"Did I not warn you, dear Janet," said her friend, laughingly, "that you were affixing too much importance to a trifle? You should not expect an admirer to fulfil all the promises of a valentine; you might as reasonably expect a member of Parliament to fulfil the promises that he had made during his canvass."
Janet, however, would not allow her faith in valentines to be weakened; she put her own construction on the coolness of Heathcote, and a very painful construction it was. She thought that although for a time his approbation of her mind and manners had overcome his distaste to her personal appearance, the latter feeling was gaining ground upon him, and that he was unable to love her, and ashamed to introduce her to the world as the object of his choice. "I will give him back his faith," thought poor Janet, little surmising how she would be wondered at in society for talking of giving back the faith of a valentine. Before Janet could give Heathcote back his faith, he was summoned into Shropshire, to see a married sister who was believed to be dying; and Janet, instead of pondering over the uncertainty of her own love-affair, had a different subject for her attention, in watching the progress of a far more fortunate wooing. Captain Warrington, by Philippa's permission, had spoken to Mr. Chetwode touching his affection for his beautiful ward; and Mr. Chetwode, after a slight show of reluctance, and an ineffectual attempt to induce the young people to consent to a twelvemonth's engagement, had suffered himself to be persuaded into a promise that he would give the bride away whenever she chose to call upon him to do so.
Mr. Chetwode was a very reasonable guardian; he did not insist on sacrificing his ward to a citizen whose money-bags outweighed his own; or to a patrician, whose "face, like his family, was wonderfully old."
All went on smoothly and satisfactorily; the lawyers were busy with the settlements, and Philippa busy with the choice of her wedding-dresses. But Janet was not without a little gleam of comfort on her own account.
Heathcote had written to Mr. Chetwode. "My sister," he wrote, "I am most thankful to say, is almost convalescent, and in a little while I shall venture to tell her of an important step in life that I contemplate taking. I shall then fly back on the wings of impatience to London, and need scarcely say that my first visit will be to your house."
Mr. Chetwode read aloud Heathcote's letter at the breakfast-table, but made no comment on the sentence in question. Janet placed her own construction on it; she thought that Heathcote, unlike men in general, was a much more ardent lover when absent than when present, because he did justice to the qualities of her mind, but disliked her personal appearance. Moore says of the heroine of one of his sweet melodies—
"She looked in the glass, which a woman ne'er misses,
Nor ever wants time for a sly glance or two."
But Janet "looked in the glass" not with any pleasurable sensations; she came to the conclusion that she grew plainer every day, and she anticipated Heathcote's return with as much fear as hope. One morning Janet was sitting alone in the drawing-room, and felt remarkably nervous and depressed. "Are there such things as presentiments of evil?" she thought; but her previous anticipations were changed into joyous realities when Heathcote was announced. She started up to greet him, but appearing not to notice her outstretched hand, he threw himself into a chair: she thought him very much out of spirits; an indifferent person would have thought him very much out of temper.
"Your sister, I trust, is not worse," said Janet, timidly.