It was late one fine evening toward the end of August, when, though the rooms at the Granby had been brilliantly lighted, several windows were open to admit the soft radiance of moonlight, and the whole miscellaneous party of ladies and gentlemen resident at the great hotel had assembled, full of gay excitement, in the public saloon, where the buzz and laughter of merry voices might be heard on every side. Various agreeable excursions had taken place throughout the morning. Pic-nics had flourished at Studley, Ripon, Bolton Abbey, and Harewood House, while even Plumpton rocks, very little higher than the cut for a railway, had not been without admirers who called them sublime, and the petrifying well at Knaresborough had petrified many with admiration.

A day of amusement seemed likely now to end, as such days too commonly do, in weariness and ennui. Several very old gentlemen sat down to cards,—those who still made any attempts at being juvenile, flirted with the more elderly misses, and Agnes, seated between Lord Doncaster and the Abbe, seemed industriously exerting herself to fascinate them both, while, though generally careful of her smiles, she now lavished them on each side with apparently heedless profusion.

The scarcity of beaux, so often remarked and lamented in most societies, could hardly be a legitimate cause of complaint on this occasion, but, as Sir Patrick remarked to Marion, "in every family there is but one eldest son, while there are at least three-and-twenty daughters, each educated and prepared to take her place at the head of a brilliant establishment; therefore, seeing in this room sixty-five young ladies, every one of whom expects to marry on at least £2000 a-year, it would require £130,000 per annum to satisfy them and their expectant mammas!"

Lord Wigton's fortune alone might have been sufficient, if divided into suitable portions, for at least ten such happy couples; but his whole heart seemed bent on bestowing it, with himself, on Marion, who found that she was pursued with assiduity so persevering, not only by him, but also by Captain De Crespigny, who had now openly abandoned Agnes for her, that, annoyed and perplexed how to act, rather than become repulsive and forbidding, which was always repulsive to her nature, she silently retreated with Sir Arthur to the quiet domestic fireside of the Granvilles, where she enjoyed the peaceful reality of happiness, instead of that noisy and glittering imitation of it which she had so gladly forsaken.

In the public saloon, Mrs. O'Donoghoe, a superannuated jeune femme of about thirty, more or less, in a dress as bright and red as a blacksmith's forge, hammered on a decayed piano-forte a sort of tune, which might be an Irish jig or a Scotch strathspey, while several mournful-looking gentlemen had been persuaded to dance with three or four very affected, over-dressed partners, giggling young ladies, most of whom were on the shady side of five-and-twenty, dressed in stiff muslin frocks a l'enfant, bare shoulders, rouge, and very pink stockings.

Mrs. O'Donoghoe's marriage, ten years before, had been a true Harrowgate match—a mutual take-in—the lady being a reputed heiress, without a shilling, and the gentleman endowed with an imaginary estate, which turned out to be situated in the moon. Since her widowhood, she had affected extreme youth, excessive wealth, and extraordinary vivacity, being of opinion that liveliness is the most universally popular of all qualities in the gay world, and that those who are not gifted by nature with light and joyous spirits, should assume them, though, if the exact degree of any person's happiness were distinctly marked by a thermometer on their foreheads, the reality might seldom coincide with the external appearance, and the pre-eminence would seldom be awarded to those who are blazing the brightest in a crowd. The most malevolent persons could scarcely wish their worst enemy to lead that life of anxiety, mortification, and misery, the inevitable doom of ladies who will not consent with a good grace to grow old—who desire to seem what they are not, and never can be again—who, instead of cheerfully advancing to meet advancing years, attempt to rajeunir leur beaute passee, and who, vainly endeavoring to stem the tide of time, catch at every straw which affords a hope of impeding their career into oblivion. If it be indeed true, as all who have experienced it acknowledge, that a worldly career, decked with all the glare and glitter of success, is yet a weariness to the spirit, what must such a life be to those for whom it does not even assume the tinsel of deceit.

Mrs. O'Donoghoe had appeared during nine successive seasons at Harrowgate, where she shone like a moving rainbow, dressing of course younger as she became older, and being considered now quite a part and parcel of the Granby establishment. Though it had been remarked that she always appeared about the same day as Lord Doncaster, yet her usual place of habitation and means of existence were perfectly unknown; but as, on her arrival, she generally entered the public room about the same hour as the post bag, it became shrewdly conjectured that she might perhaps condescend to travel per mail, while, nevertheless, she boasted long and loudly of her enormous jointure.

Sir Patrick alleged, that on a former occasion, when the house was crowded, Mrs. O'Donoghoe ordered a bed to be made up for her on the billiard table, and that now she had bespoken one, after the dancing was over, in the orchestra, while she gladly dispensed with a sitting-room, as the deficiency formed an adequate pretext for constantly frequenting the public room, which she greatly preferred, alleging at the same time, in the most emphatic terms, that saving six shillings a-day for the hire of a parlor was not of the slightest consequence to her, money being "no object," as poor Mr. O'Donoghoe had left her more than she could ever hope to spend.

