The evening passed off more agreeably to Thaddeus than he had augured
on his entrance. Lady Sara always embarrassed and pained him; Miss
Euphemia teased him to death; but to-night the storm which had
agitated the breast of her ladyship having subsided into
thoughtfulness, it imparted so abstracted an air to her ever-lovely
countenance, that, merely to elude communication with Euphemia, he
remained near her, and by paying those attentions which, so situated,
he could not avoid, he so deluded the wretched Lady Sara, as to
subdue her melancholy into an enchanting softness which to any other
man might have rendered her the most captivating woman on earth.
The only person present who did not approve this change was Lady
Tinemouth. At every dissolving smile of her Circean ladyship, she
thought she beheld the intoxicating cup at the lips of Thaddeus, and
dreaded its effect. Euphemia was too busily employed repeating some
new poems, and too intensely dreaming of what her tutor might say on
the verses and medallion in his possession, to observe the dangerous
ascendency which the superior charms of Lady Sara might acquire over
his heart. Indeed, she had no suspicion of finding a rival in her
ladyship; and when a servant announced the arrival of her mother's
coach, and she saw by her watch that it was twelve o'clock, she arose
reluctantly, exclaiming, "I dare say some plaguing people have
arrived who are to stay with us, else mamma would not have sent for
me so soon.
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