Susan Ferrier

“ Lennox, she always sets me a-crying, and I try to set her a-laughing. Is that what you call sympathy?"
Mary smiled, and shook her head.
"Then I suppose it is sympathy to blow one's nose—and—and read the
Bible. Is that it? or what is it?"
Mary declared she could not define it; and Lady Emily insisted she could not comprehend it.
"You will some day or other," said Mary; "for none, I believe, have ever passed through life without feeling, or at least requiring its support; and it is well, perhaps, that we should know betimes how to receive as well as how to bestow it." ”

“ Lady Emily was now too indignant to stoop to remonstrance. She quitted her cousin in great anger, and poor Mary felt as if she had lost her only friend.
"Alas!" sighed she, "how difficult it is to do right, when even the virtues of others throw obstacles in our way! And how easy our duties would be could we kindly aid one another in the performance of them!"
But such is human nature. The real evils of life, of which we so loudly complain, are few in number, compared to the daily, hourly pangs we inflict on one another. ”

“ The smile I suppose has gained you one conquest—the blush another. How happy you who can hit the various tastes so easily! Mrs. Downe Wright whispered me as she left the room, 'What a charming intelligent countenance your cousin has!' While my Lord Duke of Altamont observed, as he handed me along, 'What a very sweet modest-looking girl Miss Douglas was! 'So take your choice—Mrs. William Downe Wright, or Duchess of Altamont!"
"Duchess of Altamont, to be sure," said Mary: "and then such a man! Oh! such a man!" ”

“ Mary heard all this in shame and silence; but Lady Emily, wearied and provoked by her folly and want of principle, was often led to express her indignation and and contempt in terms which drew tears from her cousin's eyes. Mary was indeed the only person in the world who felt her sister's dereliction with the keenest feelings of shame and sorrow. All Adelaide's coldness and unkindness had not been able to eradicate from her heart those deep-rooted sentiments of affection which seem to have been entwined with our existence, and which, with some generous natures, end but with their being. ”

“ Lady Juliana was flattered with the homage she received as a future Duchess; she was delighted with the éclat that attended her, and charmed with the daily presents showered upon her by her noble suitor.
"Well, really, Favolle," said she to her maid, one day, as she clasped on her beautiful arm a resplendent bracelet, "it must be owned the Duke has a most exquisite taste in trinkets; don't you think so? And, do you know, I don't think him so very—very ugly. When we are married I mean to make him get a Brutus, cork his eyebrows, and have a set of teeth." ”

“ Nature was in all its first freshness and beauty—the ground was covered with flowers, the luxuriant hedgerows were white with blossoms, the air was impregnated with the odours of the gardens and orchards. Still Mary sighed as she thought of Lochmarlie—its wild tangled woods, with here and there a bunch of primroses peeping forth from amidst moss and withered ferns—its gurgling rills, blue lakes, and rocks, and mountains—all rose to view; and she felt that, even amid fairer scenes, and beneath brighter suns, her heart would still turn with fond regret to the land of her birth. ”

“ As for my cousin there, there is no fear of her falling a sacrifice to hazel eyes and chestnut hair, her imagination is all on the side of sandy locks and frosty gray eyes; and I should doubt if Cupid himself would have any chance with her, unless he appeared in tartan plaid and Highland bonnet."
"Then my Charles would have some," said Mrs. Lennox, with a faint smile; "for he has lately been promoted to the command of a Highland regiment."
"Indeed!" said Lady Emily, "that is very gratifying, and you have reason to be proud of Colonel Lennox; he has distinguished himself upon every occasion." ”

“ Mary, too much affected to speak, could only press her in silence to her heart.
"These are tears of shame, of penitence, though I must own they look very like those of regret and mortification. What a mercy it is that 'the chemist's magic art' cannot 'crystalise these sacred treasures,'" said she with a smile, as she shook a tear-drop from her hand; "they are gems I am really not at all fond of appearing in."
"And yet you never appeared to greater advantage," said Mary, as she regarded her with admiration. "Ah! so you say; but there is, perhaps, a little womanish feeling lurking there. ”

