Emma Newby

“ She was not gifted with fine or over-sensitive feelings, or she might have followed up these words spoken in her heart, by laying out a map of her future life, all desolate and waste, as a poor disappointed maiden’s life would seem to be, until the picture had become too much for endurance, and she had buried her face in her hands and wept passionately over a future before which the eye of faith veils itself in silence and humility. ”

“ A relative had died, leaving Arthur Sandford a fortune, of which he might have had just expectations, but which he had never been foolish enough to reckon upon, and his place in the firm became a very different one. From that time Mrs. Pembroke had fancied she detected a change in his atteutions to Mary. For years his attachment to her seemed certain, and youth upon her side, and uncertain prospects upon his, seemed to far-seeing friends the only obstacles to their marriage. ”

“ It was said in that tone which implies that all the world must give way before one person.
“Certainly,” said Mary, and she rose and took his arm, that arm which used almost to belong to her, and accompanying them to the cloak-room, borrowed a needle and thread, and mended the dress as carefully as delicate lace could be mended in such a time, Arthur standing by and receiving all Isabella’s badinage with good-natured smiles. Oh, Mary felt, if she might but lie down and hide herself in the cloak-room until the ball was over, and that dreadful music silent. ”

“ As the Chillingham ball approached, wonderful garments had made their appearance by coach from London for Isabella, while Mary’s more modest toilet was doomed to disappointment.
“Mary,” Mrs. Pembroke had said to her, “your papa confesses to a slight embarrassment in money matters just now, and has asked me to be very careful. I know he never says what is not true, or denies us what he can spare,—dear child, can you do without a new dress for the ball?” ”

“ Will you forgive me for helping to make him see how much superior you are to other women?”
Slowly the snow fell—but who cared for the snow?—as they returned to Chillingham, Mary with renewed happiness, leaning upon the arm of Arthur Sandford, and Isabella rattling over her confidences to her amused and easily-forgiving uncle and aunt. ”

“ Pembroke.
“It will do quite well, mamma,” said Mary; “to have it altered will be nearly as expensive as getting a new one. I do not mind it in the least.”
So it was that when Mary sat in her little room, pondering over life and its difficulties, her last year’s dress lay on the bed. There was a nice little fire, an unusual luxury, burning in the grate, for her mother, guessing, but not interfering with, the struggle going on within her, had thought she might like to be alone, and had ordered it early. ”

“ Pembroke, not able wholly to withhold his sympathy from the happy Isabella.
Isabella only laughed and coloured. What better answer could she give? It was impossible to be very angry with her, though she had done them so much mischief, and had so much self-assurance and vanity, for she had a way of coming round those who blamed her most which was irresistible.
“I shall quite eclipse your old cloak, Mary,” she said, as she displayed herself in her sables.
“It is not an old cloak,” said Mary, trying to be light-hearted; “it was new this winter, and one of Chillingham’s newest fashions. ”

“ Good children, they are perhaps educated to make careful housekeepers and dutiful wives; but what will the world say of them, they wonder, as they glance round the room with a slight sinking of the heart, lest when they have brought out the daughters they love so well for a little innocent amusement, they may be suspected of bringing their wares to market. ”

“ No young lady was considered to have reached a marriageable age, until she had made her first appearance there, and woe to her aching heart as the years went by, if they still compelled her to appear there unmarried, for there was a dreadful reckoning kept against her on the side seats where the dowagers rested, dowagers who well remembered her first appearance, when she must have been eighteen, at least. ”