'Lady Maria de Burgh is certainly the most beautiful girl in London,' said I to Miss Arnold one day when the subject was in debate. This was a fit of artificial candour; for I had observed, that Maitland detested all symptoms of animosity; and I appealed to him, in hopes that he would at least except me from his affirmative. 'Yes,' returned he, directing, by one flash of his eloquent eye, the warning distinctly to me, 'Yes; but she reminds me of the dog in the fable. Nature has given her beauty enough; but she grasps at more, and thus loses all.'
Affectation seemed likely to be as unavailing as watchfulness; yet, the longer my search lasted, the more eager it became. Whatever occupied attention long, will occupy it much; and, in my vain investigation, I often endured the anxiety of the philosopher, who, having sailed to the antipodes to observe the transit of Venus, saw, at the critical hour, a cloud rise to obstruct his observations. 'How shall I fathom the heart of that impenetrable being?' exclaimed I to my confidante one day, when, in pursuance of my new plan of soberness and charity, I sat learning to knit a child's stocking at the rate of a row in the hour.
'Bless me, Ellen,' returned Miss Arnold, 'what signifies the heart of a musty old bachelor?'
'I don't know what you call old, Juliet; but, in my opinion, I should be more than woman, or less, if I could suspect my power over such a man as Maitland, and not wish to ascertain the point.'
'I do not believe,' returned Juliet, 'that any woman upon earth has power over him,--a cold, cynical, sarcastic----'
'You forget,' interrupted I, 'that he has owned a strong interest in me;' for, in the soft hour of returning confidence, I had showed his billet to my friend.
'Yes,' answered Miss Arnold, 'that is true; but don't you think he may once have been a lover of your mother's, and that on her account----'
'My mother's!' cried I. 'Ridiculous! impossible! Maitland must have been a mere child when my mother married.'
'Let me see,' said Miss Arnold, with calculating brow, 'your mother, had she been alive, would now have been near forty.'
'And Maitland, I am sure, cannot be more than two-and-thirty.'
'Is he not?' said Miss Arnold, who had ventured as far as she thought prudent. Silence ensued; for I was now in no very complacent frame. Miss Arnold was the first to speak. 'Perhaps,' said she, 'Mr Maitland only wishes to conceal his own sentiments, till he makes sure of yours,--perhaps he would be secure of success before he condescends to sue.'