“ All the livelier feelings of her warm heart had indeed been excited and brought into action by the spirit and playfulness of her little boy, and the increased happiness of her husband; while all her uneasiness respecting her former lover was now at an end. She had heard from himself that he had married, and was happy. Without being guilty of inconstancy, such are the effects of time upon mutable human nature!
Colonel Lennox lost no time in arriving to claim his promised bride; and Mary's happiness was complete when she found her own choice so warmly approved of by the friends she loved. ”

“ Poor Mary was overwhelmed with grief and amazement at this new display of her mother's tyranny and injustice, and used all the powers of reasoning and entreaty to alter her sentiments; but in vain. Since Adelaide's elopement Lady Juliana had been much in want of some subject to occupy her mind—something to excite a sensation, and give her something to complain of, and talk about, and put her in a bustle, and make her angry, and alarmed, and ill-used, and, in short, all the things which a fool is fond of being. ”

“ This was said with such an air of vexation that Mary burst into a fit of laughter.
"And yet you are the oddest compound," continued her cousin, "so gay and comical, and so little given to be shocked and scandalised at the wicked ways of others; or to find fault and lecture; or, in short, to do any of the insufferable things that your good people are so addicted to. I really don't know what to think of you."
"Think of me as a creature with too many faults of her own to presume to meddle with those of others," replied Mary, smiling at her cousin's perplexity. ”

“ I feel for Lady Juliana, poor woman! No wonder she's hysterical-five and twenty thousand a year refused! What is it she would have? The finest deer park in Scotland! Every sort of game upon the estate! A salmon fishing at the very door!—I should just like to know what is the meaning of it?"
"Cannot you guess, Doctor" asked Lady Emily.
"Guess! No, 'pon my soul! I defy any man to guess what could tempt a woman to refuse five and twenty thousand a year; unless, indeed, she has something higher in view, and even then she should be pretty sure of her mark. ”

“ Douglas was to convey her. The cruel moment came; and mother, sister, relations, friends,—all the bright visions which Mary's sanguine spirit had conjured up to soften the parting pang, all were absorbed in one agonising feeling, one overwhelming thought. Oh, who that for the first time has parted from the parent whose tenderness and love were entwined with our earliest recollections, whose sympathy had soothed our infant sufferings, whose fondness had brightened our infant felicity;—who that has a heart, but must have felt it sink beneath the anguish of a first farewell! ”

“ She had never been accustomed to lavish the best feelings of her nature on frivolous pursuits or fictitious distresses, but had early been taught to consecrate them to the best, the most ennobling purposes of humanity—even to the comforting of the weary soul, the binding of the bruised heart. Yet Mary was no rigid moralist. She loved amusement as the amusement of an imperfect existence, though her good sense and still better principles taught her to reject it as the business of an immortal being. ”

“ The ensuing weeks were passed in all the bustle of preparations necessarily attendant on the nuptials of the great. Every morning brought from Town dresses, jewels, patterns, and packages of all descriptions. Lady Juliana was in ecstasies, even though it was but happiness in the second person. Mary watched her sister's looks with the most painful solicitude; for from her lips she knew she never would learn the sentiments of her heart. But Adelaide was aware she had a part to act, and she went through it with an ease and self-possession that seemed to defy all scrutiny. ”

“ Douglas's more discerning eye, Mary's happiness did not appear in so dazzling a light as to the weaker optics of her aunts.
"It is not like my Mary," thought she, "to rest so much on mere external advantages; surely her warm affectionate heart cannot be satisfied with the grace of a mother and the beauty of a sister. These she might admire in a stranger; but where we seek for happiness we better prize more homely attributes. Yet Mary is so open and confiding, I think she could not have concealed from me had she experienced a disappointment." ”

“ Liberty is the motto here; everybody breakfasts when and where they please. Lady Juliana, I believe, frequently takes hers in her dressing-room; Papa never is visible till two or three o'clock; and Adelaide is always late."
"What a selfish cold-hearted thing is grandeur!" thought Mary, as Lady Emily and she sat like two specks in the splendid saloon, surrounded by all that wealth could purchase or luxury invent; and her thoughts reverted to the pious thanksgiving and affectionate meeting that graced their social meal in the sweet sunny parlour at Lochmarlie. ”

