"'——she, pleased, resigned
To tender feelings all her lovely mind.'
"Next day, William sent to his brother a plain unvarnished statement of all that had happened, expressed in a fair manly style—asking for nothing, apologizing for nothing, and conceding nothing; and, after having discharged this act of fraternal duty, he came and met me early in the afternoon in the town here, for the purpose of bringing me back with him to Sanditofts. It was the market day, and, wherever he went, his old friends gathered in congratulating groups around him; for he was a universal favourite. On our proposing to leave them, they absolutely laid violent hands on us; and so having sent off a card to apologize, and bring Mr Constant to meet us, we sat down along with them to their usual dinner in this same room. I could easily see that poor William would rather have been at Sanditofts, where his heart was; but, making a virtue of necessity, he exerted himself to please, and was successful. His affair with Sir Charles was brought on, or rather it insensibly stole upon the carpet. One person accidentally made a very distant allusion to it; a second reproved him for so doing; a third, a fourth, a fifth made observations, pointing, though from afar, to what had happened. Pleased and amused at the delicacy which was so visibly restraining the general feeling, William threw open the subject at once, by giving a modest statement of the whole affair. He added—'I would have done as much for any other young woman under the like circumstances; and what could I have done less for her who has been for long the object of my fondest love—a love now sanctioned by her father!'
"The importance of this disclosure, and the deep pathos of his voice, produced an instant silence, which was first broken by Mr Macquil, the lawyer, who gave his opinion as to the legal bearings of the case. He assured us that Sir Charles had no ground for an action whatsoever, having been guilty of accosting rudely, and with evil intent, a lone woman—the most sacred of all objects in the eye of the law.
"'I remember a case,' said he, 'in which a rude person having merely used, in female society, some expressions not suitable for a female ear, a young officer of the army present, seized upon and twisted his nose. Upon which an action was raised against the officer; and, the case having come before the fifteen, sixpence of damages only was awarded, with no expenses at all.'
"Thus did the evening pass on, none of us apprehending that it was to have such a woful termination. As the party separated, each, as he retired, came and grasped William by the hand, testifying the highest approbation of the part which he had acted, in simple warm-hearted language. In these feelings, all the great proprietors around participated. They are strictly moral, the real gentry, and they have noble hearts. They detested Sir Charles for his dissolute life; and they suspected him of being, what he afterwards really proved to be, a ruined profligate, flying from English creditors to this side of the Border.
"All those members of the company whose homes were at any distance had now retired; and the party had become such a one as we have at present. The fine spirits which William had maintained throughout the evening, had vanished; his attitude, and the expression of his countenance, had become thoughtful and strangely sad; and I thought he looked fearfully like his brother Edward. At length he started up from his reverie; and I, approaching him, looked anxiously into his countenance, and asked him how he did. He assured me that he had never been better in his life—that he had never enjoyed so much of the best happiness which can irradiate the heart. 'But,' said he, 'my quarrel with my brother hurts me. I never loved him so much in my life as when that spark of his old fire, which my rude grasp struck out of him, made him look so like what he was in other days. And, Mary—to think of her having at length given up her opposition to my wishes, in such a manner! Altogether, it is too much for me; and I have been silly enough to allow shadowy imaginations of evils, which may affect my relations with her and my poor brother, and mar the happiness of us all, to disturb my ruminations. That is the fact; and I apprehend that you, regarding my foolish features with friendly anxiety, have been speculating thereon.'
"This explanation, which agreed well with what I knew of the character of his mind, in which there was not a little of an undue ascendency of the imagination, seemed to me quite satisfactory; and I said to him—'Everything is to go right; you and your brother will soon be reconciled.'
"'I am not entirely dependent on my brother,' said he; 'as I shall show you all to-night, when we talk seriously over certain arrangements.'
"'Where are you going just now?' said I to him, as he was moving toward the door.
"'Merely to have a look at the evening,' said he—'I will be back to you in five seconds.'