Mr. Kendal enjoyed his stay in town. He visited libraries, saw
pictures, and heard music, with the new zest of having a wife able to
enter into his tastes. He met old friends, and did not shrink
immoderately from those of his wife; nay, he found them extremely
agreeable, and was pleased to see Albinia welcomed. Indeed, his
sojourn in her former sphere served to make him wonder that she could
be contented with Bayford, and to find her, of the whole party, by
far the most ready to return home. Both he himself and Sophy had an
unavowed dread of the influence of Willow Lawn; but Albinia had a
spring of spirits, independent of place, and though happy, was
craving for her duties, anxious to have the journey over, and afraid
that London was making her little Maurice pale.
Miss Meadows was the first person whom they saw at Willow Lawn. Two
letters had passed, both so conventionally civil, that her state of
mind could not be gathered from them, but her first tones proved that
coherence was more than ever wanting, and no one attempted to
understand anything she said, while she enfolded Sophy in an agitated
embrace, and marshalled them to the drawing-room, where the chief of
the apologies were spent upon Sophy's new couch, which had been sent
down the day before by the luggage-train, and which she and Eweretta
had attempted to put together in an impossible way, failing which,
they had called in the carpenter, who had made it worse.
Pages:
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213