that it would be a virtuous action to be as disagreeable as possible to her; that Colonel Stuart was in his way quite as detestable; that there was no chance of Lord Beaufort's marrying Miss Forrester, and that Colonel Beaufort was a shade less languid when Eliza was talking to him than under any other circumstances.
The house was full of company, for the first week in September had arrived, and Lord Teviot's friends seemed to be unanimously possessed with an unusual eagerness to visit him. The breakfast table was covered every morning with letters from enterprising travellers who were naturally going to the other side of England; but who could make a détour to St. Mary's if they were wanted, and who added in a postscript that they should be there before an answer could arrive to stop them. Some, who did not know Lady Teviot, wrote to express their anxiety to make her acquaintance; and those who did were particularly desirous to renew it. Nobody said a word about partridges; but it was remarkable that from each carriage that arrived there was taken a long mahogany case, followed by a tin canister and a powder flask; and that each new-comer, in the course of the first evening, invariably asked if the harvest were well in, and if the birds were tolerably strong and numerous.
The crowd in which the Teviots lived was not favourable to the growth of their eventual happiness: at least, in nine cases out of ten, a young couple should be left very much to themselves during the first few months of their married lives. That complete dependence on each other, which insures habits of confidence and forbearance, is more easily acquired while the first dream of love lasts; and tastes and tempers amalgamate better in the end when there are no witnesses to observe that they do not quite fit at first.
Lord and Lady Teviot would, even if they had wished it, have found it impossible to be much together in their present train of life. He was out shooting all the morning
