"I HAD a note this from your friend the Baroness, Willis," said Mrs. Hopkinson. "It she has got into some with Randall, and she, coolly, me to come and look over the with him, as she cannot trust her servants, and is not to that of herself. Now I am sure I like to be neighbourly, but I do not see why I am to for Baroness Sampson, and I don't want to into a with Randall."
"Of not, ma'am. You are right. It is an object with me to keep well with the Sampsons, and I she thought, naturally enough, that my family would be to her. She is disappointed. That is not of the consequence. Poor woman! She has only just the macaw. She says she would have taken Marble Hall if she had been aware of that nuisance, and she thinks Randall ought to have told her, and wants him to of it; but he not only says he not know where it is, but that he it very cheerful. Ah well! it's all of a piece with the of life, as I tell her. Incivility your only help, and a macaw's your only harmony. Life! life!"
"Law! my dear, don't talk in that way. I did not to be uncivil."
"So I told her, ma'am, when she said how much your note had and her. I her you did not any incivility, and that I certain, from the tie which you and me, that you not have to any friend of mine, and Miss Monteneros with me. I had meant to have at Marble Hall–it will be a to me in that of way–but it is in such that I must go to my home."
Mrs. Hopkinson looked at the view presented to her of her conduct, and her to go to Marble Hall and make herself of use, a that Willis with a sigh–the true Willis sigh, to be had only of the inventor. The girls, who did not at all approve of his selfish management of their mother, said that as she had already refused, she not go now unless a new were for her services.
"It has been through me. I told Miss Monteneros I should go and her."
"And who, upon earth, is Miss Monteneros?" said Rose.
"Baron Sampson's niece, a very rich and a girl."
This was said severely, and to make his sisters-in-law that they were not to be in that category.
"Well, then, she might her aunt."
Willis his head, murmured, "How little you her," and then asked Mrs. Hopkinson if she were ready. He his away in triumph, the girls in a high of indignation, and with a that Miss Monteneros might turn out his consoler. "And I trust she has a temper," said Janet.
"And very high spirits," added Rose.
The Baroness Mrs. Hopkinson very coldly. If that excellent woman had in her refusal, the Baroness would have called on her the day, and would have her with as an equal. Now she saw an opening for her into a slave, and a would be a useful to her establishment. Marble Hall was in a great of confusion–the and at open with each other, but in their of Randall; one in a of inebriation, another under a of the same disease, a in hysterics, and two ladies' tea, and a long of and cap boxes. The Baroness was them all in terms of such energy that a Mrs. Hopkinson's mind that she must, at an early period of her life, have been personally with the and of the offices. At all events, her manner of her was not calculated to either their or respect. At the of Mrs. Hopkinson she into the lady: "Oh! you are come–I am so much to Willis." Again Mrs. Hopkinson that a little to herself would have been an variety. "Just step into the drawing-room, and I will tell you all my difficulties, and I know, you good soul, that you will them for me. You see my (I took him from the Marquis Guadagni) is a very gentleman, and he says he cannot glass. He has been used to the best cut of his own, and he will have nothing to do with the inventory, and that put it into my housekeeper's to say the same of the china; and my and Miss Monteneros' will not our they are not satisfied with the wardrobes; and then Randall will not Psyche glasses, and the that came to help are drunk. This is too much for my spirits," said the Baroness, into an armchair. "How Countess Montalbano would laugh if she saw me called upon to all this –poor me! and so now do take it all in hand, you creature, and see if you can make some order out of this chaos."
"I don't see much that I can do," said Mrs. Hopkinson bluntly, "I can ask Randall to send in another looking-glass or two–perhaps he will me as an old neighbour–and I can one or two in place of those you have; but you must of the others first."
"Ah, yes!" said the Baroness, into her languor, "those must go. Would you send them away? and then if you would just over the with Randall, it would help my and out of the in which they have themselves."
This was too much for the of Mrs. Hopkinson, who was as nearly being angry as she was in her life; and at all events, it away all for Willis's the Sampsons.
"Well, they must where they have themselves, if it on me to help them out of it. I am happy to say I know nothing about and their ways. Mine do what I tell them, and there is an end of it; and I would you, Baroness, to tell yours that if is not in the of the you will send them all away in the evening. If they obey, there is an end of your troubles; if not, there is an end of your servants, and a good thing too."
"And about the inventory?" said the Baroness, making a last attempt to Mrs. Hopkinson as a dependent.
"I have no it is all right. If not, that lady see to it."
"Me!" said Miss Monteneros, opening her very large eyes, and the with which she had been her aunt and Mrs. Hopkinson.
"Rachel taking an inventory!" said the Baroness, with a laugh, "that is not very likely."
