Is not that true,
Mary?"
"Yes," whispered she, coloring; "and the sooner you afford me an
opportunity to interest you in one, the more I shall be obliged to
you."
Pembroke pressed her hand in token of assent; and a desultory
conversation continuing for another half-hour, Miss Beaufort, who
dreaded the wasting one minute in a day so momentous to her peace,
sat uneasily until her aunt proposed retiring to her dressing-room a
while, and requested Pembroke to assist her up stairs.
When he returned to the drawing-room, to his extreme satisfaction he
found all the party were gone to prepare for their usual drives,
excepting Miss Beaufort, who was standing by one of the windows, lost
in thought. He approached her, and taking her hand--
"Come, my dear cousin," said he, "how can I oblige you?"
Mary struggled with her confusion. Had she loved Thaddeus less, she
found she could with greater ease have related the interest which she
took in his fate. She tried to speak distinctly, and she accomplished
it, although her burning cheek and downcast look told to the fixed
eye of Pembroke what she vainly attempted to conceal.
"You can, indeed, oblige me! You must remember a Mr. Constantine! I
once mentioned him to you in my letters."
"I do, Mary. You thought him amiable!"
"He was the intimate friend of Lady Tinemouth," returned she,
striving to look up; but the piercing expression she met from the
eyes of Somerset, beating hers down again, covered her face and neck
with deeper blushes.
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