand; in doing so, she saw written on the title-page, the Earl of Cherbury. “Cherbury?” repeated she, in astonishment.
“Do you know him?” asked Lord Mortimer.
“Not personally; but I revere, I esteem him; he is one of the best, the truest friends, my father ever had.”
“Oh, how happy,” exclaimed Lord Mortimer, “would his son be, were he capable of inspiring you with such sentiments as you avow for him.”
“His son!” repeated Amanda, in a tone of surprise, and looking at Lord Mortimer.