"You ask me, what Brown is by origin, that his descent should be so displeasing to my father. His story is shortly told. He is of Scottish extraction, but, being left an orphan, his education was undertaken by a family of relations, settled in Holland. He was bred to commerce, and sent very early to one of our settlements in the East, where his guardian had a correspondent. But this correspondent was dead when he arrived in India, and he had no other resource than to offer himself as a clerk to a counting-house. The breaking out of the war, and the straits to which we were at first reduced, threw the army open to all young men who were disposed to embrace that mode of life; and Brown, whose genius had a strong military tendency, was the first to leave what might have been the road to wealth, and to choose that of fame. The rest of his history is well known to you; but conceive the irritation of my father, who despises commerce (though, by the way, the best part of his property was made in that honourable profession by my great-uncle), and has a particular antipathy to the Dutch; think with what ear he would be likely to receive proposals for his only child from Vanbeest Brown, educated for charity by the house of Vanbeest and Vanbruggen! O Matilda, it will never do--nay, so childish am I, I hardly can help sympathising with his aristocratic feelings. Mrs. Vanbeest Brown!
The name has little to recommend it, to be sure.--What children we are!"EIGHTH EXTRACT.
"It is all over now, Matilda!--I shall never have courage to tell my father--nay, most deeply do I fear he has already learned my secret from another quarter, which will entirely remove the grace of my communication, and ruin whatever gleam of hope I had ventured to connect with it. Yesternight, Brown came as usual, and his flageolet on the lake announced his approach. We had agreed, that he should continue to use this signal. These romantic lakes attract numerous visitors, who indulge their enthusiasm in visiting the scenery at all hours, and we hoped, that--if Brown were noticed from the house, he might pass for one of those admirers of nature, who was giving vent to his feelings through the medium of music.
The sounds might also be my apology, should I be observed on the balcony. But last night, while I was eagerly enforcing my plan of a full confession to my father, which he as earnestly deprecated, we heard the window of Mr. Mervyn's library, which is under my room, open softly. I signed to Brown to make his retreat, and immediately re-entered, with some faint hopes that our interview had not been observed.
"But, alas! Matilda, these hopes vanished the instant I beheld Mr.
Mervyn's countenance at breakfast the next morning. He looked so provokingly intelligent and confidential, that, had I dared, Icould have been more angry than ever I was in my life; but I must be on good behaviour, and my walks are now limited within his farm precincts, where the good gentleman can amble along by my side without inconvenience. I have detected him once or twice attempting to sound my thoughts, and watch the expression of my countenance. He has talked of the flageolet more than once; and has, at different times, made eulogiums upon the watchfulness and ferocity of his dogs, and the regularity with which the keeper makes his rounds with a loaded fowling-piece. He mentioned even man-traps and spring-guns. I should be loath to affront my father's old friend in his own house; but I do long to show him that I am my father's daughter, a fact of which Mr. Mervyn will certainly be convinced, if ever I trust my voice and temper with a reply to these indirect hints. Of one thing I am certain--I am grateful to him on that account--he has not told Mrs. Mervyn.
Lord help me, I should have had such lectures about the dangers of love and the night air on the lake, the risk arising from colds and fortune-hunters, the comfort and convenience of sack-whey and closed windows!--I cannot help trifling, Matilda, though my heart is sad enough What Brown will do I cannot guess. I presume however, the fear of detection prevents his resuming his nocturnal visits. He lodges at an inn on the opposite shore of the lake, under the name, he tells me, of Dawson--he has a bad choice in names, that be allowed. He has not left the army, I believe, but he says nothing of his present views.
