πŸ“” Ethel Churchill

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

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  • However, the poor old lady is in great distress; she and her grandaughter are coming up to London, and I wish to give them all possible countenance and assistance. "Yes," interrupted his uncle, with something between a smile and a sneer, "to decide on the merits of rival actresses; to bear away a few bon-mots from the coffee-houses; to see that the fashion of your hair is not too much behind hand; and to choose the newest embroidery for your waistcoat." "Well, I promise you to circumscribe her conquests as much as possible by extending my own," returned Henrietta. "It will be an easy task; for Miss Churchill does not do 'the honours of her eyes.' I often tell her her beauty is quite wasted upon her." "As you cannot make a speech, you must," said Henrietta, "put it into a treatise." Ethel was silent from surprise: she had prepared herself for angerβ€”even sorrow; but ridicule left her without an answer. What could she say to a hearer, who only smiled, and to whom emotion was only a scene in a pastoral? Slowly her thoughts reverted to herself; the blood rushed to her brow. What would she be to-morrow? the mark for obloquy and ridicule! disgraced, and for what? to minister to the wretched vanity of one whom she loathed even more than she scorned. "You must not come to me," answered her listener, "for a defence of society; I have long since loathed its bitterness as much as I despise its baseness. You cannot know the miserably mean motives that actuate the generality; but the trifles so sought give their own narrowness to the mind." In each of the windows was a beaupot, and the roses were fresh, as if still on their native bough:... As Hortense says of the gilded knicknackery of her saloon,β€” "Est-ce utile? C'est plus, c'est nΓ©cessaire." Few, save the poor, feel for the poor: / The rich know not, how hard / It is to be of needful food / And needful rest debarred. / Their paths are paths of plenteousness, / They sleep on silk and down; / And never think how heavily / The weary head lies down. Ethel knew that further remonstrance was useless; and, therefore, quietly offered her services to arrange the multitudinous wardrobe which was being unpacked. Sir George burst into a loud fit of contemptuous laughter. "Lawgivers were never more mistaken," said Lady Mary, "than when they ordained that the conjugal tie should last through life for better and worse; the last injunction being strictly complied with. There should be septennial marriages, as well as septennial parliaments!" Well, her very foolish grandmother has mixed herself up in some nonsensical correspondence with the court of St. Germains; or, rather, has let herself be made a tool by Mr. Trevanion, who, I am happy to say, is not Ethel's husband; they arrested him just in time. We have improvised the most charming party imaginable. The summer has come back by surprise. I own I wonder that June was not tired of us: still here is a day so sunny, that October does not know its own. The Duke of Wharton, Lord Hervey, and some two or three others, have designed a water-party in our honour. But Sir Jasper has a great talent for epistolary correspondenceβ€”to be sure he has nothing else to do; but my time is of great importance. How have I offended you? Twice have I called this morning, and each time you have been peremptorily denied. That singularly foolish old lady, her grandmother, got up a sort of caricature conspiracy, and Miss Churchill was to have been married to a coxcombical Jacobite, of the name of Trevanion; but he was arrested in the church, though he has since escaped by means of the jailor's daughter. I really doubt whether there be such a thing as a heart in the world: perhaps, after all, it is only an elegant superfluity kept for the use of poets. Certainly we have no use for it here. Courtenaye augured well from the profound silence; suddenly a burst of applause shook the house, the curtain had fallen, and Booth sprang to Walter's side, who was still engaged in an animated flirtation with an actress who was to play in the afterpiece. "It were dishonour in me to yield. I will not play the part of an impostor, whom my uncle must despise even while he screens. No; these estates are his right: let him take them; I will not buy them with his daughter's hand."