Page:Precaution; a novel by Cooper, James Fenimore.djvu/73

Rh answers as flattered her wishes; but the military duties of the earl, or his private affairs, had never allowed a meeting; and she was now compelled to look forward to what John laughingly termed their winter campaign, as the only probable place where she could be gratified with the sight of a young man to whom she owed so much, and whose name was connected with some of the most tender, though most melancholy, recollections of her life.

Colonel Egerton, who now appeared to be almost domesticated in the family, was again of the party at dinner, to the no small satisfaction of the dowager, who, from proper inquiries in the course of the day, had learned that Sir Edgar's heir was likely to have the necessary number of figures in the sum total of his rental. While sitting in the drawing-room that afternoon she made an attempt to bring her eldest daughter and the elegant soldier together over a chess-board; a game the young lady had been required to learn, because it was one at which a gentleman could be kept longer than any other without having his attention drawn away by any of those straggling charms which might be travelling a drawing-room "seeking whom they may devour." It was also a game admirably suited to the display of a beautiful hand and arm. But the mother had for a long time been puzzled to discover a way of bringing in the foot also, the young lady being particularly remarkable for the beauty of that portion of the frame. In vain her daughter hinted at dancing, an amusement of which she was passionately fond. The wary mother knew too well the effects of concentrated force to listen to the suggestion: dancing might do for every manager, but she prided herself in acting en masse, like Napoleon, whose tactics consisted in overwhelming by uniting his forces on a given point. After many experiments in her own person she endeavored to improve Catherine's manner of sitting, and by dint of twisting and turning she contrived that her pretty foot and ankle should be thrown forward in a way that the eye dropping from the move, should unavoidably rest on this beauteous object; giving, as it were, a Scylla and Charybdis to her daughter's charms.