CHAPTER V.
The drawing-rooms of the house in Welbeck Street were light and pretty looking; true, there was not much furniture, neither was it of a costly description; but the colours were cheerful, with a preponderance of pink, and a thousand feminine trifles gave their own grace and gaiety. The ottomans were embroidered, the screens exquisitely painted, the flower-stand carefully tended; while toys, the result of ingenuity and industry, were scattered prodigally round. No curtains were lined with a more judicious couleur de rose, and the general effect left no room for minute criticism, which was moreover disarmed by three or four very pretty faces. No one ever spoke of them but as "light, elegant rooms."
The next floor had also cheerfulness and comfort: it had many relics of Granard Park: there was the large arm-chair, the sofa, and the glass à la Psyche. Lady Anne indulged in very late hours. Mr. Granard had noted it in one of his pocket-books as a remarkable fact, that his wife had breakfasted with him three times in his life.
The back bedroom was occupied by her French lady's-maid, whose office was certainly no sinecure, for Lady Anne required to be waited on in every possible manner. Moreover, though still a remarkably handsome woman, the Lady Anne Granard, the mother of five grown-up daughters, was not the Lady Anne Granard of five and twenty. It was not so easy to suit every shade of ribbon to her complexion; the cap, with its softening shadow of blonde was requisite, and needed also some judicious management.
Of all toilettes, that of autumnal beauty is the most difficult to superintend. The maid lacks credit, the mistress satisfaction; and even flattery loses its charm with the too sincere looking-glass staring you full in the face. Still this said toilette and its preparations occupied great part of the day, though now it was rather a habit than a pleasure. Unless on grand occasions, where some especial object was in view, Fanchette did not wait on the young ladies; and Louisa, for Mary was every day more and more put aside, knew very well that it was never without good and sufficient reason, if, while she was dressing, a rap was heard at the door, and Fanchette came in always with the same message: "Mademoiselle, not but the taste of mademoiselle was si parfaite, but Lady Anne had sent her to do her young lady's hair."
The three attics were occupied by the girls; Mary, in right of her seniority, had the small third room to herself. Though fondly attached to her sisters, the first on every occasion to give up to them, yet there was less of companionship between her and the others. Their light hopes and fears were in common; they could talk of the past, she could not bear to speak of it. To Mary it was a relief to be alone; Louisa and Isabella occupied the front, Helen and Georgiana the back attic.
One description may serve for all three rooms; they were whitewashed, uncurtained, uncarpeted, and crowded with boxes. The only furniture were the small beds—one obliged to be put directly across the fireplace—a deal table and washing-stand, and two rush-bottomed chairs. At the back they looked out upon the mews; in front had a bird's-eye view of the roofs of the opposite houses over the parapet. It was impossible to imagine anything more cold or comfortless, while it was a task of no small dexterity to thread your way through the labyrinth of trunks, bandboxes, &c.; for it had of late years become a maxim with Lady Anne that nothing ought to be thrown or given away: what the elder sisters left off might turn to account for the younger ones, and, as she justly observed, "till a girl came out, it was of no consequence what she wore." Good looks, or good clothes, were sheer extravagance till they had been presented.
The dining-room was very narrow; it had been sacrificed to the hall, which was wide and airy. A handsome hall gives at once a handsome appearance to a house, and Lady Anne asked no one to dinner. The back parlour had been the schoolroom, and certainly never was there a more disconsolate apartment; every thing in it was common, every thing in it was old. The table was usually loaded with work, and work of the most ordinary and useful description; the walls were covered with paper, whose original colour and pattern had long since merged in a dingy brown; over this were hung up some unframed drawings, and some shelves on which were ranged all the old school books, grammars, Pinnock's catechisms, and one or two French novels that had belonged to a former governess. Curtains were considered a superfluity, and a form, with some common chairs, completed the furniture.
The remainder of Lady Anne's establishment consisted of a servant of all work, and a nondescript boy, called a page. Cooking there was as little as possible; and, the young ladies dressing each other, the unfortunate kitchen-maid contrived to get through the week; but, as she often observed on a Sunday to any dropping-in friend, she would not have stayed an hour but for her young mistresses.
In short, the whole of Lady Anne's household was the type of a system—it was false from beginning to end. It aimed at a position in society she lacked the means of retaining; comfort was sacrificed to show; and all the better and more natural emotions merged in vain speculations of aggrandisement. In nothing were the feelings of others consulted; but their opinions were of paramount importance. The world was looked upon as a particular set, out of whose pale there was neither interest nor refinement; the rest were just common people, whom nobody knows. Lady Anne would have been in despair if the Misses Granard had not been allowed at any party to be among the most elegant girls in the room, but she cared as little for their affection as for their comfort.
