During the night which followed the grand dinner given by Sir George Aimwell, Robert Darnley scarcely slept a single hour. He retired to his apartment full of bitter and distracting thoughts, almost tempted to believe that there was truth in the foul libels that thoughtless blockheads have uttered and written concerning the gentler sex. He said to himself, “Frailty! thy name is woman.” He was so grieved, so pierced to the heart’s core, that he forgot for a while all that he had heard, read, or witnessed of woman’s devout affection, unwearied kindness, heroic attachment, and moral sublimity. And he thought not of the patience with which woman bears the peevishness of our infancy, the selfishness of our riper years, and the capricious fretfulness of our declining age. He was for a while angry and contemptuous, professing to himself an indifference which he did not feel, and fancying himself superior to that weakness under which he was writhing and labouring in bitter agony. Then there was a change in the complexion of his thoughts, and as the angry passions yielded to the approaching drowsiness which health must periodically experience, more tender and more gentle thoughts subdued him. The eyelids were scarcely closed, when imagination threw her rainbow light on past days, and there stood before him, not quite in a dream, the image of Penelope—lovely, bright, and living. The momentary vision melted him, and the effort to retain it banished it. Slowly his slumbers crept again upon him, and the vision was more distinct, and he could hear again that sweet voice with which he had been enraptured, and there was in his heart a repetition of that swell of feeling with which he had years ago taken his leave of her. So passed the night.

When morning came again, it found the young man unrefreshed and unrested. But in the family of the rector of Neverden there was great regularity and punctuality. Robert Darnley therefore made his appearance at breakfast at the usual hour. It was impossible not to see that his mind was painfully disturbed, and it was also equally impossible not to conjecture the cause of its agitation.

A very unpleasant restraint sat upon the whole party. Mr Darnley the elder would not speak on the subject of his son’s altered appearance, and Mrs Darnley and her daughters were reluctant to introduce any mention of the matter, unsanctioned by Mr Darnley. The hour of breakfast was usually to that family a season of social and cheerful talk, but on the present occasion there was silence and restraint; and as they abstained from addressing themselves to Robert, they also abstained from talking to one another. When breakfast was over Mr Darnley desired his son’s presence in the study.

Robert Darnley knew he was destined to undergo a lecture, and he braced himself up to bear it with filial resignation. The young man’s father prided himself on the fluency with which he could talk in the way of admonition, and we believe that he derived almost as much pleasure from these exhibitions as his auditors did profit. Sir George Aimwell used to say, that instead of sending poachers to gaol, it would be a better plan to send them to Mr Darnley to be talked to; for the worthy baronet thought that they would not readily expose themselves to the risk of a second infliction. Those of our readers who have never been talked to will not be able to sympathize with Robert Darnley; those who have, will pity him from the bottom of their hearts.

The young man promptly obeyed his father’s commands and delayed not to attend him in the study; for he naturally supposed that the sooner the lecture began the sooner it would be over. The father seated himself and desired his son to shut the door and seat himself too. These preliminary steps having been taken, and Mr Darnley having stirred and arranged the fire so amply as to preclude the necessity of any more attention to it for some time, thus began:

“Robert, my dear boy, I wish to have some little talk with you. I have not had much opportunity of speaking to you since you came home. Now, you know, I can have no other object in view than your welfare. I do not desire you to follow the advice I may give you, unless you are convinced of its propriety. You know of course what I am now alluding to—your unhappy attachment to that unfortunate young woman, Miss Primrose. For my part, I cannot say that I altogether approved of it in the first instance; but I said nothing. I knew the impetuosity of your character and the obstinacy of your disposition, and therefore I concluded that opposition might do more harm than good. I hoped that, in time, your own good sense would let you see that it was not a suitable connexion for you. I do not say indeed that I have ever observed anything absolutely improper in the conduct of Miss Primrose; but I must be permitted to say, that there was too much pride in her manner, considering her station and expectations. Of the young woman’s father I knew comparatively nothing, except that he had gambled away his property and broken his wife’s heart. Mr Primrose did call here, as you know; but I must confess to you I was not much pleased with his manners. I was under the disagreeable necessity of rebuking him for taking the name of the Lord in vain. As for the young woman herself, of course you must relinquish all thoughts of her after what you have heard from Mr Pringle. Now let me advise you to banish her from your mind at once. I am sorry to see that your thoughts are still too much dwelling upon her. You make your mother and your sisters and me very uncomfortable by these gloomy looks. Why can you not be cheerful as you used to be? What have you to regret? You ought rather to be grateful that you have been rescued from such a marriage, and that it cannot be said that the dissolution of the acquaintance arose from your own caprice. I think that the young woman did not manifest a very great sense of propriety when she so readily adopted the profession of a public singer. And what would the world say, should the report ever get abroad, that my son was desirous of marrying a public singer? I gave the young woman all the good advice I possibly could; but I fear it will be of no use to her. There were such very strong manifestations of her partiality for that profligate young man, Lord Spoonbill, that I am not at all surprised at what I hear from Mr Pringle. Now all that I can say is, that if after this you can retain any regard for Miss Primrose, you do not shew yourself a man of sense and prudence.”

Here Mr Darnley paused, not because he was out of breath, for he spoke very slowly and deliberately, but because he thought that he had said enough to induce his son to relinquish the thought of Penelope, and to make himself mightily happy under his disappointment. But it certainly is very provoking, after living three years or more in expectation of receiving the hand and heart of a lovely, amiable, and intelligent young lady, to find at last that all this bright anticipation is come to nought. It had been painful to Robert Darnley that several of his later communications had been unanswered; but he would not suffer that circumstance alone to weigh with him, considering it possible that the fault was in the irregular transmission of letters. When he came back to England and heard that Miss Primrose was in London with the Earl of Smatterton’s family, it appeared obvious enough that she had considered the correspondence as having ceased. But still it was not clear to the young man’s entire satisfaction that this had been a voluntary act on the part of Penelope. It was possible that his letters might not have reached their destination, and that Miss Primrose might be regarding him as the faithless one. Such was his spirit, that he would not rest under the imputation of such conduct, and he resolved to take the earliest opportunity of coming to an explanation. When, however, in addition to all that he had heard from his own family of the partiality manifested by Penelope for Lord Spoonbill, he heard also the tale told by Zephaniah Pringle, he wavered and hesitated. It was not probable, he thought, that such rumours could be totally unfounded, and it comported but too well with what Mr Darnley had already said.

The distress of mind which Robert Darnley suffered, and that gloominess of look which his father reprobated and lectured him upon, did not arise so much from the mere loss of Penelope, as from the harassing doubts to which he was exposed by the conflicting of external and internal evidence. It is a painful thing to doubt, because it is humiliating, and seems to question our discernment. It is also very perplexing to the mind when it sees evidence enough to prove that which it feels to be impossible, or very unlikely. In this dilemma Robert Darnley had been placed by what he had heard of Penelope Primrose. He knew, or at least very firmly believed her to be of decided character, good principle and high spirit. He felt it impossible that she should love a profligate or a blockhead, and he knew Lord Spoonbill to be both. But it was very clear that she was with Lord Smatterton’s family, and that she had certainly contemplated the public exercise of her musical talents.

To his fathers discourse therefore he listened with unresisting patience, and only replied when it was finished; “I can only say, sir, that if what Mr Pringle has said concerning Miss Primrose be true, I have been very much deceived in the estimate which I had formed of the young lady’s mind and character.”

“Certainly you were,” replied his father; “you are a young man and have seen but little of human nature. You are hasty, very hasty, in forming your judgment. You will grow wiser as you grow older. Now I was not deceived in Miss Primrose. I could see her real character. I always thought her very proud and vain and conceited. But she laboured under great disadvantages in her education. Her uncle was a worthy man, but he was a mere scholar, by no means a man of the world. And as for Mrs Greendale, she is a very weak woman.”