Mrs. O'Donoghoe's name appeared regularly in the weekly printed list of company at Harrowgate, and she was certainly by no means a dead letter in the brilliant circle. She sang a little, played a little, and talked a great deal, while no topic of conversation ever came amiss to her. The gay widow floundered through anything or everything, making a thousand blunders, and adapting herself to each individual who conversed with her in succession, being ready and anxious for the admiration of all. She seemed willing to compensate for the want of silver in her purse, by having plenty on her tongue, and apparently thought, if she thought at all, that conversation resembled a game at whist, where each individual should implicitly follow his partner's lead.

In every carriage going to races, balls, pigeon matches, or steeple chases, Mrs. O'Donoghoe generally manoeuvred to get herself a place, either inside or outside, she seemed by no means particular which; and whenever the master of the ceremonies became perplexed at balls, by an application for a partner from some heavy elderly gentleman in yellow gloves, who desired to risk his tendon of Achilles by dancing, he was sure to be rapturously welcomed by Mrs. O'Donoghoe. She had been always hitherto the favorite flirt of Lord Doncaster; and her bold bravura manner amused Captain De Crespigny, who called her "Fountain's Abbey," on account of her being so picturesque a ruin on so very large a scale. Though not quite so "wither'd, auld, and droll," as he and some refractory officers had alleged, when entreated by the master of the ceremonies to dance with her, yet Mrs. O'Donoghoe's best friends allowed she was thirty—her enemies protested she was forty—and the truth lay, as usual, between both extremes. Forced almost to acknowledge at last that she had arrived on the debatable ground between youth and that uninteresting period, middle age, too old for dancing, too young for cards, and not quite beyond the excitement of love-hunting, she still eagerly hoped to forget, in a brilliant establishment, the blighted hopes of former years. No unmarried man was too elderly or too juvenile for Mrs. O'Donoghoe to try her well-practised fascinations on; and whether they were majors or minor, Lord Wigton, Captain De Crespigny, Sir Patrick, or the Marquis, she yet continued to hope for their admiration. Still she retained a firm conviction that every gentleman arrived at Harrowgate with the full intention of marrying within a month or two—that happy couples, at the end of every season, were to be paired off like pairs of gloves or shoes—and that every gentleman among her numerous assortment of intimate acquaintances, would at last make his own selection; but the most sanguine hope of her sanguine mind was, that the attentions shown to her during many a successive season by Lord Doncaster, which had gone so far as even to excite some scandal, might at last ripen into an offer of his coronet; in which very ardent expectation she had recently suspended her dancing propensities, and diligently exercised on the Marquis her talents for listening, when his society could be had, or in his absence, she even tolerated his shadow, the Abbe.

"Mrs. O'Donoghoe," exclaimed Captain De Crespigny, throwing himself into a seat beside the piano during the interval of a quadrille, "only look at your old superannuated admirer and Miss Dunbar. People laugh at the susceptibility of seventeen, but that is nothing to the susceptibility of seventy. Your ears have generally been the best of listeners to Lord Doncaster's prosing, but you are fairly outdone to-night. How all you young ladies must be tormented by that old fellow's button-holding propensities."

"Quite the contrary! His conversation, though not always perfectly correct, is, it must be confessed, very amusing. Men in general are a queer set, but I like Lord Doncaster's old-fashioned compliments—quite of the vieille cour—one might fancy he had lived some centuries ago!"

"I heartily wish he had! I could back old Doncaster against the world, for being the dullest proser in the United Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, with the Colonies besides. He will die talking, for he talks everybody else to death! The Abbe, too, has no more mind than a sparrow. His conversation should be filtered every evening to purify it from bad taste of every kind. He picks up half a dozen stories every morning at the ordinary, and retails them to any wearied victim who can be forced to listen at night; when these are done so is he—his barrel organ has run down—and you may know when the Abbe has come to an end, by observing the hurry he is in to be off."

"You are an habitual hater, Captain De Crespigny, and have put on your black cap to condemn us all this evening; but I will not have our good Abbe hissed off the stage in this way."

"Good! Look out that word, Mrs. O'Donoghoe, in the dictionary to-morrow, for you cannot know its real meaning!"

"Your criticisms on his conversation are like a shower of sleet this cold night, but I assure you the Abbe started a perfected new story yesterday, and I have sometimes heard him say very good things!"

"Then you have the advantage of everybody else, for I have known him since the time of William the Conqueror, and who ever heard of his saying or doing a single good thing? He cannot even understand one. The whole pattern of his conversation is egotism in all its branches, and you must positively permit me to enjoy my detestation of the Abbe in peace."

"I allow that he is in bad taste occasionally," whispered Mrs. O'Donoghoe, confidentially. "The Abbe can say very shocking things without causing one to feel shocked. If he has any hypocrisy, it is in trying to appear worse than he is."

"Could any one be worse? That seems to me impossible. No human being would think of calling me strict, but of all the odious, revolting sights I know, none can go beyond an irreligious clergy-man. The Abbe always looks to me like a person who had something very heavy upon his conscience—a guilty, suspicious expression of countenance. I have occasionally wondered, Mrs. O'Donoghoe, to see you out-laugh him at some of his own abortive attempts to be witty; but you can do many things that no other person can, and that is one of them."