But her house, with its poverty and its pretence—her daughters, with their accomplishments and privations—presented a picture, a common one, of to-day. There is a mania in every class to be mistaken for what it is not. Many things innocent, nay, even graceful in themselves, become injurious and awkward by unseasonable imitation. We follow, we copy; first comfort goes, and then respectability. A false seeming is mistaken for refinement, and half life is thrown away in worthless sacrifices to a set of hollow idols called appearances.
The girls were crowded round the fireplace, silent and shivering, when the page made his appearance. "If you please, miss," said he, addressing any one whose eye he might first happen to catch, " Mrs. Palmer has sent over her servant to ask if the young ladies could come and drink tea with her. She is quite alone, and it would be a real charity." The eyes of the little circle brightened.
"How kind!" cried Isabella.
"I wonder if mamma will let us go," said Helen, timidly.
"I will run upstairs and ask her," cried Georgiana. "I manage her better than any of you."
"What do you want, child?" asked Lady Anne, pettishly, who was listening to the news that her French maid had already collected of the neighbourhood.
"Oh, mamma," replied Georgiana, "we are all getting chilblains with sitting in that cold parlour, and—"
"Why do you not wear your gloves?" interrupted Lady Anne. "I shall disown you for my child if you have red hands."
"No, no, mamma; you know that we all take after you, and never were there such pretty little white hands in the world. But, mamma, I came to tell you that Mrs. Palmer has sent to ask us to tea; do let us go."
"I wonder how you can bear that odious woman's manners," returned her mother; "I expect that you will all grow like her in time. But it is of no use my saying anything; you will go if you chuse."
"Oh, thank you, mamma," cried Georgiana, not chusing to hear any more, and down stairs she ran to communicate the permission.
"I knew she would let us go," cried Georgiana, "when I praised her little white hands."
"Oh, Georgiana," cried Helen, colouring, "how can you flatter mamma as you do! It is very wrong."
Poor Georgiana stood silent and abashed. When her sister took her hand, and said, "But we know very well that you did it to let us go—do not be angry"—all unkindly feeling dissolved at the first word, and the two girls kissed each other with an affection, perhaps the more tender for such slight difference.
"We must not," said Isabella, "keep Mrs. Palmer waiting tea for us."
The little party took the hint, and all prepared with shawl and bonnet, excepting Mary and Louisa, both of whom pleaded fatigue. Both wished to be silent, though from different causes. Every day Mary felt more and more disinclined to exertion, and Louisa had a heart filled with those sweet fancies, over which we delight to muse alone. She was expecting just a few lines of welcome—one of those letters which we are fain to read by ourselves, and whose charm belongs to the loveliest dream that haunts even youth.
Helen, Georgiana, and Isabella, soon crossed the street, ran up stairs, without waiting to be announced, and found themselves in Mrs. Palmer's drawing room. It was a complete contrast to the back parlour they had just left. The fire blazed, and the red curtains excluded every breath of the damp night air. Sofa and chairs were drawn towards the fireside, and Mrs. Palmer was already seated at a tea-table loaded with cakes, toast, and preserves. The kettle was singing on the side, and a thin white column of smoke announced, that desideratum of tea-makers, that the water boiled at a gallop.
The kind old lady rose with a little of assumption of dignity, which lasted till each of the blooming girls came up in her turn to be kissed. The eldest duly kissed first.
"How well you are all looking!" exclaimed she; "nothing like the country for girls, as I always used to say at Claver House. Come, take your places. Helen, you shall pour out the coffee. Georgiana, give me the water, and Isabella, you can hand the muffins. I always make young people useful." All gladly drew round the table, and Mrs. Palmer's exhortation of "Poor dears, do enjoy yourselves," was fulfilled, even to her own satisfaction.
"Palm," said she, "is gone to dine at his club, they meet once a month, and he never misses. They say clubs make men very unsociable, but I don't think so. I am sure Palm always comes home in the best of humours, and the next day he has lots of news. Bless me, he brought home from the last dinner two marriages, four christenings, and one death, no, not quite, for old Mr. Clumber did not die, his life was only despaired of."
"I wish it had been Mr. Glentworth," said Georgiana.
