第23章

About this time, Mr.Berryl, Lord Colambre's Cambridge friend, for whom his lordship had fought the battle of the curricle with Mordicai, came to town.Lord Colambre introduced him to his mother, by whom he was graciously received; for Mr.Berryl was a young gentleman of good figure, good address, good family, heir to a good fortune, and in every respect a fit match for Miss Nugent.Lady Clonbrony thought that it would be wise to secure him for her niece before he should make his appearance in the London world, where mothers and daughters would soon make him feel his own consequence.Mr.Berryl, as Lord Colambre's intimate friend, was admitted to the private evening parties at Lady Clonbrony's, and he contributed to render them still more agreeable.His information, his habits of thinking, and his views, were all totally different from Mr.Salisbury's; and their collision continually struck out that sparkling novelty which pleases peculiarly in conversation.Mr.Berryl's education, disposition, and tastes, fitted him exactly for the station which he was destined to fill in society--that of a COUNTRY GENTLEMAN;not meaning by that expression a mere eating, drinking, hunting, shooting, ignorant country squire of the old race, which is now nearly extinct; but a cultivated, enlightened, independent English country gentleman--the happiest, perhaps, of human beings.On the comparative felicity of the town and country life; on the dignity, utility, elegance, and interesting nature of their different occupations, and general scheme of passing their time, Mr.Berryl and Mr.Salisbury had one evening a playful, entertaining, and, perhaps, instructive conversation;each party, at the end, remaining, as frequently happens, of their own opinion.It was observed that Miss Broadhurst ably and warmly defended Mr.Berryl's side of the question; and in their views, plans, and estimates of life, there appeared a remarkable, and as Lord Colambre thought, a happy coincidence.When she was at last called upon to give her decisive judgment between a town and a country life, she declared that 'if she were condemned to the extremes of either, she should prefer a country life, as much as she should prefer Robinson Crusoe's diary to the journal of the idle man in the SPECTATOR.'

'Lord bless me! Mrs.Broadhurst, do you hear what your daughter is saying?' cried Lady Clonbrony, who, from the card-table, lent an attentive ear to all that was going forward.'Is it possible that Miss Broadhurst, with her fortune, and pretensions, and sense, can really be serious in saying she would be content to live in the country?'

'What's that you say, child, about living in the country?' said Mrs.Broadhurst.

Miss Broadhurst repeated what she had said.

'Girls always think so who have lived in town,' said Mrs.

Broadhurst.'They are always dreaming of sheep and sheephooks;but the first winter the country cures them; a shepherdess, in winter, is a sad and sorry sort of personage, except at a masquerade.'

'Colambre,' said Lady Clonbrony, 'I am sure Miss Broadhurst's sentiments about town life, and all that, must delight you; for do you know, ma'am, he is always trying to persuade me to give up living in town? Colambre and Miss Broadhurst perfectly agree.'

'Mind your cards, my dear Lady Clonbrony,' interrupted Mrs.

Broadhurst, 'in pity to your partner.Mr.Pratt has certainly the patience of Job--your ladyship has revoked twice this hand.'

Lady Clonbrony begged a thousand pardons, fixed her eyes and endeavoured to fix her mind on the cards; but there was something said at the other end of the room, about an estate in Cambridgeshire, which soon distracted her attention again.Mr.

Pratt certainly had the patience of Job.She revoked, and lost the game, though they had four by honours.

As soon as she rose from the card-table, and could speak to Mrs.

Broadhurst apart, she communicated her apprehensions.

'Seriously, my dear madam,' said she, 'I believe I have done very wrong to admit Mr.Berryl just now, though it was on Grace's account I did it.But, ma'am, I did not know Miss Broadhurst had an estate in Cambridgeshire; their two estates just close to one another, I heard them say.Lord bless me, ma'am! there's the danger of propinquity indeed!'

'No danger, no danger,' persisted Mrs.Broadhurst.'I know my girl better than you do, begging your ladyship's pardon.No one thinks less of estates than she does.'

'Well, I only know I heard her talking of them, and earnestly too.'

'Yes, very likely; but don't you know that girls never think of what they are talking about, or rather never talk of what they are thinking about? And they have always ten times more to say to the man they don't care for, than to him they do.'

'Very extraordinary!' said Lady Clonbrony.'I only hope you are right.'

'I am sure of it,' said Mrs.Broadhurst.'Only let things go on, and mind your cards, I beseech you, to-morrow night better than you did to-night; and you will see that things will turn out just as I prophesied.Lord Colambre will come to a point-blank proposal before the end of the week, and will be accepted, or my name's not Broadhurst.Why, in plain English, I am clear my girl likes him; and when that's the case, you know, can you doubt how the thing will end?'

Mrs.Broadhurst was perfectly right in every point of her reasoning but one.From long habit of seeing and considering that such an heiress as her daughter might marry whom she pleased--from constantly seeing that she was the person to decide and to reject--Mrs.Broadhurst had literally taken it for granted that everything was to depend upon her daughter's inclinations: