"How delightful!" I said, "I mean that you have bought it," I added, fearing I had exposed the poverty of Cornelius by the hasty remark.
He smiled again, and passed his slender fingers in his brown hair.
"Where will you hang it?" I asked eagerly.
"In the long vacant place of honour, between my Wilkie and my Mulready."
For these two great artists, Cornelius felt a warm and enthusiastic admiration. I thought of his pride and triumph when I should tell him this, and I glowed with a pleasure I cared not to conceal.
"Mr. Thornton!" I exclaimed, turning on him flushed and joyous, "you have made me as happy as any crowned queen."
"Why have I not a crown to lay it at your feet?" he very gallantly replied, taking my hand, and pressing it gently as he spoke.
At that moment, through the door which Edward Thornton had left partly open, I thought I caught sight of Cornelius for an instant; the next he had disappeared in the crowd. I snatched my hand from my cousin, started up, ran to the door, opened it wide, and looked eagerly; but Cornelius had again vanished. I returned much disappointed to Mr. Thornton, who seemed amazed at my precipitate flight.
"I had seen Mr. O'Reilly," I said, apologetically.
"Mr. O'Reilly! Ah, indeed."
"Yes; and I wanted to speak to him. It was for that I came here, you know."
My cousin gave me a puzzled look, then suddenly recovering, said hastily:
"Of course, it was. Mr. O'Reilly, as you say."
"I am sure, you think it odd," I observed uneasily.
He denied it with a guarded look. I thought it worse than odd, and my eyes filled with involuntary tears. Mr. Thornton rose and sympathised respectfully.
"My dear Miss Burns," he whispered drawing nearer to me, "I am truly grieved; but your kindness, your frank condescension, made me presume-- indeed, I am grieved."
I heard him with surprise. "Decidedly," I thought, "we are all wrong,"
and aloud I observed gravely:
"Mr. Thornton, is there not some mistake? I am talking of Mr. O'Reilly."
"And so am I," he answered promptly.
"And I should like to see if I could not find him."
He offered me his arm with a polite start, and an air of tenderness and homage that perplexed me; but though we went all over the rooms, Cornelius was not to be found. As the guests began to thin and depart I lost all hope, and releasing my cousin from duty, sat down in one of the nearly deserted rooms. Mrs. Langton at once came up to me, and asked if I had seen my friend. I replied that I had caught sight of him from the little Dresden room, when I was there with Mr. Thornton.
"In the Dresden room," she said, looking astonished; "and do you really, a fair maiden of eighteen, venture to remain alone in a Dresden room?
alone with so gay and gallant a gentleman as Edward Thornton? Don't you know, dear?" she added, edging her chair to mine, and lowering her voice; "he is quite a naughty man! Did you never hear of him and Madame Polidori, the singer--no?--nor of Mademoiselle Rosalie, nor of Madame?--"
I stopped the list by gravely hoping she was mistaken. She assured me she was not, and wanted to resume the subject, but it was one in which I took neither pleasure nor interest; and I listened so coldly, that she reddened, bit her lip, and left me.
The guests were all gone. As she bade the last adieu, Mrs. Brand sank down in a chair by the open window, and sighed to her brother:
"Ah! Edward, as our own English Wordsworth so finely says:
'The world is too much with us--'"
The rest of the sonnet was lost, I suppose, in the whisper that followed.
Mr. Thornton seemed to pay it but faint attention; his look was fixed with intent admiration on Mrs. Langton, who stood by a table turning over the leaves of an album with careless grace.
"What a night!" resumed Mrs. Brand; "with that moon and that starry sky, one might forget the world, the vain world for ever, Edward."
Edward still looked at the beautiful Edith, and seemed inclined to make a move in her direction, out of the reach of the moon and the starry sky.
But his sister looked at me, and whispered something. He bowed his head in assent, and came up to me. He seemed for some mysterious reason to think it incumbent on himself to be very kind and sympathetic, and to speak to me in a tender and soothing tone. Wrapped up in thinking of Cornelius, I paid his words but faint attention; but as my cousin stood with his hand on the back of my chair, I saw Mrs. Langton look at us over her shoulder in silent scorn. I looked at her, too, and as she stood there in all her wonderful beauty, I marvelled jealousy could make her so blind, as to lead her to fear for a moment a plain, humble girl like me.
CHAPTER XVI.
Although I had not thought it necessary to mention to Mrs. Brand how soon I meant to return to the Grove, she took complete possession of me for the whole of the next day; but, the following morning, I prevented the possibility of her doing so again, by starting out of Poplar Lodge before she had opened her aristocratic eyes. I wanted to see Cornelius, and make him explain his strange conduct.
I went by the lane where we had parted. It was a very beautiful lane-- green, secluded, and overshadowed by dark trees. It looked fresh and pleasant on this May morning. The dew glittered on grass, tree and wild flower; the thrush carolled gaily on the young boughs, and the robin red- breast looked at me fearlessly with his bright black eye, as he stood perched on the budding hawthorn hedge. A grievous disappointment waited me at the end of my journey. The blinds were down--the house was closed and silent. I rang, and received no reply. I went to the front, with the same result. For an hour and more I wandered about the lanes; but every time I came back, I found the house in the same state. At length, I returned to Poplar Lodge, where my absence had not been perceived.
Mrs. Brand's party had given her a headache. She lay on the drawing-room sofa the whole day long, and would evidently consider it very barbarous to be forsaken. I remained sitting by her until dusk, which brought Mrs.
Langton, and relieved me from my duty. I went out on the verandah for a little fresh air. I had not been there long, when a rustling robe passed through the open window. It was the beautiful Edith.
"Are you not afraid of taking cold?" she asked aloud; then whispered, "Say no."
As "no" chanced to be the truth, I complied with Mrs. Langton's wish.
"Oh! that exquisite old thorn!" she sighed; then added, in a low rapid key: "I have been so angry. I heard such strange things about you and Mr.
Thornton. All the Dresden room."
I laughed.
"What are you two chatting about?" asked the voice of Mrs. Brand from within.
"I am only telling Miss Burns to mind Captain Craik," coolly replied Mrs.
Langton, "he was quite attentive the other night."
"Really, Mrs. Langton," I observed impatiently, "you forget the gentleman you allude to could be my father, and is, after all, a middle-aged man."
"A middle-aged man!" echoed Mrs. Langton, looking confounded. "You are hard to please, Miss Burns; a most elegant and accomplished gentleman--a middle-aged man!"
"If he were an angel, he is not the less near forty."
"Still talking of Captain Craik," rather uneasily observed Mrs. Brand, joining us, "Edith, dear, are you not afraid of the tooth-ache?"
"No, Bertha, dear."
"But I am for you. You must come in."