“ I wonder what it would be at."
"I know perfectly well what it would be at," said Miss Jacky, with an air of importance. "All this crying and screaming is for nothing else but a nurse; but it ought not to be indulged. There is no end of indulging the desires, and 'tis amazing how cunning children are, and how soon they know how to take advantage of people's weakness," glancing an eye of fire at Mrs. Douglas. "Were that my child, I would feed her on bread and water before I would humour her fancies. A pretty lesson, indeed! if she's to have her own way before she's a month old." ”

“ Downe Wright; "they are all we have to judge by."
"But I thought we were forbidden to judge one another?"
"There's no shutting people's mouths, Lady Emily."
"No; all that is required, I believe, is that we should shut our own."
Mary thought the conversation was getting rather too piquante to be pleasant, and tried to soften the tone of it by asking that most innocent question, Whether there was any news?
"Nothing but about battles and fightings, I suppose," answered Mrs. Downe Wright. "I'm sure they are to be pitied who have friends or relations either in army or navy at present. ”

“ A very saint must sicken at sight of affectation, you'll allow. Vulgarity, even innate vulgarity, is bearable—stupidity itself is pardonable—but affectation is never to be endured or forgiven."
"It admits of palliation, at least," answered Mary. "I dare say there are many people who would have been pleasing and natural in their manners had not their parents and teachers interfered. There are many, I believe, who have not courage to show themselves such as they are—some who are naturally affected and many, very many, who have been taught affectation as a necessary branch of education." ”

“ Her sister's streaming eyes and supplicating voice spoke a language to which she was a stranger; for art is ever averse to recognise the accents of nature. Still less is it capable of replying to them; and Adelaide could only wonder at her sister's agitation, and think how unpleasant it was; and say something about overcome, and eau-de-luce, and composure; which was all lost upon Mary as she hung upon her neck, every feeling wrought to its highest tone by the complicated nature of those emotions which swelled her heart. ”

“ Come, Lady Juliana—come, sister."
"I declare, Jacky, the impetuosity of your temper is—I really cannot stand it—" and the gentle Grizzy gave way to a flood of tears.
"You used to be rational, intelligent creatures," resumed her ladyship; "but what has come over you, I don't know. You come tumbling in here at the middle of the night—and at the top of the house nobody knows how—when I never was thinking of you; and because I don't tell a parcel of lies, and pretend I expected you, you are for flying off again —humph! Is this the behaviour of women in their senses? ”

“ And again wounded delicacy and woman's pride resumed their empire over her, and she rejected the idea of ever receiving Colonel Lennox as a lover. He heard her determination with the deepest anguish, and used every argument and entreaty to soften her resolution; but Mary had wrought herself up to a pitch of heroism-she had rejected the man she loved—the only man she ever could love: that done, to persist in the sacrifice seemed easy; and they parted with increased attachment in their hearts, even though those hearts seemed severed for ever. ”

“ When the soul is no longer buffeted by the storms of hope or fear, when all is fixed unchangeably for life, sorrow for the past will never long prey on a pious and well-regulated mind. If Alicia lost the buoyant spirit of youth, the bright and quick play of fancy, yet a placid contentment crowned her days; and at the end of two years she would have been astonished had anyone marked her as an object of compassion.
She scarcely ever heard from Lady Audley; and in the few letters her aunt had favoured her with, she gave favourable, though vague accounts of her son. ”

“ Mary readily assented; and when they were seated in the carriage, her cousin began—
"Since I am going to put you in the way of a trap, I think it but fair to warn you of it. All traps are odious things, and I make it my business to expose them wherever I find them. I own it chafes my spirit to see even sensible people taken in by the clumsy machinery of such a woman as Lady Matilda Sufton. So here she is in her true colours. Lady Matilda is descended from the ancient and illustrious family of Altamont. To have a fair character is, in her eyes, much more important than to deserve it. ”

“ Like all persons of sensibility, Mary had a disposition to view everything in a beau ideal: whether that is a boon most fraught with good or ill it were difficult to ascertain. While the delusion lasts it is productive of pleasure to its possessor; but oh! the thousand aches that heart is destined to endure which clings to the stability and relies on the permanency of earthly happiness! But the youthful heart must ever remain a stranger to this saddening truth. Experience only can convince us that happiness is not a plant of this world ”