“Really that is too bad for anything!” exclaimed Millicent, and yet could not help joining in the general merriment.
“Be sure, dear Millicent,” said her young friends, “these things do good. It is high time that Friends should see that their real strength lies in the great principles which they hold, and which have already so usefully leavened society at large, and that their little Phariseeisms are of no consequence whatever. Quakerism is like a fine statue in a public place, on which the dust and smoke have fallen. You may wipe off these sullying particles, and you only restore the statue to its true beauty. The greater minds of our society are beginning to see this, and one day there will come a grand reform amongst us.”
There were still other scenes to which these “gay young Friends,” as they were called, wished to introduce Millicent, and amongst these were the theatre, the opera, and morning and evening concerts. Against these she made a stout stand. Her parents would greatly disapprove of it, and she would not for the world grieve them. Besides, plays and operas were vain, and often wicked things: they could do her no good, and she did not wish to see them.
“But,” said they, “you, Millicent, are a poetess and a lover of knowledge. You ought to see life if you are to understand or describe it.”
“But I don’t want to describe it,” said Millicent.
“Still,” added they, “you should know it, though it were only to know it; you need not frequent such scenes again if you do not like them. Don’t you know what the Grand Duke of Weimar, the friend of Goethe, the great German poet, says? But you don’t read German. He often said to Goethe that he would wish to experience everything. He would like to go into the lower regions even for a few days, to see how they manage to make their life there tolerable under such momentous disadvantages. He remarked that we are told a great deal about the life above, and which he thought not very attractive, if it consisted almost entirely of psalm-singing and waving of palms; but he fancied that such a very miserable existence as that of the lower world must have called forth the utmost ingenuity of the human or superhuman mind, and that there must be some very curious inventions down there.”
“My curiosity,” said Millicent, “will never induce me to wish to visit those regions. I am quite willing that the Grand Duke should have the benefit of such a journey all to himself.”
But what avails a strong will, and what are good intentions, when the heart has received a treacherous bias. Millicent was every day more drawn by affection towards Edward Barrington, more deeply attached to his kind sisters, who, with all their gaiety, were full of the truest feminine feelings, and active in the best duties and philanthropies of life. In less than three weeks, which she still spent with them, she had been at the theatre, the opera, at different concerts, and at a fête champêtre given in the suburban grounds of a nobleman, where there was a splendid military band, and a concourse of company, including even persons of royal blood; and her own oriental style of beauty, which some ladies said looked more like Arabia or Circassia than England, drew much attention.
Millicent, in spite of her solemn and tearful resolves, had given her heart wholly to her indefatigable admirer, Edmund Barrington, and his sisters rejoiced in the knowledge of it. But Mrs. Barrington, who could not be blind to what was so obviously growing up, was in great trepidation and anxiety. She told both Edmund and her daughters that she understood distinctly from Mrs. Heritage that Millicent was engaged to a young physician in her own neighbourhood; and could they think it honourable, knowing that, to draw away the young girl’s affections whilst under their own roof and care?
“Dear mother!” said her daughters, “hast thou seen the portrait of this young man? We have, and Oh! such a simple, smooth-faced Simon it is! Can it be right, can it be honourable to allow a young, clever creature like Millicent to engage herself in her years of inexperienced country life, to a person far unworthy of her; and to retain such an engagement after a more extended knowledge of society, to her life-long unhappiness? No, surely it is better that it should come to a speedy end.”