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One night one fine moonlight night Lady Castlefort, standing at the conservatory door with Beauclerc, after talking an inconceivable quantity of nonsense about her passion for the moon, and her notions about the stars, and congenial souls born under the same planet, proposed to him a moonlight walk.
Lady Castlefort rang and inquired, "Have they done breakfast?" "Breakfast is over, my lady," said the servant who answered the bell, but Landrum thinks the gentlemen and ladies will not be up immediately, on account of one of the ladies being performing a poem." "Very well, very good," added her ladyship, as the man left the room.
"Louisa Castlefort!" cried Lady Cecilia, answering that involuntary start of confusion with a well-acted start of admiration. "Louisa Castlefort, si belle, si belle, so beautifully dressed!"
He threw upon her one look of commiseration, reproachful. "Pity you, yes! But why will you do these things? and why did you bring me here to do this horrid sort of work?" and he vanished. Lady Cecilia Clarendon and Miss Stanley now appeared in the offing, and now reached the straits: Lady Castlefort rose with vivacity extraordinary, and went forward several steps. "Dear Cecilia!
'Oh yes! he does everything. He must have cleared his hundred thousand last year. I have suffered a good deal since I have been in England. Castlefort has pulled in a great deal of my money. I wonder to whom he will leave his property? 'You think him rich? 'Oh! he will cut up large! said the Baron, elevating his eyebrows. 'A pleasant man too!
But superior to the metamorphoses of love, or of fairy tale, are the metamorphoses of fortune. Fortune had suddenly advanced him to uncounted thousands and a title, and no longer le petit bossu, Lord Castlefort obtained the fair hand the very fair hand of Lady Louisa Hawksby, plus belle que fee!
Thin and sallow, the sharp features remained, and the sarcastic without the arch expression; still she had a very fashionable air. Her pretensions to youth, as her dress showed, were not gone; and her hope of matrimony, though declining, not set. Her many-years-younger sister, Louisa, now Lady Castlefort, was beautiful.
"Whereabouts are you?" said Lady Castlefort, approaching to read along with her. "Oh, do not read it," cried Cecilia, and she hastily closed the book. "What signifies shutting the book, my dear," said Louisa, "as if you could shut people's eyes? I know what it is; I have read it." "Read it!" "Read it! I really can read, though it seems to astonish you." "But it is not published?"
"It concerns my friend, and that is the same thing." "So one says; but you look really, such a colour." "No matter what colour I look," cried Cecilia; "go on." "Do you never read the papers?" said Lady Castlefort. "Sometimes," said Lady Cecilia; "but I have not looked at a paper these three days; was there any thing particular? tell me."
Lady Castlefort made no reply, but took up a bunch of seals, and looked at each of them one after another. Lady Cecilia more afraid now than she had yet been that there was something at the bottom, still bravely went on, "What is it? If you know, tell me at once." "Nay, ask Katrine," said Lady Castlefort. "No, I ask you, I would rather ask you, for you are good-natured, Louisa so tell me."
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