"Captain De Crespigny, we must now and then laugh at other people's jokes besides our own!"

"I never laugh! I am the gravest man in Europe. I do sometimes give a bewitching smile, but never more."

"Did you ever try an ineffable look?"

"Perhaps I may some evening, when anxious to cut out old Doncaster! Miss Dunbar must find her two hours' conversation with him a serious grievance; but what would a life-time be! The ideas which proceed from the inside of my uncle's wig are certainly not of the most original and amusing. Fancy him day after day toujours Doncaster! Dunbar says he would dismiss the best servant he ever had, if the fellow so much as admitted him to a morning visit. If I had an ill-will at you, Mrs. O'Donoghoe, which is luckily not the case, I should certainly wish you were married to my uncle! Ladies and gentlemen may laugh; but I can assure them it would be no laughing matter!"

"Well, say what you will; but I may perhaps think my rose-colored satin has done its duty if I have an offer from the Marquis of Doncaster, old as he is!"

"Ah, Mrs. O'Donoghoe! If you had worn that red satin when we were first acquainted, there is no saying what might have happened. Another day of it now, and I should be perfectly done for! With a train, you would be fit to appear at St. James's! You alone, in the whole world, never alter! You must have been born a century old, and become younger every day!"

Though Mr. Granville and Marion, with the good-humored connivance of Sir Arthur, now spent many delightful hours in rational and animated intercourse, their happiness became gradually clouded with anxiety respecting the lovely but fragile Clara, who evidently drooped and faded. Her mind was stronger than her body; while resigned and gentle, she never caused a moment's distress to others that could be avoided, though the bright eye, and brighter cheek, which might have been mistaken for the glow of health, were but too evidently caused by fever; and her brother's heart occasionally misgave him, on observing that a vivid flush, and a deadly paleness, chased each other on her countenance when she spoke. There was a nervous tremor in her manner, and a deep sensibility in her smile, which saddened the eye that looked on that form of almost ethereal delicacy, while she tried, but tried in vain, to conquer the wasting sorrow with which she thought the vices and follies of Sir Patrick had forever divided them.

Several transient rencontres with the young Baronet, accidental on her part, but preconcerted on his, had renewed the conflict of her feelings, and unable to sustain the nearly frantic reproaches of one whom she loved only too well, Clara became now almost entirely a prisoner in her own apartments. It was the power of principle over feeling which caused her to reject, with gentle sorrow, the expression of attachment once so precious, and the fascination of Sir Patrick's manner to her was such, that his very errors she could not utterly hate, though day after day, she schooled her heart afresh with the remembrance how unjustifiably her own best hopes of lasting peace would be endangered by trusting her affections to the keeping of one who had betrayed others, and who would have but too baneful an influence over her own mind were they united, as he could so little sympathize in the emotions, occupations, and duties of the Christian life. While she might have said, like the poet, "I but know that I love thee whatever thou art," Clara felt that if her life were to be the sacrifice, he must be rejected; therefore, day after day, with pious resignation and fortitude, she endured the slow but agonizing martyrdom of extinguishing from her memory one whom she had so deeply loved. Sir Patrick contrived to testify by a thousand indescribable assiduities, only too gratifying to her nature, how constantly she was the object of his solicitude. Every morning Clara's sitting room was adorned with flowers from an unknown hand, which she felt and knew must be sent by Sir Patrick, though it was an attention he had never shown to any other; and the rarest fruit was frequently produced at her solitary dinner, though the waiter neither could nor would give any clear account of whence it came, while not a day passed that Clara did not see Sir Patrick's graceful figure lounging beneath her windows, conversing in an animated tone, with everybody except herself, or throwing himself on horseback, and galloping almost madly out of sight.

Every evening Mr. Granville urged upon his sister the importance of her being speedily conveyed to the continent; but every morning Clara postponed their preparations, feeling too much enfeebled for the journey, and unwilling to lose the delightful fascination of Marion's society, who sat beside her couch all day, and every day, making hours seem like moments while they conversed together. Clara knew nothing of ennui, and never had occasion to kill time, for she valued it as time ought to be valued, at an inestimable price. She had no weariness to dissipate, as every hour was occupied in improving her own mind and heart, while she exerted herself for the happiness of others, and never laid her head on the pillow at night without an anxious examination whether she had done all in her power for the real advantage of herself and others. It was the opinion of Mr. Granville, frequently expressed, that the very essence of earthly happiness is found in exertion,—that "while a right discharge of religious duty is in itself the greatest of all exertions, even the trifles or the essentials of life must all be gained by making existence one great struggle against nature. Study, integrity, good-humor, benevolence, early rising, and moderation are all exertions that must be made upon principle,—a principle of Christian obedience; and, as difficulty is the condition of success, our frame is strengthened by exertion, our skill by practice, our reasoning powers by opposition, and he who wrestles most will wrestle best."