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But Meadows was no ordinary man. Susan had given his quick intelligence a glimpse of a way to please her. He looked at the end, and crushed his will down to the thorny means. Twice a week he called on the Mertons, and much of his talk was Australia. Susan was grateful. To hear of the place where George would soon be was the nearest approach she could make to hearing of George.
"It came from Rupert, who should have died first, before he was so untrue to himself, to my poor father, to me, to all of us, Miles, as well as to his own manhood. It has been as we supposed; he has been deluded by the éclât that attaches to these Mertons in our provincial society; and Emily is rather a showy girl, you know, at least for those who are accustomed only to our simple habits."
His love of Sybil, however, dominated every other emotion, and the consciousness that he had done his duty gave him peace and comfort. When he arrived at Charing Cross, he felt perfectly happy. The Mertons received him very kindly. Sybil made him promise that he would never again allow anything to come between them, and the marriage was fixed for the 7th June.
Fanny poured out ugly reports of her mother's financial necessities to Muriel Colwood; Mrs. Colwood repeated them to Diana. And the Mertons were Diana's only kinsfolk. The claim of blood pressed her hard. Meanwhile, with a shrinking distaste, she had tried to avoid the personal discussion of the matter with Fanny. The task of curbing the girl's impatience, day after day, had fallen to Mrs.
Hardinge, and was much attached to the family, I had no difficulty in believing it true, so far as the lady's liberality was concerned. I heartily wished Rupert had possessed more self-respect; but he was, as he was! "I am sorry you cannot go with us," I answered, "for I counted on you to help amuse the Mertons " "The Mertons! Why, surely, they are not going to pass the summer at Clawbonny!"
'I wish I had known it before, said Mr. Woodbourne, 'I could at least have spoken to Mr. Turner on Saturday, and prevented the Mertons' name from appearing. 'I did not tell you because I had no opportunity, said Mrs.
"I have the pleasure of seeing Captain Wallingford, I believe," he remarked, "with whom my friends, the Mertons, came passengers from China. They have often expressed their sense of your civilities," he continued, as I bowed in acquiescence, "and declare they should ever wish to sail with you, were they again compelled to go to sea."
"I met Rupert in the street, sir, and had a short interview with the Mertons and Lucy at the theatre. Young Mr. and old Mrs. Drewett were of the party." The good divine turned short round to me, and looked as conscious and knowing as one of his singleness of mind and simplicity of habits could look.
We passed the boarding-house, which was not without its history a long low building erected by Mr. and Miss Edgeworth for a school, where the Sandfords and Mertons of those days were to be brought up together: a sort of foreshadowing of the High Schools of the present. Mr. Edgeworth was, as we know, the very spirit of progress, though his experiment did not answer at the time.
I make no doubt I was greatly benefited by my constant communications with the Mertons; the Major being a cultivated, though not a particularly brilliant, man; while I conceive it to be utterly impossible for two young men, of our time of life and profession, to be daily, almost hourly, in the company of a young woman like Emily Merton, without losing some of the peculiar roughness of the sea, and getting, in its place, some small portion of the gentler qualities of the saloon.
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