"Well," cried Mrs. Palmer, "I cannot be sorry at having you all back again. But what news from Brighton? any of you going to be married? any of you lost your hearts? though I do not know whether it is quite right to talk to girls about their hearts. However, as we are quite by ourselves, you may as well tell me what conquests you have made."
"Oh, we are not out yet," replied Georgiana, "but Louisa had a new bonnet, in which she made such a conquest! Mamma would go mad if she knew all about it."
"Who was the gentleman?" asked Mrs. Palmer, a little anxiously.
"Oh, Louisa refused him at once," returned Isabella, who caught the look.
"Such a handsome young man!" cried Georgiana, who replied only to the words, "Sir Henry Calthorpe, with plenty of money."
"And why," asked the old lady, "would not Louisa have him?"
"She did not like him," replied Helen.
"Young ladies," returned Mrs. Palmer, with a touch of her former dignified authority, "should not permit themselves to take fancied likings and dislikings."
"Louisa," said Helen, timidly, yet eagerly, "never could have liked any one so vain, so uninteresting as Sir Henry, who made his offer, expecting her to be divided between surprise and gratitude."
"He was one of those men," said Isabella, "who have no separate existence from their tailor, unless, indeed, a portion be claimed by the glover and bootmaker. I should as soon think of marrying a suit of clothes."
"I wonder what," exclaimed Mrs. Palmer, good-humouredly, "you young ladies would choose, if left to yourselves."
"I can tell you," answered Isabella; "a lover for Helen must be a pale, pensive, dark young man. He must be given to fits of abstraction, and have something mysterious about him. Had we lived in the time of the Peninsula war, her heart could not have stood a week's siege from a young officer who wore his arm in a sling. As to how they were to have existed afterwards, they would, at least Helen would, never have thought it worth a moment's consideration. She would have formed some vague notion of
'A tent on shore, a galley on the sea,'
or a cottage 'all woodbines and roses,' and,, but dear Helen, I will spare your imagination, and not finish my picture."
Mrs. Palmer looked a little alarmed, and said:—
"I think love all very proper in marriage, under certain restrictions. I do not much like love in a cottage, and yet I have known people very happy in cottages. But well-educated young ladies ought never to think about love, and yet I do not know how it is, they always will. However, not to be talking too much on such a delicate subject—we have not yet heard what Georgiana would like."
"Georgiana," answered Isabella, "would like her myrtle wreath made of strawberry leaves. She has a great idea of a duke, but would submit to be a countess. Le futur must be rich, and I am afraid that she is unreasonable enough to expect that he should be young, and good-looking also."
"And pray what would you like yourself?" asked her sister.
"I ask three good qualities," replied Isabella, somewhat seriously; "he must be kind, rich, and rational."
"Certainly young ladies now-a-days think a great deal more about money than I did when I was a girl, and yet I made a great match," said Mrs. Palmer, looking reverently back to the honours and glories of her first marriage. "My dears, when I married poor dear Black, he had two carriages, ten servants, and a house in the Paragon." The girls well knew what was coming, and at once looked serious attention. "But, my dears," continued the old lady, "human prosperity is but a bubble, especially on the stock-exchange. At first I might have had gold, if I could have eaten it; I afterwards knew what it was to want bread. But we had good friends: do not believe those, my dear children, who say that there is no kindness or gratitude in the world. We met with both. I opened a school on Clapham Common, and in the course of a year twenty old friends sent me their children."
"How kind you would be to them!" exclaimed Helen, whose large soft grey eyes were yet larger and softer, for the tears that had gradually swelled beneath the long dark lashes.
"I hope," replied Mrs. Palmer, "I did my duty by them. It saddened me at first to see so many young healthy faces, while there was death in that of my husband, but at last the sight of them quite heartened me. Poor dear Black never held up his head after his failure, but he used, as he sat in his easy chair, to like to hear the voices from the play-ground. I cannot tell you why, but my heart warmed more to him as he leant back pale and helpless in the little green-room, than it had ever done in our grand house in the Paragon. He was so patient, that I do believe he brought God's favour on all our doings. I never used to go up in the stage to London to get my groceries and things, but I always ran back from the door to beg B's blessing."
If a smile did rise to the lips of her young hearers, it was instantly repressed, the feeling was too sacred and too tender for mirth. "He lived for three years, and then went off like a sleeping child. I was reading the Bible to him at the time, and thought that the sunshine which came in at the window would be too strong for his eyes. I looked up, and that glad and beautiful light fell upon the face of the dead."
