“No wonder,” sighed her mortified companion, “you have never any peace till you vex her with me in some way or other. She, so gentle—why should you provoke her to speak harshly?”
“Oh, I could not help it!” said Catharine. “I was sorry for the poor flowers—anxious that your admiring glances should not be thrown away, and—in short, the fit was upon me.”
“What a reason, Catharine, for wounding the feelings of your dearest friend, and enlisting her womanly pride against one whom you profess—nay, I will be just, whom you really like.”
Catharine looked penitent, while he continued, “If I had not made that foolish promise, she would not think me so presumptuous as she does; and but for your interference, Catharine, I might perhaps have no cause to regret it. But —”
“But remember that I am going away to-morrow, and you will then have the entire management of your love affairs in your own hands.”
“True,” said he, smiling; “and you are such a mischievous Puck, that I shall certainly mark the day of your departure with a white stone.”
“Saucy, are you, sir? Well! I shall punish you on my return. But hist! no more of Ada, for she comes this way. The traitress! she has been flirting with my husband, while I have been tormenting her lover.”
“My dear Catharine,” said Ada, advancing, “I defended you to Mr. Ingleby to the best of my abilities, but he insisted upon testing my sincerity by confronting us.”
“Mr. Ingleby is pleased to play the Othello,” returned Catharine; “I demand, therefore, that you give him up to my vengeance.” And Catharine would have taken her husband’s arm, but seeing that Ada had no mind to relinquish it, she whispered, “For shame! to bear malice so long; his eyes are not basalisks.” But Ada went on quietly talking to Ingleby’s sister, Mrs. Howard, who had joined them; and the conversation became general, and turned upon the expected departure of the newly-married pair. Not long after, they took their leave, and Ada, to atone for her unkind remarks, accepted Mr. Stanley’s arm to the carriage, and bade him a cordial good-night.
Early the next morning Catharine started on her bridal tour, to be absent the entire summer. She wished Mr. Stanley much happiness, and he, bowing with mock gravity, assured her that he looked upon her disappearance as the first step thereunto. And he was really as glad to have her gone, as he professed to be; for Catharine, with a warm heart, a generous nature, and a thousand good qualities, lacked seriousness of character—and she was too apt to lay the sacrilegious hand of mirth, upon the heart’s sacred altar, and to jest of what to Stanley seemed matters of deep and serious import.