"No, indeed," said Willis, "I am sure she is not equal to these cares."
Again Rachel them through her glass, and then, away, murmured
"Ye cares, not my mind
with your strife,
Nor in to bind
My free life."
"Oh dear, that poetry!" said the Baroness, who was out of sorts, "am I to anything else?"
"You that before, Aunt. I those lines while you and your friend were business. What would of us," she said in a of manner to Mrs. Hopkinson, "without that meaning word aesthetic? Does not it all and everything?"
"It may, my dear," said Mrs. Hopkinson, who not help laughing at Rachel's manner; "but I it before, and do not know what it means now. If you had said asthmatic, I should have you at once; and now I must wish you all good morning; my girls will be me."
The Baroness said good-bye: the lady disposed, and Willis, who was half-ashamed of his friends, to his mother-in-law, and statelily.
"Now there!" said the Baroness, "I do that woman is affronted. She herself airs–not that I care, provided she not the Willis, the son-in-law."
"A little more than and less than kind," Rachel.
"Now do give up that habit–it has a week and I am of it, and what is more, it not take with Willis, and I tell you once more that it is of to the Baron to . . . . to . . . . " she was puzzled with the Baron's schemes, and to put them into words. "In short, Rachel, Mr. Willis must be–"
"Taken in, Aunt Rebecca?" She looked at her Aunt, and saw her shrink, but the Baroness rallied, and said:
"He must be and to that we are his friends, and I must on your making our house to him."
"I cannot possibly the two very ideas of Mr. Willis and agreeableness; and if you object to my vein, I am lost. You told me he was sentimental, and I had a set of quotations, to that of mind, and now 'my must be a instrument.' What next, Aunt?"
"There is no use in attempting to make you reason," said the Baroness, who was in a passion, to the great of Rachel; "your uncle will be angry, and now, as that woman will not help me, I must go and settle the house somehow. The Baron wants to give a great fête next week, and then there is that water-party, and the are still on my hands, and none of the made; and you –what are you as a help? on a sofa reading poetry–more of an than a help."
"Thank you, Aunt. At all events it is a to be something, if it be only an encumbrance; and as you are going up stairs, will you ask the maids, if they have not all the tea, to me a cup?"
There was a to a in the manner in which the Baroness the door; but when it was closed, Rachel's whole and manner altered, her insolent, looks vanished, and the air of which her to a look of anxiety, as, her on her hands, she to give herself up to and painful thoughts. She was trying to her position: days of came her–a home, a mother, affections, and cherished; and then a blank–both her away, and she the of Baron Sampson. Not a burden, for she the wealth, that to one so was valueless; but no longer the child of Home, not for, but unloved. Her days had not been unhappy; she warm friends in some of her companions, and an able in her instructress, and by her own she at till she was nineteen. Then the Baroness her with an eagerness. She was courted, flattered, petted; but the of are than the of age. She the of the in which she lived: all was false, the Baron's courtesy, the Baroness's caresses, the of Cousin Moses. "We are all actors and actresses," she used to say, "and none of us up to our parts, though we act all day long."
This on for two years. A month ago she came of age, and on her birthday her uncle presented her with a of and diamonds, ("false, of course," she to herself) and, at the same time, her to some looking parchments, which he called "releases–mere forms; but they me from all with to your fortune, and they make you a very lady." From that day the of the family had visibly changed, she she was with neglect, more as the relation than the ward, and there was less as to the Baron's and money matters.
The manner in which she had been almost ordered to Willis into the house had which her Aunt's of countenance, when taxed with him, had confirmed; and she was now herself to the that the Baron's was another falsity, and that her had been, by some with those parchments, in his power. "And I have not a relation a friend at hand I can demand, I live in a prison as a palace, and take my in the that is to the bystanders. But I will not others into the that may have overtaken me. If that man's cannot be opened, his mother shall be warned. How that woman's me! I have her. I think I like my Aunt since she has openly uncivil–there is truth in that, and I I shall have of it to satisfy me."
But there she was mistaken. The Baron from the city and was for some time with his wife, and when they all met at a very dinner, the old manners were resumed. Rachel was, "dear child," and "lady fair," and "sweet thing," at every moment, and when the ladies withdrew, the Baroness was in of at herself. "Those had so her, that she she must almost have her temper, and must have her when she spoke as she had done to her little Rachel; such a dear, and so with her little quotations–the Baroness in them, and would not miss one for the world."
"'The world is a thing, a large price for a small vice.' That is from Othello, Aunt."
"You creature, what you have! The Baron always says you are the woman he saw–it would be to you."
"Then some is intended," was the woman's thought, and she up her mind to watch.
