The table broke up; Mr. Gresham rubbed his hands self complacently, and moving briskly towards a window, said, "Somebody mentioned a star just now, which reminds me to look for some friendly ray to guide me home."
Mr. Hartland, who was equally interested in the light of the firmament, followed slowly, and was the first to exclaim, "How dark it is!"
"It is indeed," answered Miss Ferret. "Look out, Sir Roger, it is black as soot. I think you will have to answer to Mrs. Gresham for her husband's life if you let him go home to-night."
Sir Roger was in the highest state of good humour, and seizing directly on the hospitable hint, declared that neither of his guests should "stir a foot." Lady Goodman, ever ready to second a kind feeling, praised the merits of a well-aired bed to each of the gentlemen. Miss Ferret knew that Mr. Gresham would refuse to stay, which he did, alleging that Mrs. Gresham would be uneasy were he not to return, and she wished, as well as thought, that Mr. Hartland would remain if invited; in which speculation, accordingly, she was also right, and seeing him hesitate, she ran towards the bell, saying, "I assure you it would be folly to attempt riding home; there is no necessity at least for Mr. Hartland to break his neck."
"No," said Sir Roger, laughing heartily; "though Hartland lives at Henbury, there is no henpecker there yet."
This sally was met by Miss Ferret with "Excellent, upon my honour! Lady Goodman, is'nt that the best thing you ever heard? Well," added our voluble go-between, "I thought that this would be the end of it, when you gentlemen wedged yourselves into that far window before dinner, and prosed about new moons, full moons, and harvest moons, till you wearied the moon to sleep, and now you are left without any lamp in the sky."
To be brief, Mr. Hartland was easily prevailed upon. Mr. Gresham took his departure, and the circle at Colbrook, after partaking of a comfortable old fashioned supper, retired to their apartments. If all secrets must be discovered when we set about telling a story, we must reveal the fact that two of the party passed a restless night. How it happened may be thus accounted for.
Whatever may be thought, and however unnatural it may seem, that a man of forty-two should be visited by those agitations which the young imagine to belong exclusively to their fresh sensibilities, and the hacknied do not believe in at all, it will not appear incredible to those who are accustomed to look into the human heart with a philosophic eye, if we assert that Mr. Hartland's spirits were thrown into considerable flutter by the events of the past day.
Since his accession to an unexpected fortune he had heard many hints thrown out, both at home and abroad, upon the propriety of his "settling in life;" and any thing often repeated will produce impression. How much more then a matter of such importance as matrimony! His old nurse used now to shake her head and say, "Ah! Sir, since my poor Missess is gone you looks quite lonesome." The tenants who came to visit their new landlord, as they drank his health, always tacked a good wife as the climax of their wishes for his prosperity; and he was assailed by all the old women of the parish, gentle and simple, with some allusion to his single state. The words old bachelor began to fret and gall him in a manner entirely unwonted. It was no wonder then, perhaps, that with a mind thus pre-disposed, the machinations of Miss Ferrett found the soil prepared and ready to aid their purpose. Several circumstances of the evening rose in a sort of pleasing phantasmagoria on Mr. Hartland's recollection. He thought Miss Robinson very agreeable and genteel, neither too young nor too old, lively without being all on wires, like Miss Ferrett, quiet without being dull like some of the young ladies whom he had seen in the neighbourhood. As he continued to commune with his pillow, several obliging sentiments expressed towards him by Miss Robinson recurred to memory, and just as he at length fell off in a doze, the faint reminiscence of something concerning the funds glided in shadowy vision across his brain.
Miss Robinson had waking dreams the while of Mr. Hartland. She was five and thirty; he was of suitable age; she had five thousand pounds; a small provision to live upon in the decline of one's days, yet a snug little dower too, if well bestowed and carefully settled. Mr. Hartland's complexion was fine, his teeth superb, and his general air that of a very comely person. Altogether, Miss Robinson thought that she had not seen for a long time any one more amiable in appearance. Then he lost his money with such a good grace as promised well for domestic concord, and as she fell asleep the last words which she remembered were those of the not too refined Miss Ferret, when she wished good-night at her chamber-door. "Take him, my dear, if you can catch him; depend upon it you may go farther and fare worse."