Her playful smile, her buoyance wild, Bespeak the gentle, mirthful child; But in her forehead's broad expanse, Her chastened tones, her thoughtful glance, Is mingled, with the child's light glee, The modest maiden's dignity.
One summer's day, two years after the ball and review, Mary Ross and her father were finishing their early dinner, when she said,-'If you don't want me this afternoon, papa, I think I shall walk to Hollywell. You know Eveleen de Courcy is there.'
'No, I did not. What has brought her?'
'As Charles expresses it, she has over-polked herself in London, and is sent here for quiet and country air. I want to call on her, and to ask Sir Guy to give me some idea as to the singing the children should practise for the school-feast?'
'Then you think Sir Guy will come to the feast?'
'I reckon on him to conceal all the deficiencies in the children's singing.'
'He won't desert you, as he did Mrs. Brownlow?'
'O papa! you surely did not think him to blame in that affair?'
'Honestly, Mary, if I thought about the matter at all, I thought it a pity he should go so much to the Brownlows.'
'I believe I could tell you the history, if you thought it worth while; and though it may be gossip, I should like you to do justice to Sir Guy.'
'Very well; though I don't think there is much danger of my doing otherwise. I only wondered he should become intimate there at all.'
'I believe Mrs. Edmonstone thinks it right he should see as much of the world as possible, and not be always at home in their own set.'
'Fair and proper.'
'You know she has shown him all the people she could,--had Eveleen staying there, and the Miss Nortons, and hunted him out to parties, when he had rather have been at home.'
'I thought he was fond of society. I remember your telling me how amused you were with his enjoyment of his first ball.'
'Ah! he was two years younger then, and all was new. He seems to me too deep and sensitive not to find more pain than pleasure in commonplace society. I have sometimes seen that he cannot speak either lightly or harshly of what he disapproves, and people don't understand him. I was once sitting next him, when there was some talking going on about an elopement; he did not laugh, looked almost distressed, and at last said in a very low voice, to me, "I wish people would not laugh about such things."'