"That you will marry him. That would do excellently well, for he is as brave as a real Highlander, though he has the misfortune to be only half a one. His father, General Lennox, was a true Scot to the very tip of his tongue, and as proud and fiery as any chieftain need be. His death, certainly was an improvement in the family. But there is Rose Hall, with its pretty shrubberies and nice parterres, what do you say to becoming its mistress?"
"If I am to lay snares," answered Mary, laughing, "it must be for nobler objects than hedgerow elms and hillocks green."
"Oh, it must be for black crags and naked hills! Your country really does vastly well to rave about! Lofty mountains and deep glens, and blue lakes and roaring rivers, are mighty fine-sounding things; but I suspect cornfields and barnyards are quit as comfortable neighbours; so take my advice and marry Charles Lennox."
Mary only answered by singing, "My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here," etc., as the carriage drew up.
"This is the property of Mrs. Lennox," said Lady Emily, in answer to some remark of her companion's; "she is the last of some ancient stock; and you see the family taste has been treated with all due respect."
Rose Hall was indeed perfectly English: it was a description of place of which there are none in Scotland; for it wore the appearance of antiquity, without the too usual accompaniments of devastation or decay; neither did any incongruities betray vicissitude of fortune or change of owner; but the taste of the primitive possessor seemed to have been respected through ages by his descendants; and the ponds remained as round, and the hedges as square, and the grass walks as straight, as the day they had been planned. The same old-fashioned respectability was also apparent in the interior of the mansion. The broad heavy oaken staircase shone in all the lustre of bees' wax; and the spacious sitting-room into which they were ushered had its due allowance of Vandyke portraits, massive chairs, and china jars, standing much in the same positions they had been placed in a hundred years before.
To the delicate mind the unfortunate are always objects of respect. As the ancients held sacred those places which had been blasted by lightning, so the feeling heart considers the afflicted as having been touched by the hand of God Himself. Such were the sensations with which Mary found herself in the presence of the venerable Mrs. Lennox—venerable rather through affliction than age; for sorrow, more than time, had dimmed the beauty of former days, though enough still remained to excite interest and engage affection in the mournful yet gentle expression of her countenance, and the speaking silence of her darkened eyes. On hearing the names of her visitors, she arose, and, guided by a little girl, who had been sitting at her feet, advanced to meet them, and welcomed them with a kindness and simplicity of manner that reminded Mary of the home she had left and the maternal tenderness of her beloved aunt. She delivered her credentials, which Mrs. Lennox received with visible surprise; but laid the letter aside without any comments.
Lady Emily began some self-accusing apologies for the length of time that had intervened since her last visit, but Mrs Lennox gently interrupted her.
"Do not blame yourself, my dear Lady Emily," said she; "for what is so natural at your age. And do not suppose I am so unreasonable as to expect that the young and the gay should seek for pleasure in the company of an old blind Woman. At your time of life I would not have courted distress anymore than you."
"At every time of life," said Lady Emily, "I am sure you must have been a very different being from what I am, or ever shall be."