“It is of little consequence whether I do or no,” answered Clara.
“You mistake the matter,” said Mowbray, gravely; “it may be of considerable consequence.”
“Indeed!” said Clara, with a smile; “I must suppose myself, then, too important a person not to make my approbation necessary to one of your first-rates? He cannot pretend to pass muster at St. Ronan's without it?—Well, I will depute my authority to Lady Binks, and she shall pass your new recruits instead of me.”
“This is all nonsense, Clara,” said Mowbray. “Lord Etherington calls here this very morning, and wishes to be made known to you. I expect you will receive him as a particular friend of mine.”
“With all my heart—so you will engage, after this visit, to keep him down with your other particular friends at the Well—you know it is a bargain that you bring neither buck nor pointer into my parlour—the one worries my cat, and the other my temper.”
“You mistake me entirely, Clara—this is a very different visitor from any I have ever introduced to you—I expect to see him often here, and I hope you and he will be better friends than you think of. I have more reasons for wishing this, than I have now time to tell you.”
Clara remained silent for an instant, then looked at her brother with an anxious and scrutinizing glance, as if she wished to penetrate into his inmost purpose.
“If I thought,”—she said, after a minute's consideration, and with an altered and disturbed tone; “but no—I will not think that Heaven intends me such a blow—least of all, that it should come from your hands.” She walked hastily to the window, and threw it open—then shut it again, and returned to her seat, saying, with a constrained smile, “May Heaven forgive you, brother, but you frightened me heartily.”
“I did not mean to do so, Clara,” said Mowbray, who saw the necessity of soothing her; “I only alluded in joke to those chances that are never out of other girls' heads, though you never seem to calculate on them.”
“I wish you, my dear John,” said Clara, struggling to regain entire composure, “I wish you would profit by my example, and give up the science of chance also—it will not avail you.”