I stood still to admire her; for never before had I seen
her so bewitchingly beautiful. Her countenance was usually a little
wanting in intellectual expression, though it possessed so much of
that which I have described as _angelic_; but, on this occasion,
_it seemed to me_, to be full of ideas. Can it be possible,
whispered conceit--and what very young man is entirely free from
it--can it be possible, she is now thinking how happy a woman Mrs.
Miles Wallingford will one day be?--Am I in any manner connected with
that meditating brow, that reflecting air, that fixed look, that
pleased and yet doubting expression?
"I was about to send for you, Captain Wallingford," said Emily, the
instant she saw me, and confirming my conceited conjectures, by
blushing deeper than I had seen her before, in the whole of that
blushing, sensitive, and enjoyable day; "about to send for you, to
take charge of your treasure."
"And could you not assume that much responsibility, for a single
night?"
"'T would be too great--it is an honour reserved for Mrs. Wallingford,
you know."
This was smilingly said, I fancied sweetly and kindly, and yet it was
said not altogether without something that approached to an
_equivoque_; a sort of manner that the deep, natural feeling of
Grace, and needle-like truth of Lucy had rendered unpleasant to me.
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