66 although sent first to Eton, most aristocratic of public schools, and then to Christchurch, most lordly of colleges, with the especial maternal injunction to form good connexions, so that he might pick up an heiress for himself and men of fortune for his sister, had, with unexampled perversity, cultivated the friendship of the clever, the entertaining, and the poor, and was now on the point of leaving Oxford without having made a single acquaintance worth knowing. This, this was the unkindest cut of all;" for Richard, a lad of good person and lively parts, had always been in her secret soul his mother's favourite; and now, to find him turn round on her and join his father in laying the blame of her several defeats on her own bad generalship and want of art to conceal her designs, was really too vexatious, especially as Barbara and Annabella, who had hitherto been patterns of filial obedience, entering blindly into all her objects and doing their best to bring them to bear, now began to shew symptoms of being ashamed of the unmaidenly forwardness into which they had been betrayed, and even to form a resolution (especially Barbara, who had more of her father's and brother's sense than the good-natured but simple Annabella) not to join in such manœuvring again. "It cannot be right in me, mamma," said she one day, "to practise pistol-shooting with Mr. Greville, when no other lady does so; and, therefore, if you please, I shall not go I am sure you cannot wish me to do anything not right." “Particularly as there's no use in it," added Richard : "fire as often as you may, you'll never hit that mark." And Mr. Greville and the pistol-shooting were given up; and Mrs. Leslie felt her authority shaken. Affairs were in this posture, when the arrival of a visitor after her own heart,-young, rich, unmarried, and a baronet, renewed the hopes of our match-maker. For some months they had had at Hallenden Hall a very undistinguished, but in my mind a very amiable inmate, Mary Morland, the only daughter of Mr. Leslie's only sister, who, her parents being dead, and herself and her brother left in indigent circumstances, had accepted her uncle's invitation to reside in his family as long as it suited her convenience, and was now on the point of departing to keep her brother's house,―a young clergyman recently ordained, who intended to eke out the scanty income of his curacy by taking pupils, for which arduous office he was eminently qualified by his excellent private character and high scholastic attainments. William Morland was now come to carry his sister to their distant home; for they were of the north countrie,' and his curacy was situate in far Northumberland. He was accompanied by an old school-fellow and intimate friend, in whose carriage Mary and himself were to perform their long journey; and it was on this kind companion, rich and young, a baronet and a bachelor, that Mrs. Leslie at once set her heart for a son-in-law. Her manœuvres began the very evening of his ar rival. She had been kind to Miss Morland from the moment she ascertained that she was a plain though lady-like woman of six-and-twenty, wholly unaccomplished in her sense of the word, and altogether the most unlikely person in the world to rival her two belles. She had been always kind to "poor dear Mary," as she called her; but as soon as she beheld Sir Arthur Selby, she became the very fondest of aunts, insisted that Barbara should furnish her wardrobe, and Annabella take her portrait, and that the whole party should stay until these operations were satisfactorily concluded. Sir Arthur, who seemed to entertain a great regard and affection for his two friends,-who, the only children of the clergyman of the parish, had been his old companions and playmates at the manor-house, and from whom he had been parted during a long tour in Greece, Italy, and Spain,-consented with a very good grace to this arrangement; the more so, as, himself a lively and clever man, he perceived, apparently with great amusement, the designs of his hostess, and for the first two or three days humoured them with much drollery; affecting to be an epicure, that she might pass off her, cook's excellent confectionary for Miss Annabella's handy-work, and even pretending to have sprained his ankle, that he might divert himself by observing in how many ways the same fairlady—who, something younger, rather prettier, and far more docile than her sister, had been selected by Mrs. Leslie for his intended bride,— would be pressed by that accomplished match-maker into his service; handing him his coffee, for instance, fetching him books and newspapers, offering him her arm when he rose from the sopha, following him about with footstools, cushions, and ottomans, and waiting on him just like a valet or a page in female attire. At the end of that period,-from some unexplained change of feeling, whether respect for his friend William Morland, or weariness of acting a part so unsuited to him, or some relenting in favour of the young lady, -he threw off at once his lameness and his affectation, and resumed his own singularly natural and delightful manner. I saw a great deal of him; for my father's family and the Selbys had intermarried once or twice in every century since the Conquest; and though it might have puzzled a genealogist to decide how near or how distant was the relationship, yet, as, amongst north-country-folk, "blood is warmer than water," we continued not only to call cousins, but to entertain much of the kindly feeling by which family connexion often is, and always should be accompanied. My father and Mr. Leslie had always been intimate, and Mary Morland and myself having taken a strong liking to each other, we met at one house or the other almost every day; and, accustomed, as I was, to watch the progress of Mrs. Leslie's manœuvres, the rise, decline and fall of her several schemes, I soon perceived that her hopes and plans were in full activity on the present occasion. It was, indeed, perfectly evident, that she expected to hail Annabella as Lady Selby before many months rival. She had been kind to Miss Morland from the moment she ascertained that she was a plain though lady-like woman of six-and-twenty, wholly unaccomplished in her sense of the word, and altogether the most unlikely person in the world to rival her two belles. She had been always kind to "poor dear Mary," as she called her; but as soon as she beheld Sir Arthur Selby, she became the very fondest of aunts, insisted that Barbara should furnish her wardrobe, and Annabella take her portrait, and that the whole party should stay until these operations were satisfactorily con cluded. Sir Arthur, who seemed to entertain a great regard and affection for his two friends,-who, the only children of the clergyman of the parish, had been his old companions and playmates at the manor-house, and from whom he had been parted during a long tour in Greece, Italy, and Spain,-consented with a very good grace to this arrangement; the more so, as, himself a lively and clever man, he perceived, apparently with great amusement, the designs of his hostess, and for the first two or three days humoured them with much drollery; affecting to be an epicure, that she might pass off her cook's excellent confectionary for Miss Annabella's handy-work, and even pretending to have sprained his ankle, that he might divert himself by observing in how many ways the same fairlady-who, something younger, rather prettier, and far more docile than her sister, had been selected by Mrs. Leslie for his intended bride,— would be pressed by that accomplished match-maker |