There was a deep silence, while Helen's vivid fancy conjured up the scene. She knew the small neat room—she had been with Mrs. Palmer to see it; the cheerful garden filled with flowers, the hum of the distant play-ground, the rosy clusters of an acacia-tree, whose branches almost came in at the window; where stood the old man, worn and wasted—Helen almost fancied she could see the pale, yet tranquil face.
The silence was broken by Mrs. Palmer's saying:
"But I did not send for you to make you all dull. God knows I sometimes wonder how we live over our bitterest sorrows! and yet we ought to be thankful, for little avail is it to grieve over the past. I had a very handsome monument placed in Clapham Church, but I would not have 'by his disconsolate widow’ put upon it. I was not disconsolate; I trusted in the goodness of God, and I knew the good and kind old man was only gone before me to another and a better world."
"How much," said Helen, anxious in her turn to divert the mind of their hostess, "I should have liked to have been at school with you!"
"Ah, my dear," exclaimed Mrs. Palmer, brightening up at the idea of past power, "we should have done each other credit. I can assure you there are girls of mine at every court in Europe; I gave into none of the present idle fashions. It would have done you good to have seen how upright they sat, with their feet in the first position on a Sunday afternoon, when they drank tea with me. Then such a curtsey as every girl made when she came into the parlour, down to the very ground, and as steady as if they had had no joints. Poor dears, I liked to see them enjoy the seed-cake afterwards. I have always kept the receipt, there is some of it in the plate, Georgiana, by you."
"Had you any favourites?" asked Helen.
"Oh, that was a secret," replied Mrs. Palmer, with an air of ministerial reserve; "I was very careful never to show any preferences, but I do not mean to say but what I had them—human nature is human nature—and there are some girls," with an affectionate glance at the circle round her, "that are so very engaging."
"They must have loved you very dearly," exclaimed Helen.
"I am sure I loved them," replied their hostess; "every body talked of my good-luck, when Mr. Palmer, whose three daughters had been finished, came down to pay my Christmas bills, and married me during the holydays—a kind, good man he has always been; and we never have had a word but once, when Caroline said, before his face, that she would not be ruled by a school-mistress and a stepmother; and he was very angry with her. Poor dear! he did not consider that a young head never means half that it says. She left the room, and he said that it was no use taking any one's part who would not take her own."
"I am sure Mrs. Gooch is very fond of you now," interrupted Helen.
"I found her crying when I went to look for her," replied Mrs. Palmer, "and we never had another quarrel. But, my dears, young people are very hasty. Caroline never stopped to think that it was a great comfort to me to marry her father. We had known each other for years, and knew each other's way. My health was then very bad, and affairs at Claver House were not as flourishing as they had been. I do not know how others make a fortune; I never could."
"You were too kind and too liberal," cried Isabella.
"Do not run away with the idea," replied Mrs. Palmer, "that kindness and liberality are incompatible with economy and business; but I had too many claims upon me, and my health failed. I have always thought it a special instance of God's good providence that my health and worldly prosperity were at their best during poor Black's life; and when my spirits began to grow weak, and my affairs embarrassed, then came Mr. Palmer. I have now been married to him twenty years, and I have been a very fortunate woman."
"And I hope you will be so for twenty years to come," said Georgiana; "I do not know what we should do without you," while Helen put her hand in affectionate silence into that of their kind friend.
"I am sure," replied Mrs. Palmer, "if it were not wicked, I should be glad that you had the scarlet fever; I am so much happier since I knew you. Mr. Palmer's daughters all married during the first few years; and when he has been all day in the city, I have felt very lonely; but, seeing you all come in, brings back so much to my memory. Many and many are the young faces that yours recall; and you, all of you, love me as I used to be loved."
The allusion to the scarlet fever requires a little explanation. In that fever originated the acquaintance of the Granards with Mrs. Palmer. It was part of Lady Anne's domestic policy to secure, if possible, an invitation for herself and two of her daughters from some friend who had a country house. This passed away six weeks or so before they went to Brighton. If nothing better offered, they paid a visit to Rotheles Castle, for the earl, though brought to something very like the entire submission of military discipline, yet stood firm on what he considered the family duty of asking his sister down every year. This invitation Lady Rotheles gave; and Lady Anne accepted, with reluctant civility; still, a pleasing and elegant looking woman like herself, fond of ecarté, which she played with great skill, whose daughters were both pretty and musical, rarely found herself at a loss what to do with her autumn.
