He has, however, little reason to complain of the one drawing-room,
where he and his wife are sitting, so pleasant has she made it look,
in spite of the plainness of the furniture. A bright log-fire is
burning on the hearth. There are a few good books too, and a few
handsome prints; while some really valuable nick-nacks are set out,
with pardonable ostentation, on a little table covered with crimson
velvet. It is only cotton velvet, if you look close at it; but the
things are pretty enough to catch the eye of all visitors; and Mrs.
Heale, the Doctor's wife (who always calls Mrs. Vavasour "my lady,"
though she does not love her), and Mrs. Trebooze, of Trebooze, always
finger them over when they have any opportunity, and whisper to each
other half contemptuously,--"Ah, poor thing! there's a sign that she
has seen better days."
And better days, in one sense, Mrs. Vavasour has seen. I am afraid,
indeed, that she has more than once regretted the morning when she ran
away in a hack-cab from her brother Lord Scoutbush's house in Eaton
Square, to be married to Elsley Vavasour, the gifted author of "A
Soul's Agonies and other Poems." He was a lion then, with foolish
women running after him, and turning his head once and for all; and
Lucia St. Just was a wild Irish girl, new to London society, all
feeling and romance, and literally all; for there was little real
intellect underlying her passionate sensibility.
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