d tragedies daily performed
before us of which we understand neither the fun nor the pathos? Very
likely George goes home thinking to himself, "I have made an impression
on the heart of this young creature. She has almost confessed as much.
Poor artless little maiden! I wonder what there is in me that she should
like me?" Can he be angry with her for this unlucky preference? Was ever
a man angry at such a reason? He would not have been so well pleased,
perhaps, had he known all; and that he was only one of the performers
in the comedy, not the principal character by any means; Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern in the Tragedy, the part of Hamlet by a gentleman unknown.
How often are our little vanities shocked in this way, and subjected to
wholesome humiliation! Have you not fancied that Lucinda's eyes beamed
on you with a special tenderness, and presently become aware that she
ogles your neighbour with the very same killing glances? Have you not
exchanged exquisite whispers with Lalage at the dinner-table (sweet
murmurs heard through the hum of the guests, and clatter of the
banquet!) and then overheard her whispering the very same delicious
phrases to old Surdus in the drawing-room? The sun shines for everybody;
the flowers smell sweet for all noses; and the nightingale and Lalage
warble for all ears--not your long ones only, good Brother!

CHAPTER LXX. In which Cupid plays a Considerable Part

We must now, however, and before we proceed with the history of Miss
Lydia and her doings, perform the duty of explaining that sentence
in Mr. Warrington's letter to his brother which refers to Lady Maria
Esmond, and which, to some simple readers, may be still mysterious.
For how, indeed, could well-regulated persons divine such a secret?
How could innocent and respectable young people suppose that a woman of
noble birth, of ancient family, of mature experience,--a woman whom we
have seen exceedingly in love only a score of months ago,--should so
far forget herself as (oh, my very finger-tips blush as I write the
sentence!)--as not only to fall in love with a person of low origin, and
very many years her junior, but actually to marry him in the face of
the world? That is, not exactly in the face, but behind the back of the
world, so to speak; for Parson Sampson privily tied the indissoluble
knot for the pair at his chapel in Mayfair.

Now stop before you condemn her utterly. Because Lady Maria had had, and
overcome, a fooli