Bessie was much subdued. She had passed a
bad night, she had shed many tears, and though she had not encountered
one reproach, she was under the distressing consciousness that she had
vexed several people who had been good to her. At the same time there
could not be two opinions of the wicked duplicity of a gentleman who
could profess to love and wish to marry her when his heart was devoted
to another lady: she believed that she never could forgive him that
insult.
Yet she was sorry even to tears again when she remembered him in the
dull little drawing-room at Ryde, and Miss Julia Gardiner telling him
that she had forgotten her old songs which he liked better than her new
ones; for it had dawned upon her that this scene--it had struck her then
as sad--must have been their farewell, the _finis_ to the love-chapter
of their youth. Bessie averted her mind from the idea that Miss Julia
Gardiner had consented to marry a rich, middle-aged gentleman who was a
widower: she did not like it, it was utterly repugnant, she hated to
think of it. Oh, that people would marry the right people, and not care
so much for rank and money! Lady Angleby's loveliest sister had forty
years ago aggrieved her whole family by marrying the poor squire of
Carisfort; and Lady Angleby had said in Bessie's hearing that her
sister was the most enviable woman she knew, happy as the day was long,
though so positively indigent as to be thankful for her eldest
daughter's half-worn Brentwood finery to smarten up her younger girls.
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