It was about three years previous to the present evening that Lady Anne had gone, with her two eldest daughters, on a visit to a very intimate friend, Lady Penrhyn. The three younger ones were left under the care of the French governess; and their sole attendant, the kitchen-maid. Mademoiselle Virginie de Montmorenci (the French revolution seems rather to have increased than lessened the number of the descendants from the haute noblesse) was a fit governess for Lady Anne; she had a perfect Parisian accent, was musical—all French women sing—had a great deal of tournure, the value of which she was always inculcating on her pupils: "La Grace plus belle que la beauté," was invariably the quotation when putting on her shawl; and, it must be confessed, that never did five English girls put on shawls to such perfection. In that point, at least, their education was complete. Her taste in dress was exquisite, and bitter were her lamentations over the dark stuff dresses and the green veils to which the younger Granards were condemned. Information she had none, and principle never even crossed her mind as a rule of action—"c'est charmant," or "c'est de mauvais gout," constituted her sole idea of praise or blame.
In one thing she was unlike Lady Anne, for she affected sentiment; and the sympathies of her young pupils were early awakened on behalf of Malvine and Mathilde. Mademoiselle Virginie always set the example of weeping; she had an idea that tears were feminine and becoming, and les malheurs d'un cœur sensible made up a much larger portion of her conversation than Lady Anne would either have under stood or approved. "Les aimables sympathies" were the last things in the world that she would have tolerated.
The first week went off well enough; the mornings were past in hearing histories told by Mademoiselle to the honour and glory of her own beaux yeux, in divers fancy works, a few pages of Rollin, and then a good many pages from Mathilde. The lady then stated that she had some old friends just come to London, and went out every evening. This was against Lady Anne's express injunctions, but there were too many quarters of the governess's salary due for her to consider obedience indispensable.
Towards the end of the week the girls complained of violent headaches and restless nights; and before Monday it was very obvious that they were all in a high fever. Tuesday Isabella was delirious, and Mademoiselle Virginie sent the maid to Covent Garden to buy some herbs, which, she said, would form a sovereign tisane.
On Sarah's return, she was surprised to see no light in the hall; she let herself in with the key; no one was stirring in the lower part of the house; the fire was out in the kitchen; and the really kind-hearted girl began to reproach herself that she had loitered a little on her errand. She hastily lighted the fire, and went up stairs to ask Mademoiselle how the herbs were to be boiled; she was surprised to hear no sound, for the vicinity of Virginie de Montmorenci was rarely matter of doubt—for, unless asleep, silence formed no portion of her ordinary accomplishments—and was still as death till she came to what Lady Anne always called the young ladies' floor; the words attic, or garret, were absolutely banished from the language. Then she heard a low moaning, and saw that the rooms were quite dark.
She opened the first door, and beheld Isabella laid across the bed; she had apparently risen and fallen back, and lay quite unable to assist herself, but faintly asking for water. Sarah replaced her head on the pillow; and, after moistening her lips, hurried into the next room. Georgiana had left her own bed; she was, from a child, timid in the dark, and was laid by her sister, muttering incoherent expressions.
It was a complete but painful picture, the attitude and contrast between the two sisters. Georgiana lay in the common position of a sleeping child, her head cradled upon her arm, her bright golden hair falling over her face, but showing the flushed cheek; while neck, face, even to the temples, were tinged with a faint crimson.
Helen, on the contrary, was laid like one of the monumental figures extended above an ancient tomb, as straight, as rigid. The dark hair swept down on either side in long masses, and left her face exposed, which was wan as marble. The beautifully-cut features seemed thin, even to transparency; and their fixed ghastliness alarmed the girl, who thought, at first, she was dead; but the breathing was quick and painful, and every now and then a spasm convulsed the whole countenance.
In her alarm she called on Mademoiselle Virginie aloud; there was no answer. Sarah felt sure that she had been sent out of the way on purpose, and that the governess was gone.
Her surmise was the truth; Mademoiselle Virginie de Montmorenci had lately formed an acquaintance with a gentleman whose name was as high-sounding and romantic as her own—Mr. Stanhope Fitz Raymond. He had quite convinced her that her genius was wholly lost in Lady Anne's family; and this evening she had decided to join her fate with his, and commence operations on a wider scale.
