He returned home, however, much pleased with having at last met with Warren, and with having, as he imagined, put in train the business on account of which he had performed so long a journey, and suffered so much uneasiness. He found Laura, too, in high spirits. She had just given the finishing touches to a picture on which she had been most busily employed ever since her arrival in London. She had studied the composition, till her head ached with intensity of thought. She had laboured the finishing with care unspeakable; and she now only waited till her work could with safety be moved, to try the success of her project for the attainment of wealth. Of this success she scarcely entertained a doubt. She was sensible, indeed, that the picture had many faults, but not so many as that on which Mrs Douglas's visitor had fixed so high a price. Since painting the latter, she had improved in skill; and never had she bestowed such pains as on her present work. The stranger had said that the Scipio in Mrs Douglas's picture was interesting. The Leonidas in this was much more so--she could not doubt it, for he resembled Hargrave. She had hoped the resemblance would be apparent to no eye but her own. Her father, however, had noticed it, and Laura had tried to alter the head, but the Captain declared she had spoiled it. Laura thought so herself; and, after sketching a hundred regularly handsome countenances, could be satisfied with none that bore not some affinity to her only standard of manly beauty.
To add to the pleasure with which Laura surveyed the completion of her labours, she had that day received a letter from Mrs Douglas, in which mention was made of Hargrave.
In her first letters to Laura, Mrs Douglas had entirely avoided this subject. Almost a month Laura had waited, with sickening impatience, for some hint from which she might gather intelligence of Hargrave's motions--in vain. Her friend had been provokingly determined to believe that the subject was disagreeable to her correspondent. Laura at last ventured to add, to one of her letters, a postscript, in which, without naming the Colonel, she inquired whether the ---- regiment was still at Perth. She blushed as she glanced over this postscript. She thought it had an air of contrivance and design. She was half tempted to destroy the letter; but she could not prevail on herself to make a more direct inquiry; and to forbear making any was almost impossible. An answer had this day arrived; and Laura read no part of it with such interest, as that which, with seeming carelessness, informed her that the Colonel had been several times at the parsonage: and that Mrs Douglas understood from report, that he was soon to visit London.