Page:Ethel Churchill 1.pdf/44

38 careless wandering at their house, it seemed the most natural and fitting thing that he should fall in love with Ethel. It seemed, too, not less natural nor less fitting, that she should fall in love with Norbourne: though not a little disheartened, at starting, by the absolute want of difficulties and adventures, with which she afterwards discovered that it was actually possible to dispense. Mrs. Churchill saw nothing of what was going on—she had her own views for Ethel, whom she considered too much a child to have any of her own; and she was only pleased to have her house so cheerful. Family and fortune were on both sides equal; and they might enjoy, so it seemed, as long as they could contrive it, a courtship's charming uncertainty, without a solitary obstacle to render it uncertain. Lavinia, her companion, was likewise handsome; or, perhaps, rather what is called a fine looking girl: and had in her figure and demeanour, as well as in the arrangement of her simple toilet, that which bespoke the coquette of nature's own making; and nature does as much in that way as society. Neglectful of her fine voice, she