"Because," rejoined Anne, "I think that if the rest of the world were of your deliberate opinion, there would soon be a lock on the human understanding."
"I am sure I think there is at present," returned Elizabeth; "did you see Aunt Anne last night wasted upon Mrs. Dale, obliged to listen to the dullest stuff that ever was invented, and poor Mamma frightened out of her wits? I should not wonder if she had dreamt of mad dogs all night."
"I do not defend Mrs. Dale"s powers of intellect," said Anne, "but I should have thought that you at least had little reason to complain.
You were very well off next to Mrs. Bouverie."
"Oh! Mrs. Bouverie is a rara avis, an exception to the general rule,"
said Elizabeth; "but you know, she or my uncle, or aunt, or Papa, are generally forced to put a lock on their understanding. Why, Anne, what are you laughing at?"
"Lizzie, I beg your pardon," said Anne, trying to check herself, "but I could not help it. Your speech put me in mind of the prints from Albano"s four elements. Do not you remember Juno"s visit to AEolus, where he is opening the door of a little corner cupboard where he keeps the puff-cheeked winds locked up? Do you mean to say that Mamma keeps her mighty powers of mind locked up in the same way, for fear they should burst out and overwhelm everybody?"
Elizabeth heartily joined in her cousin"s merriment. "I will tell you what I do mean, Anne, what the great law of society is. Now, do not put on that absurd face of mock gravity, or I shall only laugh, instead of arguing properly."
"Well, let us hear," said Anne.
"It is almost more important than the law that you must eat with a knife and fork," said Elizabeth. "There is one level of conversation, fit for the meanest capacity; and whoever ventures to transgress it, is instantly called blue, or a horrid bore, &c., &c."
"Nonsense, Lizzie," said Anne, laughing; "I am sure I have heard plenty of clever people talk, about sensible things too, and never did I hear them called bores, or blue, or any of your awful et ceteras either."
"Because people did not dare to do so," said Elizabeth, "but they thought it all the same."
"What do you mean by people?" said Anne.
"The dull, respectable, common-place gentry, who make up the ma.s.s of mankind," said Elizabeth.
"Do they?" said Anne.
"Do not they?" said Elizabeth.
"I do not know what the ma.s.s of mankind may be at Abbeychurch," said Anne, "but I am sure the people whom we see oftenest at home, are such as I think it a privilege to know." And she began to enumerate these friends.
"Oh! Anne," interrupted Elizabeth, "do not, for pity"s sake, make me discontented; here am I in Abbeychurch, and must make the best of it. I must be as polite and hypocritical as I can make myself. I must waste my time and endure dullness."
"As to waste of time," said Anne, "perhaps it is most usefully employed in what is so irksome as you find being in company. Mamma has always wished me to remember, that acquiring knowledge may after all be but a selfish gratification, and many things ought to be attended to first."
"That doctrine would not do for everybody," said Elizabeth.
"No," said Anne, "but it does for us; and you will see it plainer, if you remember on what authority it is said that all knowledge is profitable for nothing without charity."
"Charity, yes," said Elizabeth; "but Christian love is a very different thing from drawing-room civility."
"Not very different from bearing and forbearing, as Helen said,"
answered Anne.
"Politeness is not great enough," said Elizabeth, "to belong to charity."
"You are not the person to say so," said Anne.
"Because I dislike it so much," said Elizabeth, "but that is because I despise it. It is such folly to sit a whole evening with your hands before you doing nothing."
"But do you not think," said Anne, "that enduring restraint, and listening to what is not amusing, for the sake of pleasing others, is doing something?"
"Pa.s.sively, not actively," said Elizabeth; "but it is not to please others, it is only that they may think you well bred, or rather that they may not think about you at all."
"It is to please our father and mother," said Anne.
"Yes, and that is the reason it must be done," said Elizabeth; "it is the way of the world, and cannot be helped."
"Rather say it is the trial which has been ordained for us," said Anne.
"Well," said Elizabeth, smiling, "I know all the time that you have the best of the argument. It would not be so if it was not good for us."
"And as it is," said Anne, "I believe that there is more enjoyment in the present order of things, than there would be in any arrangement we could devise."
"Oh! doubtless," said Elizabeth, "just as the corn ripens better with all the disasters that seem to befall it, than it would if we had the command of the clouds."
"Of course," said Anne, "you really are a much more reasonable creature than you pretend to be, Lizzie."
"Am I?" said Elizabeth. "Well, I will just tell you my great horror, and I suppose you will laugh at me. I can endure gossip for old people who cannot employ themselves, and must talk, and have nothing to talk of but their neighbours; but only think of those wretched _faineants_ who go chattering on, wasting their own time and other people"s, doing no good on the face of the earth, and a great deal of harm."
"But these unfortunates are probably quite as unable to talk on any very wise subjects, as your beloved old people, to whom you give a license to gossip," said Anne; "and you do not wish to condemn them to perpetual silence. They are most likely to be estimable people, who ought to be amused."
"Estimable--yes, perhaps," said Elizabeth, "but then I cannot esteem a silly gossip."
"Why, Lizzie," cried Anne, "you are still at the old story that it is better to be wicked than stupid; at least, you reason upon that foundation, though you do not really think so."
"I believe," said Elizabeth, "that there must be some great crook in my mind; for though I know and believe as firmly as I do any other important thing, that mere intellect is utterly worthless, I cannot feel it; it bewitches me as beauty does some people, and I suppose always will, till I grow old and stupid, or get my mind into better order."
"Really," said Anne, "I think the strongest proof of your beginning to grow old and stupid, is your doing such a very common-place thing, as to abuse honest gossip."
There was service at St. Mary"s Church on Wednesday and Friday mornings; but on this day the rain was so violent, that of all the party at the Vicarage, the Mertons, and Elizabeth, Katherine, and Helen, alone ventured to go to church.
When they returned, Anne followed her mother to her room, to talk over the events of the previous day. After much had been said of the Consecration, and also of their wonder and regret at Rupert"s absence, Anne said, "How strange it seems to lose sight of you and Papa as I have done ever since I have been here! Mamma, I have scarcely been with you at all, and never see Papa but when he is talking to Uncle Woodbourne, and everyone else is in the room."
"But I hope you are enjoying yourself, my dear?" said Lady Merton.
"Oh yes, Mamma," cried Anne; "Lizzie is more delightful than ever, when we are alone."
"Are you taking a sudden romantic turn?" said Lady Merton, smiling; "do you mean in future to keep one friend all to yourself?"
"Oh no, Mamma," said Anne, laughing; "I only meant that Lizzie is more like herself when we are alone together. Sometimes when the others are there, she gets vexed, and says things which I do not like to hear, only for the sake of differing from them."
"I have seen something of the kind about her before," said Lady Merton, "but not enough to be unpleasant."
"No, Mamma, because you do not talk as Miss Hazleby did yesterday,"
said Anne, smiling. "She certainly did make a very ridiculous oration about officers and flirtations; but Lizzie, instead of putting a stop to it quietly and gently, only went into the other extreme, and talked about disliking all society."
"I am very sorry to hear this," said Lady Merton; "I am afraid she will make herself absurd and disagreeable by this spirit of contradiction, even if nothing worse comes of it."