Volume Ii Part 24 (2/2)
This change of subject was a considerable relief; and Agnes answered with tolerable composure,--”Oh yes!... I did know you were married there, for I heard it mentioned several times; ... and I saw you too, Lady Stephenson, the evening before you were married, walking up and down Gloucester Row with ... with your brother.”
”Did you indeed?--Were you walking there, Agnes?”
”No ... we were at the drawing-room window, and my aunt made me look out to see your brother.”
”Why particularly to see my brother?” inquired Lady Stephenson with a smile.
”Because ... because he was so tall, I believe,” replied Agnes, looking considerably more silly than she had ever done in her life.
”And so you watched us walking up and down, did you, Agnes?”
”Yes, once or twice,” answered Agnes, again blus.h.i.+ng violently.
”And did you hear what we said, my dear?”
”No!... but I am sure it was something very interesting, you seemed to be talking so earnestly.”
”It was very interesting ... it was about Frederick.... You knew him too, did not you?”
”Oh yes!... very well.”
”Really!... I wonder you never told me so before.”
It was impossible to look at Agnes at this moment, as Lady Stephenson now looked at her, without perceiving that there must be some cause for the agitation she evinced. It immediately occurred to her that it was likely enough Frederick might have laid his heart at her feet, or perhaps stopped short before he did so from the effect of that very conversation of which Agnes had been an eye, though not an ear, witness.
”Poor little thing!”... thought Lady Stephenson; ”if this be so, and if she has given her young heart in return, how greatly is she to be pitied!”
No sooner had this idea struck her, which many trifling circ.u.mstances tended to confirm, than Lady Stephenson determined to drop the subject for ever; and much as Agnes secretly but tremblingly wished it, no allusion was ever made to the two gentlemen again.
Days and weeks rolled on till the time fixed by Lord Mucklebury for his departure arrived. His collection of the Barnaby papers was quite as copious as he wished it to be; and having indulged himself and his friends with as many good stories as any one lady could be the heroine of, without being fatiguing, he parted with the widow on Sat.u.r.day evening, a.s.suring her, with a thousand expressions of pa.s.sionate admiration, that he should be early on the walks to look for her on the morrow, and by noon on Sunday was on his road to London behind four gallopping post-horses.
During the whole of that fatal Sunday Mrs. Barnaby roamed through all the public walks of Cheltenham with the disconsolate air of a pigeon whose mate has been shot.... She was sad, cross, tender, and angry by turns; but never for a moment during that long dismal day did she ever once conceive the terrible idea that her intended mate was flown for ever. Nay, even on the morrow, when in answer to an inquiry at the reading-room, of whether Lord Mucklebury had been there that morning, the man replied,--”I believe his lords.h.i.+p has left the town, ma'am!”--not even then did her mind receive the terrible truth.
It was from the hand of her friend Miss Morrison that the blow came at last.... That lady on Wednesday evening entered her room, bringing a London newspaper with her; she was much irritated.
”_Mong Dew_, Mrs. Barnaby!” she cried, ”look here.”
The widow seized the paper with a trembling hand, and before she fainted read as follows:--
”Lord Viscount Mucklebury arrived this morning at Mivart's Hotel from Cheltenham. It is rumoured that his lords.h.i.+p is about to depart in a few days for the Continent, in order to pa.s.s the winter at Rome, but rather with the intention of kissing the hands of the beautiful Lady M---- S---- than the toe of his holiness.”
END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.
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