ly
cousins, and cousins are as brothers and sisters in the affectionate
House of Vipont; and gossips talk, and young ladies envy--finest match
in all England is the pretty-faced Lord of Montfort! And your mother,
who had said, 'Wait a year' to Guy Darrell, must have dreamed of the
cousin, and schemed for his coronet, when she said it. And I was unseen,
and I must not write; and the absent are always in the wrong--when
cousins are present! And I hear your mother speak of me--hear the soft
sound of her damaging praises. 'Another long speech from your clever
admirer! Don't fancy he frets; that kind of man thinks of nothing but
blue-books and politics.' And your cousin proposes, and you say with a
sigh, 'No; I am bound to Guy Darrell'; and your mother says to my Lord,
'Wait, and still come--as a cousin!' And then, day by day, the sweet
Mrs. Lyndsay drops into your ear the hints that shall poison your heart.
Some fable is dressed to malign me; and you cry, ''Tis not true; prove
it true, or I still keep my faith to Guy Darrell.' Then comes the kind
compact--'If the story be false, my cousin must go.' 'And if it be true,
you will be my own duteous child. Alas! your poor cousin is breaking his
heart. A lawyer of forty has a heart made of parchment!' Aha! you were
entangled, and of course deceived! Your letter did not explain what was
the tale told to you. I care not a rush what it was. It is enough for me
to know that, if you had loved me, you would have loved me the more for
every tale that belied me. So the tale was credited, because a relief to
credit it. So the compact was kept--so the whole bargain hurried over
in elegant privacy-place of barter, an ambassador's chapel. Bauble for
bauble--a jilt's faith for a mannikin's coronet. Four days before the
year of trial expired, 'Only four days more!' I exclaimed, drunk with
rapture. The journals lie before me. Three columns to Guy Darrell's
speech last night; a column more to its effect on a senate, on an
empire; and two lines--two little lines--to the sentence that struck Guy
Darrell out of the world of men! 'Marriage in high life.--Marquess
of Montfort-Caroline Lyndsay.' And the sun did not fall from heaven!
Vulgarest of ends to the tritest of romances! In the gay world these
things happen every day. Young ladies are privileged to give hopes to
one man--their hands to another. 'Is the sin so unpardonable?' you ask,
with ingenuous simplicity. Lady Montfort, that depends! Reflect!