Ah, how could it be otherwise? the bare idea was treason to her confiding, trustful heart.
Mary did not see a great deal of Mrs. de Burgh after her first arrival.
It is astonishing how great a barrier a few streets and squares of the metropolis can form against the intercourse of dearest and most familiar friends. Mrs. de Burgh was ill at first and uncomfortable herself, and it only distressed her to see Mary under the present unsatisfactory aspect of affairs. Then her confinement intervened, and after that she was surrounded by other friends, whose society was unassociated with the painful feelings, which by that time had occurred to throw a still greater constraint over her intercourse with the pale, sad Mary.
How characteristic this is of the general friendship of worldly people. How warm, how bright, has been the affection showered upon us when we were gay, glad, or hopeful. But let some cloud arise to dim our aspect, let our spirits droop, our brow be overcast, then, though they may not love us less--though they may feel for and pity us, nay, would do much to restore our happiness, if in their power; yet if that cannot be--then--"come again when less sad and sorrowful, when your lips once more can give back smile for smile--when your voice has lost these notes of deep dejection, _then_, oh, come again, and we will with open arms receive you, and our love be as fond, as fervent, as unconstrained; but till then--away! you chide our spirits, you restrain our mirth."
This is the language which seems to breathe from every altered look and tone of our worldly friends.
Mary went one day to see her cousin. She found Olivia on the sofa, looking a little delicate, but only the more beautiful from that cause, as well as from the subdued, softened expression of her countenance.
Her husband sat affectionately by her side, the brightest satisfaction beaming from his handsome features, gazing upon his lovely wife, and new-born son, a fine healthy infant, resting on the mother's bosom.
It was altogether a perfect picture of happy family prosperity, and tears of heartfelt pleasure rose to Mary's eyes at the sight.
She wished and prayed that it might be an earnest of the establishment of a happier and better state of things between that married pair; that the long slumbering, or diverted demonstration of affection, now reawakened or recalled, might never again be put to silence, or lose their reasserted power. Alas! for the transitory nature of pure and holy influences like the present, upon the light, inconstant, or the worldly hearted; influences of time, or circumstances, which like the shaken blossoms of the spring, the breath of vanity or dissipation can in a moment dispel and scatter to the ground.