Lord Overton did not like the conversation, and changed it; and the two gentlemen returned to the house. Not many days after he took his departure for London, not quite able to make up his mind whether Rose or Emily, or either, was qualified by wealth, beauty, and grace to become Viscountess Overton. After three days thought in London, he decided that neither was, upon the consideration of the great moral objection that exists to men of rank marrying _Misses_, especially where that most horrible denomination is not corrected by the word honourable before it. If Emily had been even a maid of honour, so that her name might have appeared in the newspapers as the Honourable Miss Tracy, he might have consented; but as it was, he judged decidedly it would be a _mesalliance_, although Mr. Tracy's direct ancestors stood upon the rolls of fame, when his own were herding cattle.
He saved himself a very great mortification; for, to be rejected when a man mistakenly thinks he is condescending, is the bitterest draught with which false pride can be medicined.
Both Emily and Rose Tracy were very glad when the peer was gone, for his fluttering from one to the other (though he annoyed Emily most) had much the same effect as having a bee or large fly in the room; but there was another person in the neighbourhood who rejoiced still more, and that was Horace Fleming. He had dined twice at Mr. Tracy's while the party of visitors were there, and he did not at all approve of Lord Overton's attentions to Emily. Chandos Winslow was not sorry, for although he had not such definite cause for uneasiness as Fleming, yet that little god of love, whom we hear so much of, and so seldom see, is not only a metaphysical god, but a very irritable god too. The sight of Rose Tracy had always been pleasant to him during the whole time he had been in Mr. Tracy's service. Her beautiful little ancle and tiny foot, as she walked along the paths, had to his fancy the power of calling up flowers as it passed. Her smile had seemed to him to give back summer to the wintry day; the light of her eyes to prolong the sunshine, and make the twilight bright. In the morning she was his Aurora, in the evening his Hesperus; and in a word, in the space of six weeks and a day, Chandos Winslow had fallen very much in love. But it must be remarked, that the odd day mentioned, was far detached from the six weeks, dating nearly one year before. It had been an epocha which he had always remembered however--one of the green spots in the past. A lovely and intelligent girl, fresh, and unspoiled by the great corruptor of taste, feeling, and mind--fashionable society--had been cast upon his care and attention for several hours, in a crowd which prevented her from finding her own party at a fête. They had danced together more than was prudent and conventional, because they did not well know what else to do; and the little embarrassment of the moment had only excited for her an additional interest over and above that created by youth, beauty, grace, and innocence. At the end of the evening, she had passed from his sight like a shooting star, as he thought, for ever. But he remembered the bright meteor, and its rays sometimes even had visited him in sleep. Thus that day had as much to do with the love of the case as the far-detached six weeks; though they had served to ripen, and perfect, and mature a passion of which but one solitary seed had been sown before.