"The wretch has got a young wife, too," she exclaimed, as a piano and harp came to view, and then she added, rising, "this will never do; they must be put down at once; they are strangers in the neighborhood, we are well known. Sit down at that desk, my dear girl, and help me to make out a list of all the persons we can invite to a ball and evening party. I look upon them as impertinent interlopers, and they must be crushed."
I laughingly acquiesced, and aided by her, soon wrote out a list of invitations to be given.
"But now," said Miss Walker, after a few moments of deep reflection, "one name more must be added, they must be invited."
"Who?" exclaimed I, in a tone of genuine surprise.
"Mr. and Mrs. Edward Radstock," replied Maria, triumphantly, while I could scarcely speak from astonishment.
The rest of my narrative I collected from the lips of my friend, a little more than a year later.
The ball took place to the admiration of all C——. It was a splendid affair: a select band came down from London, in which two foreigners, with dreadfully un-euphonic names, played upon two unknown instruments, that deafened nearly every sensitive person in the room, and would have driven every body away, had not they been removed into the drawing-room balcony; then there was a noble Italian, reduced to a tenor-singer, who astonished the company, equally by the extraordinary number of strange songs that he sang, and the number of ices and jellies which he ate; then there were one or two literary men, who wrote anonymously, but might have been celebrated, only they scorned to put their names forward among the common herd, the οἱ πολλοί already known to the public; there was a young poet too, who thought Alfred Tennyson infinitely superior to Shakspeare, and by the air with which he read a poem, seemed to insinuate that he himself was greater than either; and then there was a funny gentleman, who could imitate Henry Russell, John Parry, Buckstone, or any body, only he had a cold and could not get beyond a negro recitation, which might have been Chinese poetry for all the company understood of it. In fact it was the greatest affair of the kind which C—— had seen for many a long day. Mr. and Miss Radstock came, and were received with cold politeness by both father and daughter. The young man was good-looking, with an intelligent eye, a pleasing address, and none of that pertness of manner which usually belongs to those who have just thrown off the medical student to become the doctor. Miss Radstock, his sister, who kept house for him, until he found a wife, was a charming girl of about twenty. She smiled at the manner of both Mr. and Miss Walker, but said nothing. Young Radstock's only revenge for the lady of the house's coldness and stateliness of tone, was asking her to dance at the first opportunity, which certainly was vexatious, for his tone was so pleasing, his manner so courteous, that my friend Maria could not but feel pleased—when she wanted to be irate, distant, and haughty.
They danced together several times, and to the astonishment of many friends of the young lady, of myself in particular, they went down to supper the best friends in the world, laughing and joking like old acquaintances.
Next day, however, she resumed her original coldness of manner when the brother and sister called to pay their respects. She was simply polite, and no more, and after two or three words they retired, Emily Radstock becoming as stiff and formal as her new acquaintance. From that day Maria became very miserable. She was not avaricious, and did not fear her father losing his practice from any pecuniary motives, but it was pride that influenced her. Her father had for some years monopolized the parish, as his predecessor had for forty years before him; and now to behold a young unfledged physician setting up exactly opposite, and threatening to divide in time the business of the town, was dreadful. The physician of the town, sounded better, too, than one of the doctors, and altogether it was a most unpleasant affair.
Maria's place was now always the bow-window. She had no amusement but to watch the opposite house, to see if patients came, or if Edward Radstock made any attempt to call about and introduce himself. But for some time she had the satisfaction of remarking, that not a soul called at the house, save the butcher, the baker, and other contributors to the interior comforts of man, and Maria began to feel the hope that Edward Radstock would totally fail in his endeavors to introduce himself. She remarked, however, that the young man took it very quietly; he sat by his sister's side while she played the piano, or with a book and a cigar at the open window, or took Emily a drive in his gig; always, when he remarked Maria at the open window, bowing with provoking courtesy, nothing daunted by her coldness of manner, or her pretense of not noticing his politeness.