She began by taking the few silver spoons which were to be found, and leaving behind a useful lesson, if people ever profited by such things, namely, that it is as well not to leave your house and family in the care of a foreigner, of whom you only know that her accent is irreproachable, and that she puts on a shawl to perfection. In the mean time, poor Sarah stood aghast; there she was alone with three girls apparently dying; but when nine and ten o'clock struck, and no Mademoiselle Virginie appeared, her alarm was at its height: at that moment came the appalling discovery that the silver spoons were missing also.
Sarah could bear no more: the very extremity of her distress suggested a consolation. Her sister had lived for some time as housemaid with a lady on the opposite side of the street. She was married, and living in the country; but Sarah now recalled all that she had heard her say of Mrs. Palmer's goodness. Without hesitation she ran across, and asked to see the lady. Mrs. Palmer did not allow her to get half through her story before she rang for her shawl and bonnet, and went herself to Lady Anne's. Her kind heart was touched by the destitute state of the three young and lovely creatures, who seemed to be dying before her very eyes. She looked round the desolate rooms, uncurtained and uncarpeted; the evenings were now damp and chilly, but no fire could be lighted in the empty fireplaces—all was misery and discomfort.
Mrs. Palmer left the room abruptly, and returned home. She found Mr. Palmer slippered and arm-chaired, only waiting her appearance to ring for the scalloped oysters: he adhered almost as a duty to what he called the "good old fashion of suppers." A few words put the scalloped oysters aside for the present, and he entered warmly into the plans of his kind-hearted wife. Servants, blankets, and carriage were alike put in requisition, and, before they sat down to the scalloped oysters, the three girls were safely in bed beneath their hospitable roof, and Mr. Carew, in whom Mrs. Palmer had unlimited confidence, had seen them.
"So much for your fine lady-mother," said Mr. Palmer, as he sat down to supper; "you must write to her, my dear, to-morrow, and then I suppose we shall have her here in hysterics, worrying our very lives out."
He was never more mistaken in any supposition. Mrs. Palmer did write the next day what she flattered herself was a masterpiece—she piqued herself upon her letter-writing. As she was wont to observe, "all the young ladies of Claver House wrote such excellent letters." The idea of writing such excellent letters, being that of making the smallest possible quantity of matter cover the largest possible quantity of space, "any body," as the then Mrs. Black used to observe, "can give some sort of account if any thing remarkable has occurred; but the great art is to write a long letter when you have nothing to say."
Now there was no lack of material for a letter to Lady Anne, but it required all Mrs. Palmer's talent for epistolary correspondence to give that material a fitting shape. Though she would not have owned it, even to herself—for it is a notable fact that we keep ourselves most in the dark about ourselves—yet she was a little embarrassed at the notion of having to write to Lady Anne—there was something in a title—at least, it was the first time she had ever had the honour of addressing one.
Then, as she pictured to herself Lady Anne quite overwhelmed at the idea of her children's illness, she was anxious not to alarm her too much; and yet it was necessary to state their danger, or she could not excuse bringing them over to her own house. Moreover, she thought it incumbent upon her to point out the injury done to thousands of deserving young women, by the preference given to foreigners. She knew two most amiable sisters, who had been educated at Claver House, now in want of situations. The fever itself, she had no doubt, originated in some neglect of the French governess—she would never allow one to gain ground. The letter concluded with most earnest entreaties that Lady Anne would not distress herself unnecessarily, and that she would permit the dear children to remain under her charge till they were completely cured. Lady Anne complied literally with both requests.
The next day, Mrs. Palmer received a very elegant-looking epistle, franked by the Earl of Rotheles. She was overwhelmed with a prodigality of most graceful thanks; and Mademoiselle Virginie with an equal number of reproaches. Lady Anne was then overwhelmed, in her turn, with the sense of Mrs. Palmer's kindness. She could not justify to herself further intrusion; still, as she had pressed the children's stay so much, she would accept the offer on account of her eldest daughters, for Mary's health was very delicate, and Louisa at that time ill with a cold.
Mrs. Palmer thought her own letter a triumph of skill—the real triumph was Lady Anne's. The girls, though their illness was long and dangerous, recovered under Mrs. Palmer's care, who watched over them as if they had been her own; and from that time an affection, as valuable as it was pleasant, sprang up between them. When Lady Anne returned, she called, and talked about every thing but the apothecary's bill. The acquaintance became at once a matter of form between the two elder ladies, one that Lady Anne would have broken off, if she could with the least regard to common decency. But the girls clung to their new and kind friend with all the earnestness of gratitude in the young; indeed, their chief pleasures and comforts they owed to Mrs. Palmer.