"Do you go to the Marchioness of Malvern's fête, next week?" demanded Lord Henry. Caroline answered in the affirmative.
"I am glad of it. The Walking Cyclopaedia may make himself as agreeable there as he has so marvellously done to-night. You will be in fairy land. He has brought flowers from every country, and reared them for his mother, till they have become the admiration of all for miles around. I told him he looked like a market gardener, collecting flowers from every place he went to. I dragged him away several times, and told him he would certainly be taken for a country booby, and scolded him for demeaning his rank with such ignoble pleasures, and what wise answer do you think he made me?"
"A very excellent one, I have no doubt."
"Or it would not come from such a learned personage, Miss Hamilton. Really it was so philosophic, I was obliged to learn it as a lesson to retain it. That he, superior as he deemed himself, and that wild flower which he tended with so much care, were alike the work of Infinite Wisdom, and as such, the study of the one could not demean the other. I stared at him, and for the space of a week dubbed him the Preaching Pilgrim; but I was soon tired of that, and resumed his former one, which comprises all. I wonder at what letter the walking volume will be opened at his mother's fête?"
"I should imagine B," said Caroline, smiling.
"B—B—what does B stand for? I have forgotten how to spell—let me see. Ah! I have it,—excellent, admirable! Miss Hamilton. Lecture on Botany from the Walking Cyclopaedia—bravo! We had better scrape up all our learning, to prove we are not perfect ignoramuses on the subject."
Caroline laughingly agreed; and the quadrille being finished, Lord Henry succeeded in persuading her to accompany him to the refreshment-room.
In the meanwhile, perfectly unconscious that he had been the subject of the animated conversation of his vis à vis, St. Eval was finding more and more to admire in Miss Hamilton. He conducted his partner to her seat as she desired, and then strolled towards Mr. Hamilton's party, in the hope that Caroline would soon rejoin her mother; but Annie had been in the refreshment-room, and she did not reappear for some little time. Mrs. Hamilton had at length been enabled to seek Lady Helen Grahame, with whom she remained conversing, for she felt, though the delay was unavoidable, she partly deserved the reproach with which Lady Helen greeted her, when she entered, for permitting the whole evening to pass without coming near her. Mrs. Hamilton perceived, with regret, that she was more fitted for the quiet of her own boudoir, than the glare and heat of crowded rooms. Gently she ventured to expostulate with her on her endeavours, and Lady Helen acknowledged she felt quite unequal to the exertion, but that the persuasions of her daughter had brought her there. She was too indolent to add, she had seen nothing of Annie the whole evening; nor did she wish to say anything that might increase the disapprobation with which she sometimes felt, though Annie heeded it not, Mrs. Hamilton regarded her child. It was admiration, almost veneration, which Lady Helen felt for Mrs. Hamilton, and no one could have imagined how very frequently the indolent but well-meaning woman had regretted what she deemed was her utter inability to act with the same firmness that characterised her friend. She was delighted at the notice Lilla ever received from her; but blinded by the artful manners of her elder girl, she often wished that Annie had been the favourite instead. There was somewhat in Mrs. Hamilton's manner that night that caused her to feel her own inferiority more than ever; but no self-reproach mingled with the feeling. She could not be like her, and then why should she expect or deplore what was impossible. Leaning on Mrs. Hamilton's arm, she resolved, however, to visit the ball-room, and they reached Mr. Hamilton at the instant Grahame joined them.
"You here, Grahame!" exclaimed his friend, as he approached. "I thought you had forsworn such things."
"I make an exception to-night," he answered. "I wished to see my fair friend Caroline where I have longed to see her."
"You are honoured, indeed, Mrs. Hamilton," Lady Helen could not refrain from saying. "He was not present at the entrée even of his own daughter."
"And why was I not, Lady Helen? because I would not by my presence give the world reason to say I also approved of the very early age at which Miss Grahame was introduced. If I do not mistake, she is four months younger than Caroline, and yet my daughter is no longer a novice in such scenes as these."
Lady Helen shrunk in terror from the stern glance of her husband, who little knew the pain he inflicted; and Mrs. Hamilton hastily, but cautiously drew her away to enter into conversation with the Marchioness of Malvern, who was near them, which little manoeuvre quickly removed the transient cloud; and though soon again compelled to seek the shelter of the quiet little room she had quitted, the friendly kindness of Mrs. Hamilton succeeded in making Lady Helen's evening end more agreeably than it had begun.
"Are you only just released, Grahame?" demanded Lord Alphingham, who still remained near Mr. Hamilton.
"You are less fortunate than I was, or perhaps you will think, in parliamentary concerns, more so; but as the ball was uppermost in my thoughts this evening, I was glad to find myself at liberty above an hour ago."
"Is there nothing, then, stirring in the Upper House?"
"Nothing; I saw many of the noble members fast asleep, and those who spoke said little to the purpose. When do you gentlemen of the Lower House send up your bill? it will be a charity to give us something to do."
"We shall be charitable then on Friday next, and I much doubt if you do not have some warm debating work. If we succeed, it will be a glorious triumph; the Whigs are violent against us, and they are by far the strongest party. I depend greatly on your eloquence, Alphingham."
"It is yours to the full extent of its power, my good friend; it carries some weight along with it, I believe, and I would gladly use it in a good cause."
"Did you speak to-night, Grahame?" Mr. Hamilton asked, evincing by his animated countenance an interest in politics, which, from his retired life, no one believed that he possessed. Grahame eagerly entered into the detail of that night's debate, and for a little time the three gentlemen were absorbed in politics alone. The approach of Caroline and her mother, however, caused Grahame suddenly to break off in his speech.
"A truce with debates, for the present," he gaily exclaimed. "Hamilton, I never saw Caroline's extraordinary likeness to you till this moment. What a noble-looking girl she is! Ah, Hamilton, I could pardon you if you were much prouder of your children than you are."
An involuntary sigh broke from his lips as he spoke, but checking it, he hastened to Caroline, and amused her with animated discourse, till Lord Alphingham and Eugene St. Eval at the same instant approached, the one to claim, the other to request, Caroline as his partner in the last quadrille before supper. The shade of deep disappointment which passed over the young Earl's expressive countenance as Caroline eagerly accepted the Viscount's offered arm, and owned she had been engaged to him some time, at once confirmed to her flattered fancy the truth of Lord Henry's words, and occasioned a feeling near akin to pleasure in the equally observant mother. Mrs. Hamilton shrunk with horror at the idea of introducing her child into society merely for the purpose of decoying a husband; but she must have been void of natural feeling had not the thought very often crossed her mind, that the time was drawing nigh when her daughter's earthly destiny would, in all probability, be fixed for ever; and in the midst of the tremblings of maternal love the natural wish would mingle, that noble rank and manly virtue might be the endowments of him who would wed her Caroline, and amongst those noble youths with whom she had lately mingled, she had seen but one her fond heart deemed on all points worthy of her child, and that one was the young Earl Eugene St. Eval. That he was attracted, her penetrating eye could scarcely doubt, but farther she would not think; and so great was her sensitiveness on this head, that much as she admired the young man, she was much more reserved with him than she would have been had she suspected nothing of his newly dawning feelings.