“Oh, she would not like it, of course,” said the ladies; “but then she has lived so much in the country, and in the strictest habits of Friendism, that she cannot do otherwise; and yet all these things may be, and we firmly believe are, very innocent.” Edmund, their brother, treated Millicent’s scruples still more lightly.
“Why,” he said, “my dear young friend, you don’t pin your faith, surely, on all the old fogies stickle about. We must rub a little of this country rust off you. You don’t think we are such very wicked people, do you?”—he forgot his thee and thou in speaking of such things. “But never mind, don’t trouble your little head about these matters; all things come naturally.”
And Millicent saw every reason to regard her young friends as good and conscientious in most essential respects. They were extremely benevolent, and the sums of money which the family spent on philanthropic objects would have been the fortune of many people. They introduced her to Mrs. Fry, and accompanied her to that lady’s meetings with the prisoners in Newgate. They took her to sewing meetings, and book-meetings, and to many a poor abode that they visited with comfort and intelligence. The more she saw of them, the more her heart drew near to them in sympathy. They were what some classed as “Gay Friends,” but they were, notwithstanding their vast wealth and position, extremely unassuming and amiable. But gradually Millicent found the circle of her intercourse widening and extending into the regions beyond Quakerdom. She was invited with them not only to drive to the houses of the married brothers, where a much more affluent display of plate, wines, and men-servants was found, but to their aristocratic friends at the West-end, where the splendour and luxury astonished her. In these parties her young companions no longer retained a trace of the Quaker costume or language. She had observed that Edmund when going to business or to meeting, wore the collarless coat; but when he went out in an evening it was in the full dress of ordinary society. To avoid bringing their departures too prominently before the eyes of their parents, they generally dressed at the house of one of the married brothers, and there changed their dress on their return. Did Mr. and Mrs. Barrington know this? It was a point that Millicent could never clear up, but she rather imagined that they were willingly ignorant, deeming that a current was running in modern society, with which their children mixed, which it was useless to oppose. They were early people, too, like the past generation, and were in bed long before the young people returned from their evening parties.
By degrees the charms of this life had produced their effect on Millicent. The scenes of luxurious affluence that she witnessed; the tables loaded with silver or silver-gilt plate,—a fortune almost in itself; the elegance of the whole array of the dinner-tables, the trains of richly-liveried servants; the waiting perfect to a movement; the after drawing-room company the music, the introduction to distinguished people, the marked notice which she herself excited, were not without their effect upon a poetical and sensitive nature like that of Millicent Heritage. She seemed to live in a new world—in a fairy land—in a dream rather than a reality, and was enchanted by it, whilst she continued to ask herself whether she ought to be so.
The time fixed for her visit had expired; but it was renewed at the earnest request of her friends, both old and young. It was impossible, they said, for her to go yet, she had seen nothing of London. Her mother wrote rather anxiously, fearing that her dear Millicent was leading too gay a life, though with such good people: and yet, with a nice instinct, Millicent had not indulged in her letters home in more than a dry and matter-of-fact account of her doings. She had said that the Barringtons saw a deal of company, and that the splendour and luxury that she witnessed was truly wonderful. Her mother hoped that so much grandeur would not spoil her for her own simple, unostentatious life at home.
One day Mr. Edmund Barrington told Millicent that he had a treat for her. On the morrow Handel’s “Messiah” was to be performed, and he had taken tickets for his sisters, for her, and for himself. Millicent objected that she was sure her parents would not like her to go, and, therefore, they must please to leave her at home with Mrs. Barrington.
“What!” said Edmund, “do you object to sacred music? Can there possibly be anything wrong in listening to music so pure, so edifying, so ennobling? It was a perfect perversion of intellect to object to such a thing. She must go. He would not hear of anything else.” His sisters joined in the assertion, that it would be really high treason against virtue itself not to go. Millicent made a strong resistance, but it was a sense of duty battling with the innate tastes of her nature, and she went.
“Good and right as it is,” said Edmund Barrington, “don’t tell your mother about it. She cannot surmount her educational prejudices, and why trouble her?”
Millicent was, however, troubled. Charmed as she was by the noble music, which bore her away in a trance-like state to regions of new and lofty pleasure, she could not avoid feeling that it was wrong to conceal anything from her mother. The uneasy feeling hung about her, and came often in the midst of the pleasantest society with a painful start. But there were other influences at work, which, though she did not perceive them, were yet acting upon her. Everywhere Edmund Barrington was at hand to accompany her into society—to ride out with her. To take her to see sights in London, with one or more of his sisters. One evening he told her that he had brought her a trifling present, and put into her hand a case containing a gold bracelet with a diamond clasp of a very beautiful pattern. Millicent was dumb with amazement. Recovering a little her self-possession, she thanked him very earnestly, but said that it was impossible for her to accept it. It was of too great a value as a gift from a friend whose friendship had yet been of so short a duration. Besides, she could never wear it. To her it would be useless. To some other friend of his it might be different.
The colour rose into Mr. Barrington’s face; he looked deeply chagrined, and said, “Nonsense, Millicent! you can wear it at least here, and at home you can keep it to remind you of your friends in London.”