University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.

On the morning succeeding the day of
the dinner at the Hall, Mrs. Wilson, and
all her nieces and her nephew, availed themselves
of the fineness of the weather, to walk
to the Rectory, whither they were in the
frequent habit of such informal and friendly
visits. They had just cleared the little village
of B—, which lay in their route, as a
rather handsome travelling carriage and four
passed them, and took the road which led to
the Deanery.

“As I live,” cried John, “there go our
new neighbours, the Jarvis's; yes, yes, that
must be the old merchant muffled up in the
corner, which I mistook at first for a pile of
band-boxes; then the rosy-cheek'd lady,
with so many feathers, must be the old
lady—heaven forgive me, Mrs. Jarvis I mean
—ay, and the two others the belles.”

“You are in a hurry to pronounce them
belles, John,” cried Jane; “it would be
well to see more of them, before you speak
so decidedly.”

“Oh!” replied John, “I have seen
enough of them, and”—he was interrupted
by the whirling of a tilbury and tandem,
followed by a couple of servants on horse-back.
All about this vehicle and its masters,
bore the stamp of decided fashion, and

our party had followed it with their eyes for
a short distance, when having reached a
fork in the roads, it stopped, and evidently
waited the coming up of the pedestrians, as
if to make an inquiry. A single glance of
the eye was sufficient to apprise the gentleman
on the low cushion of the kind of
people he had to deal with, and stepping
from his carriage, he met them with a
graceful bow, and after handsomely apologising
for troubling them, he desired to know
which road led to the Deanery. “The
right, sir,” replied John, returning his salutation.

“Ask them, Colonel,” cried the charioteer,
“whether the old gentleman went
right or not.”

The Colonel, in the manner of a perfect
gentleman, but with a look of compassion
for his companion's want of tact, made the
desired inquiry; which being satisfactorily
answered, he again bowed, and was retiring,
as one of several pointers who followed
the cavalcade sprang upon Jane, and
soiled her walking dress with his dirty feet.

“Come hither, Dido,” cried the Colonel,
as he hastened to beat the dog back from
the young lady; and again he apologised in
the same collected and handsome manner—
when turning to one of the servants, he said,
“call in the dog, sir,” and rejoined his companion.
The air of this gentleman was peculiarly
pleasant; he was decidedly military,

had he not been addressed as such by his
younger and certainly less polished companion.
The Colonel was apparently about
thirty, and of extremely handsome face and
figure, while his driving friend appeared
several years younger, and of different materials
altogether.

“I wonder,” said Jane, as they turned a
corner which hid them from view, “who
they are?” “Who they are?” cried her brother,
“why the Jarvis's to be sure; did'nt
you hear them ask the road to the Deanery?”

“Oh! the one that drove, he may be a
Jarvis, but not the gentleman who spoke to
us—surely not, John; he was called Colonel
you know.”

“Yes, yes,” said John, with one of his
quizzing expressions, “Colonel Jarvis, that
must be the alderman; they are commonly
colonels of city volunteers: yes, that must
have been the old gentleman who spoke to
us, and I was right about the band-boxes.”

“You forget,” said Clara, with a smile,
“the polite inquiry concerning the old gentleman.”

“Ah! true; who can this Colonel be then,
for young Jarvis is only a captain I know;
who do you think he is, Jane?”

“How do you think I can tell you, John;
but whoever he is, he owns the tilbury, although
he did not drive it, and he is a gentleman
both by birth and manners.”

“Why, Jane, if you know so much, you

might know more, but it is all guess with
you.”

“No, it is not guess—I am sure of it.”

The aunt and sisters, who had taken little
interest in the dialogue, looked at her with
some surprise, which John observing, he exclaimed,
“Poh: she knows no more than we
all know.” “Indeed I do.” “Poh, poh,”
continued her brother, “if you know, tell.”
“Why, the arms were different, then.”

John laughed as he said, “that is a good
reason, to be sure, for the tilbury being the
colonel's property; but now for his blood;
how did you discover that, sis, by his gait
and movements?”

Jane coloured a little, and laugh'd faintly,
as she said, “the arms on the tilbury had
six quarterings.” Emily now laughed, and
Mrs. Wilson and Clara smiled, while John
continued his teazing until they reached the
rectory.

While chatting with the doctor and his wife,
Francis returned from his morning ride, and
told them the Jarvis family had arrived; he
had witnessed an unpleasant accident to a
gig, in which were Captain Jarvis, and a
friend, Colonel Egerton; it had been awkwardly
driven in turning in the deanery gate,
and upset: the colonel received some injury
to his ancle, nothing, however, serious he
hoped, but such as to put him under the care
of the young ladies probably for a few days.
After the usual exclamations which follow

such details, Jane ventured to inquire of the
young divine who Colonel Egerton was:
“Why, I understood at the time from one of
the servants, that he is a nephew of Sir Edgar
Egerton, and a lieutenant-colonel on half-pay
or furlough, or some such thing.”

“How did he bear his misfortune, Mr.
Francis?” inquired Mrs. Wilson.

