'Bless my heart, Miss Mortimer!' cried I, 'what have I to do with the private conduct of all my acquaintance? What is it to me, if Lady St Edmunds spoil her children, or rule her husband, or lose a few hundred pounds at cards now and then?'
Miss Mortimer smiled.--'Even bigots,' said she, 'must acquit her Ladyship of all these faults, for she takes no concern with her children,--she is separated from her husband,--and certainly does not _lose_ at cards.'
'And so you, who pretend to preach charity towards all mankind, can condescend to retail second-hand calumny! You would have me desert an amiable, and, I am persuaded, an injured woman, merely because she has the misfortune to be slandered!'
'When you know me better, Ellen,' said Miss Mortimer, meekly, 'you will find, that it is not my practice to repeat any scandalous tale, without some better reason than my belief that it is true. I shall not at present defend the justice of the censures which have fallen upon Lady St Edmunds. I will merely offer you my opinion, in hopes that, a few hours hence, you may reconsider it. If a friend, whose worth you had proved, whose affection you had secured, were made a mark for the shafts of calumny,--far be it from you to seek a base shelter, leaving her unshielded, to be 'hit by the archers;' but, against the formation of a new acquaintance, the slightest suspicion ought, in my opinion, to be decisive. The frailty of a good name is as proverbial as its value; and virgin fame is far too precious to be ventured upon uncertainty, and far too frail to escape uninjured even from the appearance of hazard.'
This speech was so long that it gave me time to cool, and so incontrovertible, that I found some difficulty in replying. Before I could summon a rejoinder, Miss Mortimer, who never pursued a victory, had quitted the room. She had left me an unpleasant subject of meditation; but she had allowed me to postpone the consideration of it for a few hours; so, in the mean time, I turned my thoughts to the masquerade.
And first, by way of safeguard against temptation, I thought it best to lay down an immutable resolution that I would not go. It was very hard, indeed, to be deprived of such a harmless amusement; but, as I had given an unlucky promise, I purposed magnanimously to adhere to it, resolving, however, to indemnify myself the next opportunity. Thus mortified, I began to indulge my fancy in painting what _might have been_ the pleasures of the masquerade. I imagined (there was surely no harm in imagining!) how well I could have personated the fair Fatima,--how happily the turban would have accorded with the Grecian turn of my head,--how softly the transparent sleeves of my caftan would have shaded my rounded arm,--how favourably the Turkish costume would have shown the light limb, and the elastic step. I invented a hundred witticisms which I might have uttered,--a hundred compliments which I might have received. Above all, I dwelt upon the approbation, the endearments of the charming Lady St Edmunds, till my heart bounded with the ideal joy. When I retired to rest, the same gay visions surrounded me; and I gladly awoke to pursue them again in my waking dreams.