Henriettas Wish | Page 7

connexion of some part of the family came
for a month or six weeks, and a few calls were exchanged, and it was
one of these visits that led to the following conversation.
"By the by, mamma," said Fred, "I meant to ask you what that foolish
woman meant about the St. Legers, and their not having thoroughly
approved of Aunt Geoffrey's marriage."
"About the most ill-placed thing she could have said, Freddy," replied
Mrs. Langford, "considering that I was always accused of having made
the match."
"Made the match! O tell us, mamma; tell us all about it. Did you
really?"
"Not consciously; Fred, and Frank St. Leger deserves as much of the
credit as I do."
"Who was he? a brother of Aunt Geoffrey's?"
"O yes, Fred," said Henrietta, "to be sure you knew that. You have
heard how mamma came home from India with General St. Leger and

his little boy and girl. But by the by, mamma, what became of their
mother?"
"Lady Beatrice? She died in India just before we came home. Well, I
used to stay with them after we came back to England, and of course
talked to my friend--"
"Call her Beatrice, mamma, and make a story of it."
"I talked to her about my Knight Sutton home, and cousins, and on the
other hand, then, Frank was always telling her about his school friend
Geoffrey Langford. At last Frank brought him home from Oxford one
Easter vacation. It was when the general was in command at ----, and
Beatrice was in the midst of all sorts of gaieties, the mistress of the
house, entertaining everybody, and all exactly what a novel would call
brilliant."
"Were you there, mamma?"
"Yes, Beatrice had made a point of our coming to stay with her, and
very droll it was to see how she and Geoffrey were surprised at each
other; she to find her brother's guide, philosopher, and friend, the
Langford who had gained every prize, a boyish-looking,
boyish-mannered youth, very shy at first, and afterwards, excellent at
giggling and making giggle; and he to find one with the exterior of a
fine gay lady, so really simple in tastes and habits."
"Was Aunt Geoffrey ever pretty?" asked Fred.
"She is just what she was then, a little brown thing with no actual
beauty but in her animation and in her expression. I never saw a really
handsome person who seemed to me nearly as charming. Then she had,
and indeed has now, so much air and grace, so much of what, for want
of a better word, I must call fashion in her appearance, that she was
always very striking."
"Yes," said Henrietta, "I can quite see that; it is not gracefulness, and it
is not beauty, nor is it what she ever thinks of, but there is something
distinguished about her. I should look twice at her if I met her in the
street, and expect her to get into a carriage with a coronet. And then
and there they fell in love, did they?"
"In long morning expeditions with the ostensible purpose of sketching,
but in which I had all the drawing to myself, while the others talked
either wondrous wisely or wondrous drolly. However, you must not
suppose that anything of the novel kind was said then; Geoffrey was

only twenty, and Beatrice seemed as much out of his reach as the king's
daughter of Hongarie."
"O yes, of course," said Henrietta, "but that only makes it more
delightful! Only to think of Uncle and Aunt Geoffrey having a novel in
their history."
"That there are better novels in real life than in stories, is a truth or a
truism often repeated, Henrietta," said her mother with a soft sigh,
which she repressed in an instant, and proceeded: "Poor Frank's illness
and death at Oxford brought them together the next year in a very
different manner. Geoffrey was one of his chief nurses to the last, and
was a great comfort to them all; you may suppose how grateful they
were to him. Next time I saw him, he seemed quite to have buried his
youthful spirits in his studies: he was reading morning, noon, and night,
and looking ill and overworked."
"O, Uncle Geoffrey! dear good Uncle Geoffrey," cried Henrietta, in an
ecstasy; "you were as delightful as a knight of old, only as you could
not fight tournaments for her, you were obliged to read for her; and
pining away all the time and saying nothing about it."
"Nothing beyond a demure inquiry of me when we were alone together,
after the health of the General. Well, you know how well his reading
succeeded; he took a double first class, and very proud of him we
were."
"And still he