Robert Darnley knew his father too well to contradict him directly in anything which he might be pleased to assert; he therefore only ventured in a very circuitous way to insinuate the possibility that Mr Zephaniah Pringle might be erroneously informed, and that there might be some mistake or misapprehension. But the worthy rector of Neverden was not able to bear the slightest approach to contradiction or opposition. He had lived so long in absolute authority in his own house and parish, that he was perfectly sincere in believing that he could never be wrong and ought never to be contradicted. He therefore contributed very considerably to shorten the discussion, by saying:

“You are of age, and of course may do as you please; but, if you will condescend to take my advice, you will think no more of Miss Primrose. At all events, it is my particular request that I may hear no more of her.”

To this the young gentleman bowed respectfully. Now it does not appear to us that Mr Darnley adopted the best plan in the world to set his son’s heart at rest. Nor did Robert Darnley find any great alleviation in what his father had been pleased to say concerning Penelope’s actual situation and real character. It also occurred to the young gentleman’s mind, that his father had superfluously and unnecessarily quoted the fact of Mr Primrose having used irreverent and thoughtless language. It is not indeed, generally speaking, advisable to bring every possible accusation against an offending one; for by so doing we make known our own pettishness or malignity quite as much as we display the sins of the accused. If Miss Primrose had been in other respects a suitable wife for Robert Darnley, the fact that her father had spoken hastily and unadvisedly, would not have rendered her unsuitable. And if the situation of Penelope had been such as it had been represented by Mr Pringle, then there was quite enough to set Robert Darnley’s mind at rest upon the subject, without quoting Mr Primrose’s transgressions.

The disappointed lover had no sooner finished the task of hearing his father’s lecture, than he was destined to undergo a gabblement from his mother and sisters. Mrs Darnley was a worthy good creature as ever lived; but she would talk, and that not always consequentially. She always however meant well, though she might be clumsy in the manifestation of her well-meaning.

“Well, Robert,”—thus began Mrs Darnley,—“and so your father has been talking to you about poor Penelope Primrose. What a pity it is that such a nice young woman should turn out so. I really could hardly believe my senses when I first heard of it. Dear me, what a favorite she used to be here; your father used to think so highly of her.”

“I can’t say that I thought so very highly of her,” interrupted Miss Mary Darnley; “she was a great deal too haughty for my liking. Of course we were civil to her for Robert’s sake.”

Miss Mary was rude in thus interrupting her mother, but it was the general practice with the young ladies, and Mrs Darnley was so much in the habit of being interrupted, that she always expected it, and kept talking on till some one else of the party began. Now this remark of Miss Mary might be founded on truth, or it might be merely the result of an angry imagination. For there is in the human mind such a reluctance to acknowledge an error in judgment, that even when we have been really and palpably deceived in a human character, we generally find out or persuade ourselves that we “prophesied so,” though we never told any body.

The eldest Miss Darnley, however, had more candour. It was her opinion that, though Miss Primrose had not behaved exactly as she ought to do, yet she had too high a sense of propriety and decorum ever to transgress as was represented by Mr Pringle.

In this annunciation of opinions it was but right and regular that the youngest should speak in her turn; and notwithstanding the apparent deference which she had seemed on the previous day to yield to the oracular language of Zephaniah Pringle the critic, she said:

“I wonder who told Mr Pringle? I dare say Miss Primrose did not, and I should not think it likely that Lord Spoonbill did.”

“Oh dear,” replied Mary, “I dare say it is the general talk in London, and everbody knows it by this time.”

“Oh dear,” retorted Martha, “I dare say you know a great deal about London.”

“I know a great deal more about it than you do, Martha; I was there with papa nearly two months when we had lodgings in Wigmore street.”

Martha was inclined to be pert, and Mary to be pettish, and the two sisters would very likely have enjoyed a skirmish of tongues, had they not been stopped by the good humour of their brother, who was very happy to divert their tongues and thoughts to other topics. Robert Darnley therefore made an effort to suppress unpleasant feelings, and directed the conversation to affairs of a different description; and he amused his mother and sisters with anecdotes and narratives descriptive of the country from which he had recently arrived.

In assuming this composure, Robert Darnley was not a little aided by the suggestion thrown out by Martha. And he began to think it very possible that Mr Zephaniah Pringle might have been misinformed. He might have had wit enough to form that conjecture without the assistance of his youngest sister; but he was too much agitated to think calmly on the subject.