Love and Life | Page 6

it," said Harriet, "Lady Herries said Sir Ambrose. No
doubt it was Sir Ambrose Watford."
"Nay, Harriet, I demur to that," said her father drolly. "I flatter myself I
was a more personable youth than to be likened to Watford with his
swollen nose. What like was your cavalier, Aura?"
"Indeed, sir, I cannot describe him. I was so much terrified lest he
should speak to me that I had much ado to mind my steps. I know he
had white gloves and diamond shoe-buckles, and that his feet moved by
no means like those of Sir Ambrose."

"Aura is a modest child, and does credit to her breeding," said Betty.
"Thus much I saw, that the young gentleman was tall and personable
enough to bear comparison even to you, sir, not more than nineteen or
twenty years of age, in a laced scarlet uniform, as I think, of the
Dragoon Guards, and with a little powder, but not enough to disguise
that his hair was entire gold."
"That all points to his being indeed young Belamour," said her father;
"age, military appearance, and all--I wonder what this portends!"
"What a disaster!" exclaimed Harriet, "that my sister and I should have
been out of the way, and only a chit like Aura be there to be presented
to him."
"If young ladies will defy Cupid," began her father;--but at that moment
Corporal Palmer knocked at the door, bringing a basin of soup for his
master, and announcing "Supper is served, young ladies."
Each of the three bent her knee to receive her father's blessing and kiss,
then curtseying at the door, departed, Betty lingering behind her two
juniors to see her father taste his soup and to make sure that he relished
it.


CHAPTER II
. THE HOUSE OF DELAVIE.
All his Paphian mother fear; Empress! all thy sway revere!
EURIPEDES (Anstice).
The parlour where the supper was laid was oak panelled, but painted
white. Like a little island in the vast polished slippery floor lay a square
much-worn carpet, just big enough to accommodate a moderate- sized
table and the surrounding high-backed chairs. There was a tent- stitch
rug before the Dutch-tiled fireplace, and on the walls hung two framed
prints,--one representing the stately and graceful Duke of Marlborough;
the other, the small, dark, pinched, but fiery Prince Eugene. On the
spotless white cloth was spread a frugal meal of bread, butter, cheese,
and lettuce; a jug of milk, another of water, and a bottle of cowslip
wine; for the habits of the family were more than usually frugal and
abstemious.

Frugality and health alike obliged Major Delavie to observe a careful
regimen. He had served in all Marlborough's campaigns, and had
afterwards entered the Austrian army, and fought in the Turkish war,
until he had been disabled before Belgrade by a terrible wound, of
which he still felt the effects. Returning home with his wife, the
daughter of a Jacobite exile, he had become a kind of agent in
managing the family estate for his cousin the heiress, Lady Belamour,
who allowed him to live rent-free in this ruinous old Manor-house, the
cradle of the family.
This was all that Harriet and Aurelia knew. The latter had been born at
the Manor, and young girls, if not brought extremely forward, were
treated like children; but Elizabeth, the eldest of the family, who could
remember Vienna, was so much the companion and confidante of her
father, that she was more on the level of a mother than a sister to her
juniors.
"Then you think Aurelia's beau was really Sir Amyas Belamour," said
Harriet, as they sat down to supper.
"So it appears," said Betty, gravely.
"Do you think he will come hither, sister? I would give the world to see
him," continued Harriet.
"He said something of hoping for better acquaintance," softly put in
Aurelia.
"Oh, did he so?" cried Harriet. "For demure as you are, Miss Aura, I
fancy you looked a little above the diamond shoe-buckles!"
"Fie, Harriet!" exclaimed Betty; "I will not have the child tormented.
He ought to come and pay his respects to my father."
"Have you ever seen my Lady?" asked Aurelia.
"That have I, Miss Aurelia," interposed Corporal Palmer, "and a rare
piece of beauty she would be, if one could forget the saying 'handsome
is as handsome does.'"
"I never knew what she has done," said Aurelia.
"'Tis a long story," hastily said Betty, "too long to tell at table. I must
make haste to prepare the poultice for my father."
She quickly broke up the supper party, and the two younger sisters
repaired to their chamber, both conscious of having been repressed; the
one feeling injured, the other rebuked for forwardness and curiosity.
The three sisters shared one long