Chap. VIII.

When Mrs. Grinsted had undertaken to assist, in what she called the ‘pious combination of justifiable deceptions,’ that were to put Lady Mary de Verdon at ease; and when she therefore engaged not to lose sight of Mrs. Glenmorris, and to accommodate her with a small sum of money, at once to convince her of friendly intentions, and acquire some power over her; Mrs. Grinsted by no means intended to embarrass herself farther, and certainly not to receive her into her house for any time. She hated to be put out of her way; and when she had satiated her malignity, by sharpening and striking deeper the empoisoned arrow which lacerated the bosom of her wretched guest, she shrunk from the fear of having sickness and sorrow near her. Mrs. Grinsted had sometimes little elegant assemblies of literary ladies at her house; where, if any male creature was admitted, it was an author of satire on the opinions of reformers, or the preacher of a court sermon, printed ‘by particular desire.’ ⁹⁰ This party sometimes begun in discussions of poetry and politics, but ended almost always in rubbers and pools.⁹¹ The science of cards being, notwithstanding any affectation of more elevated pursuits, the true alma mater of this respectable community. Her tenderness for a sick friend, would indeed have been almost as good a subject of panegyric to Mrs. Grinsted, as was her liberal contribution to all public charities, where the names of subscribers are registered; but when once it were known, that this inmate was the disobedient daughter of Lady Mary, the wife of Glenmorris, who had been much talked of as a political writer of republican principles, and the avowed friend of Armitage, a man still more obnoxious – and when it was known, that she was supposed to be made over by her profligate husband to this wicked Armitage, and that her daughter, who was trying to deprive sweet, dear, lovely Mary Cardonnel of half her fortune, had been so ill educated, that she had already eloped from her mother and was gone off, none knew with whom – when all this was known, it was impossible that either Mrs. Grinsted’s long acquaintance with her family, or her compassion for a stray sheep, or indeed any other 264consideration, should be allowed, to qualify her reception of this unhappy woman, with the name of ‘an amiable weakness.’ Oh! no, such undistinguishing indiscriminate charity, would be said to give encouragement to the too much relaxed morality of modern innovators, and be derogatory to the dignity of her own immaculate reputation. To let Mrs. Glenmorris, in her present affliction, stay in her house, was therefore for this reason impossible. But had not the opinion of her dear friends been in question, there were two other reasons sufficient to determine her not to do it. One was, that she hated any kind of trouble, and the other, that she had a still greater aversion to any kind of expence.