'"Much of the devil!" answered my father hastily; "do you think I care about a's and aa's, and i's and ee's,? I tell you, Julia, I am serious in the matter. You have a genius for friendship, that is, for running up intimacies which you call such." (Was not this very harshly said, Matilda?) "Now I wish to give you an opportunity at least to make one deserving friend, and therefore I have resolved that this young lady shall be a member of my family for some months, and I expect you will pay to her that attention which is due to misfortune and virtue."
'"Certainly, sir. Is my future friend red-haired?"
'He gave me one of his stern glances; you will say, perhaps, I deserved it; but I think the deuce prompts me with teasing questions on some occasions.
'"She is as superior to you, my love, in personal appearance as in prudence and affection for her friends."
'"Lord, papa, do you think that superiority a recommendation? Well, sir, but I see you are going to take all this too seriously; whatever the young lady may be, I am sure, being recommended by you, she shall have no reason to complain of my want of attention." After a pause―"Has she any attendant? because you know I must provide for her proper accommodation if she is without one."
'"N―no―no, not properly an attendant; the chaplain who lived with her father is a very good sort of man, and I believe I shall make room for him in the house."
"'Chaplain, papa? Lord bless us!"
'"Yes, Miss Mannering, chaplain; is there anything very new in that word? Had we not a chaplain at the Residence, when we were in India?"
'"Yes, papa, but you was a commandant then."
'"So I will be now, Miss Mannering, in my own family at least."
'"Certainly, sir. But will he read us the Church of England service?"
'The apparent simplicity with which I asked this question got the better of his gravity. "Come, Julia," he said, "you are a sad girl, but I gain nothing by scolding you. Of these two strangers, the young lady is one whom you cannot fail, I think, to love; the person whom, for want of a better term, I called chaplain, is a very worthy, and somewhat ridiculous personage, who will never find out you laugh at him if you don't laugh very loud indeed."
'"Dear papa, I am delighted with that part of his character. But pray, is the house we are going to as pleasantly situated as this?"
'"Not perhaps as much to your taste; there is no lake under the windows, and you will be under the necessity of having all your music within doors."
'This last coup de main ended the keen encounter of our wits, for you may believe, Matilda, it quelled all my courage to reply.
'Yet my spirits, as perhaps will appear too manifest from this dialogue, have risen insensibly, and, as it were, in spite of myself. Brown alive, and free, and in England! Embarrassment and anxiety I can and must endure. We leave this in two days for our new residence. I shall not fail to let you know what I think of these Scotch inmates, whom I have but too much reason to believe my father means to quarter in his house as a brace of honourable spies; a sort of female Rozencrantz and reverend Guildenstern, one in tartan petticoats, the other in a cassock. What a contrast to the society I would willingly have secured to myself! I shall write instantly on my arriving at our new place of abode, and acquaint my dearest Matilda with the farther fates of―her
'JULIA MANNERING.'
Woodbourne, the habitation which Mannering, by Mr. Mac-Morlan's mediation, had hired for a season, was a large comfortable mansion, snugly situated beneath a hill covered with wood, which shrouded the house upon the north and east; the front looked upon a little lawn bordered by a grove of old trees; beyond were some arable fields, extending down to the river, which was seen from the windows of the house. A tolerable, though old-fashioned garden, a well-stocked dove-cot, and the possession of any quantity of ground which the convenience of the family might require, rendered the place in every respect suitable, as the advertisements have it, 'for the accommodation of a genteel family.'
Here, then, Mannering resolved, for some time at least, to set up the staff of his rest. Though an East-Indian, he was not partial to an ostentatious display of wealth. In fact, he was too proud a man to be a vain one. He resolved, therefore, to place himself upon the footing of a country gentleman of easy fortune, without assuming, or permitting his household to assume, any of the faste which then was considered as characteristic of a nabob.
