Charles made no reply, for his attention was once more engaged by the girl, who, with a flushed cheek, and all the speed she could muster, passed them at that moment, and the Judge had succeeded in diverting Lady Annette's thoughts to another channel.
"Thornley should be an able antagonist," said she, "I am told he is very clever. It was but t'other day that, in looking over one of his mother's old letters from Florence, I recollected she had mentioned his Italian tutor's predictions of the great figure he should make at Cambridge. By the way, Charles, he was your class-fellow there. How far were they fulfilled?"
"The only time ever I remember him to make a figure," answered Charles, vainly endeavoring to suppress a smile, "was, when he refused the challenge of a wild Welsh student, on whose pranks he had been rather censorious, saying a duel was contrary to his principles; and though the Welshman actually insulted him in the very streets, he preferred a formal apology to fighting."
"What a high-principled young man!" exclaimed Lady Annette and her niece in the same breath.
"Yes," said the Judge, "so much conscientiousness and moral courage is worth a world of talent."
"It must be a comfort," continued her ladyship with enthusiasm, "to Mr. Thornley, to find the pains bestowed on his son's education so well repaid. Do you know he would never allow him to enter a public school, saying, that knowledge in such places was paid for with both morals and manners; and Edmund was educated under his own eye, by some of the best scholars in Florence."
"Mr. Thornley had great discernment," remarked the Judge; "I wonder he didn't show it, more in his pecuniary affairs."
"Ah, what a falling off was there!" half sighed Lady Annette. "It vexes me to think of it, they were such old friends of ours. What a belle poor Mrs. Thornley was!—they tell me she has grown very old and dowdy now. And how he used to sport! and yet one might have known the estate would go to creditors. But his misfortunes improved him greatly, they say, turned his attention entirely to high subjects—Italian progress, and all that. Do you know, when they lived in Florence, the Austrian police had quite an eye upon him, and he was proud of that, poor man! I wish you had seen his letters."
Here her ladyship stopped short, for a figure was seen rapidly approaching, which all the party know to be that of Edmund Thornley. The gentleman whose education, character, and family history had been thus freely discussed, was a tall, well-proportioned man, with fair complexion, and curling auburn hair. There was something almost feminine about his small mouth and pearly teeth; but his full blue eyes and smooth white brow had no expression but those of health and youth, retaining the latter to an extreme degree, though he was rather advanced in the twenties. The story of his parentage and prospects, was already talked over by the Thornleys' old friends in Leveson Park. An only son, born in the ranks of English gentry, but brought up in Italy, to which pecuniary embarrassment had early obliged his father to retire, he had been educated, it was said, most carefully under the paternal roof, with all home influences around him—sent first to the University of Cambridge, and, subsequently, to the study of English law, partly by way of scope for his talents, and partly, as the best provision for the heir of a deeply-mortgaged estate.
Edmund Thornley was a young man for whom friends did every thing. His parents and tutors, in Italy, had promised and vowed great things in his name, to his relatives in England; and, though they could not believe the report, for he had, as yet, astonished neither Cambridge, nor the Temple, it was proper for them to allow there was talent in him which must come out some day, and all that interest and solicitation could do, was done with the Thornleys' old acquaintances, to secure patronage for their son. By that influence the judge had been induced to make choice of him for his marshal, as it is legal etiquette to style a sort of humble companion or assistant, on the circuit. Hitherto, he had filled the post to his superior's entire satisfaction; but Naresby, who specially understood the art of making his dependents useful, had that day left him some letters to write previous to joining Lady Annette's party.