“This has been a trying scene for you, my sweet young friends!” said her Ladyship, taking a hand of each.

“It has indeed!” replied Lady Emily, in a tone so significant as made Mary start.

“I know it would—­youth is always so full of sympathy.  I own I have a preference for the society of my young friends on that account.  My good Mrs. Finch, indeed, is an exception; but worthy Mrs. Downe Wright has been almost too much for me.”

“She is too much!” said the Duke.

“She is a great deal too much!” said the General.

“She is a vast deal too much!” said Mrs. Finch.

“I own I have been rather overcome by her!” with a deep-drawn sigh, which her visitors hastily availed themselves of to make their retreat.  The Duke and the General handed Lady Emily and Mary to their carriage.

“You find my poor sister wonderfully composed,” said the former.

“Charming woman, Lady Matilda!” ejaculated the latter; “her feelings do honour to her head and heart!”

Mary sprang into the carriage as quick as possible to be saved the embarrassment of a reply; and it was not till they were fairly out of sight that she ventured to raise her eyes to her cousin’s face.  There the expression of ill-humour and disgust were so strongly depicted that she could not longer repress her risible emotions, but gave way to a violent fit of laughter.

“How!” exclaimed her companion, “is this the only effect ’Matilda’s moan’ has produced upon you?  I expected your taste for grief would have been highly gratified by this affecting representation.”

“My appetite, you ought rather to say,” replied Mary; “taste implies some discrimination, which you seem to deny me.”

“Why, to tell you the truth, I do look upon you as a sort of intellectual ghoul; you really do remind me of the lady in the Arabian Nights, whose taste or appetite, which you will, led her to scorn everything that did not savour of the churchyard.”

“The delicacy of your comparison is highly flattering,” said Mary; “but I must be duller than the fatweed were I to give my sympathy to such as Lady Matilda Sufton.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear you say so; for I assure you I was in pain lest you should have been taken in, notwithstanding my warning to say something larmoyante—­or join the soft echo—­or heave a sigh—­or drop a tear—­or do something, in short, that would have disgraced you with me for ever.  At one time, I must do you the justice to own, I thought I saw you with difficulty repress a smile, and then you blushed so, for fear you had betrayed yourself!  The smile I suppose has gained you one conquest—­the blush another.  How happy you who can hit the various tastes so easily!  Mrs. Downe Wright whispered me as she left the room, ‘What a charming intelligent countenance your cousin has!’ While my Lord Duke of Altamont observed, as he handed me along, ’What a very sweet modest-looking girl Miss Douglas was!  ’So take your choice—­Mrs. William Downe Wright, or Duchess of Altamont!”