"'Well,' Lady Janet answered, 'Julian was quite right.'
"'Quite right in what?'
"'In saying that the earth holds no nobler woman than Mercy Merrick.'
"'Has she refused him again?'
"'She has refused him again.'
"'Thank God!'
I felt it fervently, and I said it fervently.
Lady Janet laid down her knife and fork, and fixed one of her fierce looks on me.
"'It may not be your fault, Horace,' she said, 'if your nature is incapable of comprehending what is great and generous in other natures higher than yours.
But the least you can do is to distrust your own capacity of appreciation.
For the future keep your opinions (on questions which you don't understand) modestly to yourself.
I have a tenderness for you for your father's sake; and I take the most favorable view of your conduct toward Mercy Merrick.
I humanely consider it the conduct of a fool.' (Her own words, Miss Roseberry.
I assure you once more, her own words.) 'But don't trespass too far on my indulgence—don't insinuate again that a woman who is good enough (if she died this night) to go to heaven, is not good enough to be my nephew's wife.'
"I expressed to you my conviction a little way back that it was doubtful whether poor Lady Janet would be much longer competent to manage her own affairs.
Perhaps you thought me hasty then?
What do you think now?
"It was, of course, useless to reply seriously to the extraordinary reprimand that I had received.
Besides, I was really shocked by a decay of principle which proceeded but too plainly from decay of the mental powers.
I made a soothing and respectful reply, and I was favored in return with some account of what had really happened at the Refuge.
My mother and my sisters were disgusted when I repeated the particulars to them.
You will be disgusted too.
"The interesting penitent (expecting Lady Janet's visit) was, of course, discovered in a touching domestic position!
She had a foundling baby asleep on her lap; and she was teaching the alphabet to an ugly little vagabond girl whose acquaintance she had first made in the street.
Just the sort of artful tableau vivant to impose on an old lady—was it not?
"You will understand what followed, when Lady Janet opened her matrimonial negotiation.
Having perfected herself in her part, Mercy Merrick, to do her justice, was not the woman to play it badly.
The most magnanimous sentiments flowed from her lips.
She declared that her future life was devoted to acts of charity, typified, of course, by the foundling infant and the ugly little girl.
However she might personally suffer, whatever might be the sacrifice of her own feelings—observe how artfully this was put, to insinuate that she was herself in love with him!—she could not accept from Mr. Julian Gray an honor of which she was unworthy.
Her gratitude to him and her interest in him alike forbade her to compromise his brilliant future by consenting to a marriage which would degrade him in the estimation of all his friends.
She thanked him (with tears); she thanked Lady Janet (with more tears); but she dare not, in the interests of his honor and his happiness, accept the hand that he offered to her.
God bless and comfort him; and God help her to bear with her hard lot!
"The object of this contemptible comedy is plain enough to my mind.
She is simply holding off (Julian, as you know, is a poor man) until the influence of Lady Janet's persuasion is backed by the opening of Lady Janet's purse.
In one word—Settlements!
But for the profanity of the woman's language, and the really lamentable credulity of the poor old lady, the whole thing would make a fit subject for a burlesque.
"But the saddest part of the story is still to come.
"In due course of time the lady's decision was communicated to Julian Gray.
He took leave of his senses on the spot.
Can you believe it?—he has resigned his curacy!
At a time when the church is thronged every Sunday to hear him preach, this madman shuts the door and walks out of the pulpit.
Even Lady Janet was not far enough gone in folly to abet him in this.
She remonstrated, like the rest of his friends.
Perfectly useless!
He had but one answer to everything they could say:
'My career is closed.' What stuff!
"You will ask, naturally enough, what this perverse man is going to do next.
I don't scruple to say that he is bent on committing suicide.
Pray do not be alarmed!