Page:Romance & Reality 2.pdf/246

244 Now, I do call the giving up a good dinner, week after week, an act of very romantic affection. This, however, is digressing; and we return to our party. Mr. Morland was pointing Emily's attention to two portraits—one of his nephew, a Mr. Cecil Spenser, the other of his daughter. "I expect you, Miss Arundel," said he, "to take a great interest in my family penates. You have my full consent to fall in love with my nephew, if you will admire my daughter." "To tell you the truth, I like her most," replied Emily; "I do so very much prefer portraits of my own sex. We really look best in pictures." "That is because an artificial state is natural to you; but do you like them? Young M'Clise is such a favourite artist of mine." "I never saw," said Lorraine, "anything so like as this is to Cecil Spenser: it has caught him just as he used to sit in the club window, as if it had been the Castle of Indolence. We called him le beau fainéant." "Cecil's indolence is the result of circumstance, not nature; so I have hopes of him. All he wants is motive. I wish, on the continent, where he now is, he may have an unhappy attachment, or be taken prisoner by the