How did the heart of Amanda swell with pleasure at this warm eulogium on Lord Mortimer! The tear of delight, of refined affection, sprung to her eye, and could scarcely be prevented falling.
“Lord, madam,” cried Miss Kilcorban, whose pride was mortified at Amanda’s hearing of the cool reception they had met with, “I can’t conceive the reason you ascribe such rudeness and conceit to Lady Euphrasia; ’tis really quite a misconstruction of the etiquette necessary to be observed by people of rank.”
“I am glad, my dear,” replied Lady Greystock, “you are now beginning to profit by the many lessons I have given you on humility.”
“I assure you, Miss,” said Mrs. Kilcorban, “I did not forget to tell the marchioness she had a niece in the neighborhood. I thought, indeed, she seemed a little shy on the subject; so I suppose there has been a difference in the families, particularly as you don’t visit her; but, at our ball, perhaps, everything may be settled.” Amanda made no reply to this speech, and the ladies departed.
Her bosom, as may well be supposed, was agitated with the most violent perturbations on hearing of Lord Mortimer’s being in the neighborhood. The pleasure she felt at the first intelligence gradually subsided on reflecting he was an inmate, probably a friend, of those relations who had contributed to the destruction of her mother; and who, from the character she had heard of them, it was not uncharitable to think, would feel no great regret, if her children experienced a destiny equally severe. Might they not infuse some prejudices against her into his bosom; to know she was the child of the unfortunate Malvina, would be enough to provoke their enmity; or, if they were silent, might not Lady Euphrasia, adorned with every advantage of rank and fortune, have won, or at least soon win, his affections?
Yet scarcely did these ideas obtrude, ere she reproached herself for them as injurious to Lord Mortimer, from whose noble nature she thought she might believe his constancy never would be shaken, except she herself gave him reason to relinquish it.
She now cheered her desponding spirits, by recalling the ideas she had long indulged with delight, as her residence was still a secret to the Edwins, whose letters to their daughter were, by Fitzalan’s orders, constantly directed to a distant town from whence hers, in return, were sent. She concluded chance had informed Lord Mortimer of it, and flattered herself, that to avoid the suspicion which a solitary journey to Ireland might create in the mind of Lord Cherbury, he had availed himself of the Marquis’s party, and come to try whether she was unchanged, and her father would sanction their attachment, ere he avowed it to the earl.
Whilst fluctuating between hope and fear, Ellen, all pale and breathless, ran into the room, exclaiming, “He is come! he is come! Lord Mortimer is come!”
“Oh, heavens!” sighed Amanda, sinking back in her chair and dropping her trembling hands before her. Ellen, alarmed, blamed herself for her precipitation, and, flying to a cabinet snatched a bottle of lavender water from it, which she plentifully sprinkled over her, and then assisted her to a window. “I was so flurried,” cried the good-natured girl, as she saw her mistress recovering, “I did not know what I was about. Heaven knows, the sight of poor Chip himself could not have given me more pleasure. I was crossing the hall when I saw his lortship alighting; and to be sure, if one of the old warriors had stepped out of his niche—and the tefil take them all, I say, for they grin so horribly they frighten me out of my wits if I go through the hall of a dark evening—so if one of them old fellows, as I was saying, had jumped out, I could not have peen more startled, and pack I ran into the little parlor, and there I heard his lortship inquiring for my master; and to be sure the sound of his voice did my heart good, for he is an old friend, as one may say. So as soon as he went into the study, I stole up stairs; and one may guess what he and my master are talking about, I think.”
The emotion of Amanda increased. She trembled so she could not stand. She felt as if her destiny, her future happiness, depended on this minute. In vain she endeavored to regain composure. Her spirits were wound up to the highest pitch of expectation, and the agitations inseparable from such a state were not to be repressed.