Chapter IV: Prophecies Fulfilled

"What makes you so serious to-day, Mrs. St. John?" said Violet, about a week afterwards.

"I am getting anxious about my protégé. It was my Julius who introduced her to the notice of Sir Chetsom Chetsom; and I fear no good will come of it."

"Are you, then, of the Walton party?" asked Violet. "And do you lend an ear to all the scandal of that miserable place? Consider Sir Chetsom's age."

"Yes," said Rose; "but consider also his pretensions. We knew Sir Chetsom is old; but he wants to be thought young."

"I assure you," said Mrs. St. John, "it makes me very uneasy. Julius has already taken the liberty of speaking to him on the subject, as strongly as he could; but Sir Chetsom only laughed at what he called virtuous scruples. My only hope is, that Hester looks upon their difference of age and station as a sufficient warrant for an intimacy which she would not otherwise allow. And yet I fear it is not so. I hope I may wrong her. I do not wish to think uncharitably; but from what I have observed of late, I think she is ambitious and unscrupulous."

"We must remember," said Violet, "that her very opinions on the emancipation of woman would lead her to adopt a freedom of manner, which, though it might be very innocent, would be so unlike the conduct of well-educated girls, that we, judging her by the ordinary rules, should be guilty of great injustice."

Mrs. St. John shook her head.

"Mrs. St. John demurs," said Rose.

"I do, indeed. I look with suspicion on those opinions. When I see a woman disdaining the ordinary notions of society, I expect to see her follow out her own opinions, and disdain the ordinary practices of society."

Meredith Vyner joined them.

"We are discussing the old subject, Hester Mason," said Mrs. St. John.

"And giving her all the virtues under the sun, poetry included," said Vyner. "Well, you have chosen a good subject. We don't often meet with such a paragon. Where, indeed, in this prosaic place should we look for such another

Cui Pudor, et Justitiæ soro
Incorrupta Fides, nudaque Veritas,
Quando ullum inveniet parem?

"By the irony of your tone," said Mrs. St. John, "I suspect you have heard something new about her."

"No, nothing new; at least nothing unexpected."

"What is it? Pray, let us hear it."

"The most natural thing in the world she last night went off with Sir Chetsom Chetsom. _Interdum deliramus senes_, as Plautus saith."

This information was received in silence. Mrs. St. John coloured deeply, and then turned pale. She was greatly hurt, because she considered herself in some measure the cause of this misfortune, by having first brought Hester into notice, and then having introduced her to Sir Chetsom.

It was too true. Hester had gone off; and Sir Chetsom had taken good care that it should not be a secret.

It would need a more graphic brush than mine to paint the tumult of scandalized virtue in Walton at this outrage upon public morals. To paint the swelling indignation of Mrs. Ruddles, the vehemence of offended purity in Mrs. Spedley, the uplifted hands and eyes of the mute but expressive post-mistress, the sarcasms of Stone, the brutal jests of Spedley, the moral declamation of the Rev. Richard Ruddles, the sneers, the epithets of abuse, the prophecies of what "her end would be," the homilies on infidelity, poetry, and "new-fangled notions," and the constantly-reiterated but never-too-old reflections which each and all made upon their own sagacity in having "all along foreseen it."

The howl of Walton reached not Hester's ears; and if it had, it would only have sounded like the shouts of triumph in an ovation.