Chapter II: Rose to Fanny Worsley

News, my dearest Fanny--news is an article as rare with us as with the morning papers. We see nobody, hear nothing, do nothing, but amuse ourselves as we best can, and that is not adapted to a letter, it would require such endless explanations.

In answer to your first question, Yes; Julius is here, or rather, he is with his mother at the Grange, and very frequently walks over. As to his being my slave, don't think it! He is evidently not indifferent to me, but as evidently not in love. The vainest of our sex (are we so vain?) in my place could not imagine him in love. I'm rather glad of it, for I certainly _don't_ love _him_, and should be sorry to lose a _friend_.

But let me tell you of another new acquaintance in the _jeune premier_ line,--a Mr. Cecil Chamberlayne, whom papa has invited here for a week. He is handsome, witty, good-natured, and clever--all very excellent qualities; but there is a levity about him which somewhat disturbs my liking for him. I could never fancy myself sentimental with him for a moment. His gaiety makes me laugh, but does not, somehow, make me gay. Everybody sides against me here, except Captain Heath, who says he feels as I do in that respect. They all swear by Mr. Chamberlayne; but, to my taste, Julius St. John's gaiety is far more exhilarating, perhaps because it is tempered with a manly seriousness; you feel that his laugh is as _hearty_ (in the real primitive sense of the word) as his earnestness is sincere.

Violet is to be home at the end of this week. Papa has written for her, as mama says that she is only being spoiled at my uncle's. The real secret is, I believe, that mama has heard how Violet speaks of her down in Worcestershire, and that the character there given of her comes up to London. Now, though Violet is, I believe, unjust to mama, yet people are only too willing, as mama says, to believe everything ill of a stepmother. I fear Violet won't be comfortable. Suppose Julius St. John should fall in love with her? It would be a capital match. They would suit so well: I should like it above all things.

I am reading Leopardi's poems; they are very beautiful, and very mournful. Julius St. John says that they are the finest productions of modern Italy. By the way, though you will accuse me of filling my letter with Julius, I must tell you of something that occurred _àpropos_ of Leopardi:--the first evening I met him--it was at Dr. Whiston's, and I wrote you a long account of it--he spoke to me of Leopardi, whom I had not heard so highly praised before. Papa had brought a copy with him from Italy, and I had looked into it from curiosity, but finding it difficult to read, my Italian being somewhat flimsy, I took no further trouble with it, till Julius spoke so enthusiastically about him. I then set doggedly to work, and mastered the poems; having done so, I read them over again with great pleasure, and am now a sworn admirer of this strange unhappy being.

Well, one evening, shortly after we had come down here, Julius took up my copy of Leopardi, which happened to be lying on the table. It was pencilled all over. He asked whose marks those were. I told him mine. "You seem to have been a careful reader," he said. "Your praises," I replied, "taught me to be."

He looked up for a moment, to read in one full, rapid gaze, the expression of my countenance, and then dropped his eyes once more upon the book, but not before I had noticed that his cheek was flushed. Whether in anger or in pleasure I know not, for his eyes are so shadowed by his dark, straight eyebrows, which meet across the nose, that it is only in certain aspects you can read what is passing in them. What there could be in my reply either to anger or to please him, I cannot guess; but he changed the subject, and I could not interrogate him, as mama came up at that moment, nor have I dared since. All I can say is, that if he was angry he had quite forgotten it; and if he was pleased he is perfectly ungrateful.

This little incident is all I have to relate. Imagine what our life must be when that is an incident; and yet, as Julius says, "it is not events but emotions which make life important; and events are only prized inasmuch as they excite emotions."

Your affectionate friend,
ROSE VYNER.

_P.S._--Now, don't you _misinterpret_ a fact which strikes me in reading this letter over, namely, that one name occurs very frequently. It is purely owing to the want of any subject to write about. Don't imagine it otherwise.