Margaret Capel, vol. 1

Ellen Wallace

Ellen Wallace

Margaret Capel: A Novel, vol. 1 of 3

"One of the best kind of fashionable novels, not only free from the vulgar impertinences of the 'silver-fork school,' but has the tone of good society, and better still, a vein of pure and healthful sentiment. The grave incidents of the story are treated with good taste and genuine pathos, but enlivened by very amusing scenes, in which the ridiculous and vicious peculiarities of character, so often met with in real life, are cleverly hit off with a pencil which emulates the witty drollery of caricature without its coarseness."

    —Spectator.

"A very superior work. Without the coarseness of Mrs. Trollope's writings, it has all her vigour and rapidity of narrative, with touches of ideal grace and beauty, and a perception of the elevating impulses of the heart to which that lady seems utterly a stranger. It might almost be called a dramatic novel, for the characters and story are developed in a series of animated conversations which are sustained with remarkable power, distinctness, and variety. The descriptive portions of the work are written with much elegance."

    —John Bull.

CHAPTER I

And he had ever on his lip some word of mockery.

В В В В MAISTRE WACE.

Therefore whenever that thou dost behold

A comely corse with beauty fair endewed,

Know this for certain, that the same doth hold

A beauteous soul, with fair conditions thewed;

Fit to receive the seed of vertue strewed,

For all that fair is, is by nature good;

That is a sign to know the gentle blood.

В В В В SPENSER.

"Left guardian to her, are you?" said Mr. Casement, looking with an expression of much satisfaction at his friend Mr. Grey.

"I told you so three months ago," returned Mr. Grey, in a tone of voice that betrayed his vexation.

"I have been very busy for these three months, and forgot all about it," said Mr. Casement.

"I thought you never were busy, Casement," remarked Mr. Grey.

"One of your mistakes," returned Mr. Casement, as if Mr. Grey's mistakes were a synonyme for the dullest of all possible blunders. "Why, you seem to have the luck of it; you are always being made guardian, or executor, or what not."

"I know I am," said Mr. Grey, looking more and more cold, and vexed, and peevish; and rubbing his knee with great perseverance, as he drew closer to the fire; "but never before to a girl."

"What has become of the two young Trevors?"

"One of them drowned near Ilfracombe the summer before last—the other in India."

"Can't you marry her to one of them?"

"Which?" asked Mr. Grey shortly, "they are both equally within my reach."

"I thought there was another—Alfred Trevor?"

"He is married already."

"And how old is the girl?"

"Seventeen, I told you."

"When did you close accounts with young Haveloc?"

"Last Christmas, didn't you know?"

"I forgot. Sharp work, Master Grey, upon my word. If you are to have a ward every year, I don't envy you. As well open a boarding-school at once. That is the good," continued Mr. Casement, turning round and addressing the fire, "that is the good of being a single man; he is bothered with every body's children. Now, I never was appointed guardian in my life. You had better, my good friend," said he, turning again to Mr. Grey, "you had better cajole Master Haveloc to take the young lady off your hands as quickly as possible. There is an arrangement which would please all parties."

"I have a great regard for young Haveloc," said Mr. Grey seriously; "and I don't wish him so ill as to force a wife upon him. I never saw any good come of making matches. Margaret Capel is nearer to me than the Trevors, who are only second cousins. She is my own sister's child. She will inherit my property in all likelihood, and then she will find no difficulty in obtaining a husband without the disgrace of going in search of one."

"That's a long speech," remarked Mr. Casement.

Mr. Grey made no reply to this statement.

"That is to say," resumed Mr. Casement, "if you don't leave your money to a hospital."

"I h