Page:Romance & Reality 1.pdf/18

12 found herself talking, smiling, and singing her very best: not that Mr. Delawarr was, generally speaking, at all like the knights of old, voués aux dames. Married metaphorically to his place in the ministry, and actually to the daughter of Lord Etheringhame; too worldly to be interested, too busy to be amused; young ladies were very much to him what inhabitants in a borough without votes are—non-entities in creation. But sentiment, like salt, is so universal an ingredient in our composition, that even Mr. Delawarr, years and years ago, had looked at a rainbow to dream of a cheek, had gathered violets with the dew on them, and thought them less bright than the eyes to which they were offerings, had rhymed to one beloved name, and had felt one fair cousin to be the fairest of created things. That cousin was Emily's mother, and her great likeness to her called up a host of early fancies and feelings, over which he scarcely knew whether to sigh or smile. He might smile to think how the lover had wasted his time, and yet sigh to think how pleasantly it had been wasted. But Mr. Delawarr knew well