ABSTRACT
To betray, even in after-years, any woman who ever had confided in me, were base. But as appearances were more unfavourable to me than the reality justified, it becomes a duty to relate every thing that passed between myself and Lady Orville. On the second evening of my stay at St. John’s Lodge,41 Miss Brandon had appeared to be so much struck by a sudden sense of my attractions, that Frederic Brandon had thought it necessary / to inform me that his sister, being herself an heiress, and consequently not in want of money, was destined to marry none but a man of rank. I could not help smiling when he said this, for I perfectly understood his meaning, and had not been blind to her attentions. Miss Brandon was a clever, forward girl, with a bad manner; insolent to those she termed her inferiors, and servile with persons like Lady Orville, whom she considered as the great leader of society. Her real wish was to be in the very extremity of the fashion, but she could not achieve it – she could only dance attendance upon those who were; and she required a great name, as a sort of prop, or support, whenever she gave an opinion. / Even whilst professing to like singularity, and to be herself odd, she was always anxious to ascertain how far such extravagances would suit the very elevated taste of the small circle to which Lady Orville belonged. Lord S. had a good cook, a good house, and a great deal of money; but he was not the fashion: neither was Miss Brandon. Before I left them, Lady Orville, Lady Denmont, and Moncrief, having departed that morning, she read me some lines which she had newly inserted in her album. They were entitled, ‘A Farewell to a young stranger;’ and as she read them, I was surprised not only at their beauty, but at the tone of feeling with which they were written. ‘Did you write them?’ / I said earnestly. ‘Why do you ask?’ she replied, colouring more deeply than became her. ‘Because I earnestly desire to know. – They are beautiful, let me read them again.’ ‘No, I cannot – I will not.’ The purport of the lines was, that the writer of them might, perhaps, never more meet that new – that unsophisticated being, who seemed to feel so deeply; – that the ardent beaming of his eye, which shewed a heart unexperienced in the ways, and unworn by the sorrows, of life, had awakened sympathy and interest in the bosom of her whose career was over; – that although they might probably never meet again, one who had thrown 47away health, riches, talent, earnestly / prayed that he might better use the gifts of Providence, nor ever know the bitter pains of late repentance and ineffectual remorse. ‘They are not of your writing,’ I said. Miss Brandon said, they were; but she said it in a manner which convinced me that they were not; and however vain it may appear, I believed them written by Lady Orville, more especially as one stanza alluded to the emotion I had betrayed whilst her sister sang. I told Miss Brandon I felt sure they were by Lady Orville, – that they reminded me of Miss Clairville’s song; and I asked her whether it were possible the former lady could be unhappy? ‘Unhappy,’ said Miss Brandon, / laughing; ‘good heavens! what can you mean? – Unhappy! I should assuredly say Lady Orville was the happiest, as well as the most perfect, of all human beings.’ This indeed I believed; for that smile of heaven, which conferred delight upon others, could not, I imagined, proceed from a suffering heart; – ‘And long, long may she continue so!’ I exclaimed with fervour. ‘Mercy upon me!’ said Miss Brandon, ‘you have fallen in love, I am sure of it, at first sight – the most dangerous of all fallings in love,’ she continued, looking down with affectation; but I was too much moved to attend to her, and only repeated, that I would give any thing for the verses. /
