"When I want a pupil," answered Cecilia, "I shall think that an admirable recommendation: but were I to marry, I would rather find a tutor, of the two."
"I am sure I should not," cried Lady Honoria, carelessly, "for one has enough to do with tutors before hand, and the best thing I know of marrying is to get rid of them. I fancy you think so too, only it's a pretty speech to make. Oh how my sister Euphrasia would adore you!-- Pray are you always as grave as you are now?"
"No,--yes,--indeed I hardly know."
"I fancy it's this dismal place that hurts your spirits. I remember when I saw you in St James's-square I thought you very lively. But really these thick walls are enough to inspire the vapours if one never had them before."
"I don't think they have had a very bad effect upon your ladyship!"
"O yes they have; if Euphrasia was here she would hardly know me. And the extreme want of taste and entertainment in all the family is quite melancholy: for even if by chance one has the good fortune to hear any intelligence, Mrs Delvile will hardly let it be repeated, for fear it should happen to be untrue, as if that could possibly signify! I am sure I had as lieve the things were false as not, for they tell as well one way as the other, if she would but have patience to hear them. But she's extremely severe, you know, as almost all those very clever women are; so that she keeps a kind of restraint upon me whether I will or no. However, that's nothing compared to her caro sposo, for he is utterly insufferable; so solemn, and so dull! so stately and so tiresome! Mortimer, too, gets worse and worse; O 'tis a sad tribe! I dare say he will soon grow quite as horrible as his father. Don't you think so?"
"Why indeed,--no,--I don't think there's much resemblance," said Cecilia, with some hesitation.
"He is the most altered creature," continued her ladyship, "I ever saw in my life. Once I thought him the most agreeable young man in the world: but if you observe, that's all over now, and he is getting just as stupid and dismal as the rest of them. I wish you had been here last summer; I assure you, you would quite have fallen in love with him."
"Should I?" said Cecilia, with a conscious smile.
"Yes, for he was quite delightful; all spirit and gaiety, but now, if it was not for you, I really think I should pretend to lose my way, and instead of going over that old draw-bridge, throw myself into the moat. I wish Euphrasia was here. It's just the right place for her. She'll fancy herself in a monastery as soon as she comes, and nothing will make her half so happy, for she is always wishing to be a Nun, poor little simpleton.