Emmeline, the Orphan of the Castle. Charlotte Smith

nothing but being persuaded that your heart will refuse to confirm the rigour you think yourself obliged to adopt, could make me venture, Madam, to solicit your favour with Miss Mowbray. I now warmly implore it; and surely'——

      'Can you believe, Sir,' said Mrs. Stafford, interrupting him, 'that I shall ever influence Miss Mowbray to listen to you; knowing, as I do, the aversion of your family to your entertaining any honourable views? and having reason to believe you have yourself formed those that are very different?'

      'You have no reason to believe so, Madam,' interrupted Delamere in his turn; 'and must wilfully mistake me, as an excuse for your cold and unkind manner of treating me. By heaven! I love Emmeline with a passion as pure as it is violent; and if she would but consent to it, will marry her in opposition to all the world. Assist me then, dear and amiable Mrs. Stafford! assist me to conquer the unreasonable prejudice she has conceived against a secret marriage!'

      'Never, Sir, will I counsel Miss Mowbray to accept such a proposal! never will I advise her to unite herself with one whose family disdain to receive her! and by clandestinely stealing into it, either disturb it's peace, or undergo the humiliation of living the wife of a man who dares not own her!'

      'And who, Madam, has said that I dare not own her? Does not the same blood run in our veins? Is she not worthy, from her personal merit, of a throne if I had a throne to offer her? And do you suppose I mean to sacrifice the happiness of my whole life to the narrow policy or selfish ambition of my father?'

      'Wait then, Sir, 'till time shall produce some alteration in your favour. Emmeline is yet very young, too young indeed to marry. Perhaps, when Lord and Lady Montreville are convinced that she only can make you happy, they may consent to your union.'

      'You little know, Madam, the hopelessness of such an expectation. Were it possible that any arguments, any motives could engage my father to forego all the projects of aggrandizing his family by splendid and rich alliances, my mother will, I know, ever be inexorable. She will not hear the name of Emmeline. Last winter she incessantly persecuted me with proposals of marriage, and is now bent upon persuading me to engage my hand to Miss Otley, a relation of her own, who possesses indeed an immense fortune, and is of rank; but who of all women living would make me the most miserable. The fatigueing arguments I have heard about this match, and the fruitless and incessant solicitude of my mother, convince me I cannot, for both our sakes, too soon put an end to it.'

      Mrs. Stafford, notwithstanding the vehement plausibility of Delamere, still declined giving to Emmeline such advice as he wished to engage her to offer; and tho' aware of all the advantages such a marriage would procure her friend, she would not influence her to a determination her heart could not approve.

      While Delamere therefore was pleading vainly to her, Fitz-Edward was exhausting in his discourse with Emmeline, all that rhetoric on behalf of his friend, which had already succeeded so frequently for himself. Tho' he had given way to Delamere's eagerness, and had accompanied him in pursuit of Miss Mowbray, after a few feeble arguments against it, he never intended to encourage him in his resolution of marrying her; which he thought a boyish and romantic plan, and one, of which he would probably be weary before it could be executed. But as it was a military maxim, that in love and war all stratagems are allowable, he failed not to lay as much stress on the honourable intentions of Delamere, as if he had really meant to assist in carrying them into effect.

      Emmeline heard him in silence: or when an answer of some kind seemed to be extorted from her, she told him that she referred herself entirely to Mrs. Stafford, and would not even speak upon the subject but before her, and as she should dictate.

      In this way several meetings passed between Delamere, the colonel, and the two ladies; for unless the latter had wholly confined themselves, there was no possible way of avoiding the importunate assiduity of the gentlemen. Fitz-Edward had a servant who was an adept in such commissions, and who was kept constantly on the watch; so that they were traced and followed, in spite of all their endeavours to avoid it.

      Mrs. Stafford, however, persuaded Emmeline to be less uneasy at it, as she assured her she would never leave her; and that there could be no misrepresentation of her conduct while they were together.

      Every day they expected some consequence from Mrs. Stafford's letter to Lord Montreville; but for ten days, though they had heard nothing, they satisfied themselves with conjectures.

      Ten days more insensibly passed by; and they began to think it very extraordinary that his Lordship should give no attention to an affair, which only a few months before seemed to have occasioned him so much serious alarm.

      In this interval, Delamere saw Emmeline every day; and Fitz-Edward, on behalf of his friend's views, attached himself to Mrs. Stafford with an attention as marked and as warm as that of Delamere towards Miss Mowbray.

      He was well aware of the power a woman of her understanding must have over an heart like Emmeline's; so new to the world, so ingenuous, and so much inclined to indulge all the delicious enthusiasm of early friendship.

      He had had a slight acquaintance with Mrs. Stafford when she was first married; and knew enough of her husband to be informed of the source of that dejection, which, through all her endeavours to conceal it, frequently appeared; and having lived always among those who consider attachments to married women as allowable gallantries, and having had but too much success among them, Fitz-Edward thought he could take advantage of Mrs. Stafford's situation, to entangle her in a connection which would make her more indulgent to the weakness of her friend for Delamere.

      But such was the awful, yet simple dignity of her manner, and so sacred the purity of unaffected virtue, that he dared not hazard offending her; while aware of the tendency of his flattering and incessant assiduity, she was always watchful to prevent any diminution of the respect she had a right to exact; and without affecting to shun his society, which was extremely agreeable, she never suffered him to assume, in his conversation with her, those freedoms which often made him admired by others; nor allowed him to avow that libertinism of principle which she lamented that he possessed.

      Fitz-Edward, who had at first undertaken to entertain her merely with a view of favouring Delamere's conversation with Emmeline, almost imperceptibly found that it had charms on his own account. He could not be insensible of the graces of a mind so highly cultivated; and he felt his admiration mingled with a reverence and esteem of which he had never before been sensible: but his vanity was piqued at the coldness with which she received his studied and delicate adulation; and, for the first time in his life, he was obliged to acknowledge to himself, that there might be a woman whose mind was superior to it's influence.

      Not being disposed very tranquilly to submit to this mortifying conviction, he became more anxious to secure that partiality from Mrs. Stafford, which, since he found it so hard to acquire, became necessary to his happiness; and, in the hope of obtaining it, he would probably long have persisted, had not his attention been soon afterwards diverted to another object.

      It wanted only a few days of a month since Mrs. Stafford's letter was dispatched to Lord Montreville. But the carelessness of the servant who was left in charge of the house in Berkley-Square was the only reason of his not noticing it.

      Immediately after the birth-day, his Lordship had quitted London on a visit to a nobleman in Buckinghamshire, whither his son had attended him, and where they parted. Delamere, under pretence of seeing his friend Percival, really went into Berkshire; and Lord Montreville, having insisted on Delamere's joining him at the house of Lady Mary Otley, beyond Durham, where Lady Montreville and her two daughters were already gone, set out himself for that place, where they intended to pass the months of July and August. He had many friends to visit on the road; and when his Lordship arrived there, he found all his letters had, instead of following him as he had directed, been sent immediately thither; and instead of finding his son, or an account of his intended arrival, he had the mortification of reading Mrs. Stafford's information.

      Delamere had, indeed, passed a few days with Mr. Percival, and had written to his father from thence; but he had also seen Headly, from whom he had extorted the secret of Emmeline's residence.

      Fitz-Edward,