Lothair | Page 6

the duchess to Mrs. Woods, when they had concluded their visit. "Do you think you could take care of them for me?"
"Well, Grace, I am sure I will do my best; but then they are very, troublesome, and I was not fortunate with my Cochin. I had rather they were sent to the aviary, Grace, if it were all the same."
"I should so like to see the aviary," said Lothair.
"Well, we will go."
And this rather extended their walk, and withdrew them more from the great amusement of the day.
"I wish your grace would do me a great favor," said Lothair, abruptly breaking a rather prolonged silence.
"And what is that?" said the duchess.
"It is a very great favor," repeated Lothair.
"If it be in my power to grant it, its magnitude would only be an additional recommendation."
"Well," said Lothair, blushing deeply, and speaking with much agitation, "I would ask your grace's permission to offer my hand to your daughter."
The duchess I looked amazed. "Corisande!" she exclaimed.
"Yes, to Lady Corisande."
"Corisande," replied the duchess, after a pause, "has absolutely not yet entered the world. Corisande is a child; and you -- you, my dear friend -- I am sure you will pardon me If I say, so -- you are not very much older than Corisande."
"I have no wish to enter the world," said Lothair, with much decision.
"I am not an enemy to youthful marriages," said the duchess. "I married early myself, and my children married early; and I am very happy, and I hope they are; but some experience of society before we settle is most desirable, and is one of the conditions, I cannot but believe, of that felicity which we all seek."
"I hate society," said Lothair. "I would never go out of my domestic circle, if it were the circle I contemplate."
"My dear young friend," said the duchess, "you could hardly have seen enough of society to speak with so much decision."
"I have seen quite enough of it," said Lothair. "I went to an evening party last season -- I came up from Christchurch on purpose for it -- and if ever they catch me at another, they shall inflict any penalty they please."
"I fear it was a stupid party," said the duchess, smiling, and glad to turn, if possible, the conversation into a lighter vein.
"No, it was a very grand party, I believe, and not exactly stupid -- it was not, that; but I was disgusted with all I saw and all I heard. It seemed to me a mass of affectation, falsehood, and malignity."
"Oh! dear," said the duchess, "how very dreadful! But I did not mean merely going to parties for society; I meant knowledge of the world, and that experience which enables us to form sound opinions on the affairs of life."
"Oh! as for that," said Lothair, "my, opinions are already formed on every subject; that is to say, every subject of importance; and, what is more, they will never change."
"I could not say that of Corisande," said the duchess.
"I think we agree on all the great things," said Lothair, musingly. "Her church views may be a little higher than mine, but I do not anticipate any permanent difficulty on that head. Although my uncle made me go to kirk, I always hated it and always considered myself a churchman. Then, as to churches themselves, she is in favor of building churches, and so am I; and schools -- there is no quantity of schools I would not establish. My opinion is, you cannot have too much education, provided it be founded on a religious basis. I would sooner renounce the whole of my inheritance than consent to secular education."
"I should be sorry to see any education but a religious education," remarked the duchess.
"Well, then," said Lothair, "that is our life, or a great part of it. To complete it, here is that to which I really wish to devote my existence, and in which I instinctively feel Lady Corisande would sympathize with me -- the extinction of pauperism."
"That is a vast subject;" said the duchess.
"It is the terror of Europe and the disgrace of Britain," said Lothair; "and I am resolved to grapple with it. It seems to me that pauperism is not an affair so much of wages as of dwellings. If the working-classes were properly lodged, at their present rate of wages, they would be richer. They would be healthier and happier at the same cost. I am so convinced of this, that the moment I am master, I shall build two thousand cottages on any estates. I have the designs already."
"I am much in favor of improved dwellings for the poor," said the duchess; "but then you must take care that your dwellings are cottages, and not villas like my cousin's, the Duke of