“Certainly as a gentleman, madam, if not
as a Christian,” replied the young clergyman,
smiling; “indeed, most men of gallantry
would, I believe, rejoice in an accident which
drew forth so much sympathy, as the Miss
Jarvis's manifested.”

“How fortunate you should all happen to
be near,” said Clara, compassionately.

“Are the young ladies pretty?” asked
Jane, with something of hesitation in her
manner.

“Why, I rather think they are; but I took
very little notice of their appearance, as the
colonel was really in evident pain.”

“This, then,” cried the doctor, “affords
me an additional excuse for calling on them
at an early day, so I'll e'en go to-morrow.”

“I trust Doctor Ives wants no apologies
for performing his duty,” said Mrs. Wilson.

“He is fond of making them, though,” said
Mrs. Ives, speaking with a benevolent smile,
and for the first time in the little conversation.

It was then arranged that the rector should
make his official visit, as intended, by himself;

and on his report, the ladies would act; and
after remaining at the rectory an hour, they
returned to the hall, attended by Francis.

The next day the doctor drove in, and informed
them the Jarvis family were happily
settled, and the colonel in no danger, excepting
from the fascinations of the damsels, who
took such evident care of him, that he wanted
for nothing, and they might drive over
whenever they pleased, without fear of intruding
unseasonably.

Mr. Jarvis received his guests with the
frankness of good feelings, if not with the
polish of high life; while his wife, who seldom
thought of the former, would have been
mortally offended with the person who could
have suggested that she omitted any of the
elegancies of the latter. Her daughters were
rather pretty, but wanted, both in appearance
and manner, the inexpressible air of haut ton,
which so eminently distinguished the easy
but polished deportment of Colonel Egerton,
who they found reclining on a sofa with his leg
in a chair, amply secured in numerous bandages,
but unable to rise; yet, notwithstanding
the awkwardness of his situation, he was
by far the least discomposed person of the
party, and having pleasantly excused his
dishabille to the ladies, appeared to think no
more of his accident or its effects.

The captain, Mrs. Jarvis remarked, had
gone out with his dogs to try the grounds
around them, “for he seems to live only with

his horses and his gun: young men, my lady,
now-a-days, appear to forget that there are
any things in the world but themselves; now
I told Harry that your ladyship and daughters
would favour us with a call this morning—but
no: there he went as if Mr. Jarvis
was unable to buy us a dinner, and we should
all starve but for his quails and pheasants.”

“Quails and pheasants,” cried John, in
consternation, “does Captain Jarvis shoot
quails and pheasants at this time of the year?”

“Mrs. Jarvis, sir,” said Colonel Egerton,
with a correcting smile, “understands the
allegiance due from us gentlemen to the ladies,
better than the rules of sporting; my
friend, the captain, has taken his fishing rod
I believe, madam.”

“It is all one, fish or birds,” cried Mrs.
Jarvis, “he is out of the way when he is
wanted most, and I believe we can buy fish
as easily as birds; I wish he would pattern
after yourself, colonel, in these matters.”

Colonel Egerton laughed pleasantly, but
did not blush at this open compliment to his
manners, and Miss Jarvis observed, with a
look of something like admiration thrown on
his reclining figure, “that when Harry had
been in the army as long as his friend, he
would know the usages of good society, she
hoped, as well.”

“Yes,” said her mother, “the army is
certainly the place to polish a young man;”

and turning to Mrs. Wilson, “your husband,
I believe, was in the army, ma'am?”

“I hope,” said Emily hastily, “that we
shall have the pleasure of seeing you soon,
Miss Jarvis, at the Hall,” and preventing the
necessity of a reply from her aunt; the
young lady promised to be early in her visit,
and the subject changed to a general and uninteresting
discourse on the neighbourhood,
country, weather, and other ordinary topics.

“Now, John,” cried Jane in triumph, as
they drove from the door, “you must acknowledge
my heraldic witchcraft, as you are
pleased to call it, is right for once at least.”

“Oh! no doubt, Jenny,” said John, who
was accustomed to use that appellation to
her as a provocation, when he wished what
he called an enlivening spirt; but Mrs. Wilson
put a stop to it by a remark to his mother,
and the habitual respect of both the combatants
kept them silent.

Jane Moseley was endowed by nature with
an excellent understanding, at least equal to
that of her brother, but wanted the more essential
requisites of a well governed mind.
Masters had been provided by Sir Edward
for all his daughters, and if they were not acquainted
with the usual acquirements of
young women in their rank in life, it was not
his fault: his system of economy had not embraced
a denial of opportunity to any of his
children, and the baronet was apt to think
all was done, when they were put where all

might be done. Feeling herself and parents
entitled to enter into all the gayeties and
splendour of some of the richer families in
their vicinity, Jane, who had grown up during
the temporary eclipse of Sir Edward's
fortunes, had sought that self-consolation so
common to people in her situation, which
was to be found in reviewing the former
grandeur of her house, and had thus contracted
a degree of family pride. If Clara's weaknesses
were less striking than those of Jane,
it was because she had less imagination, and
because that in loving Francis Ives she had
so long admired a character, where so little
was to be found that could be censured, that
she might be said to have contracted a habit
of judging correctly, without being able at
all times to give a reason for her conduct or
opinions.