Page:The Semi-attached Couple.djvu/43

 "How disappointing!" whispered Sarah to Eliza; "I wanted to see them together."

Helen always sat on one side of her father, whatever guests there might be; and Amelia observed with pain the earnestness with which she tried to induce Mr. Douglas to take the chair next to her on the other side; but he laughed and left her, telling her he preferred going of his own accord to being sent away. Lord Teviot came in just as the soup and fish were taken away. He took his accustomed place, but without looking at Helen, and not till the second course came did any conversation pass between them, and then it seemed to be short and constrained; but she talked to her father in apparently good spirits. Sarah and Eliza looked at each other, and wondered whether that would be the right manner to adopt under similar circumstances. The ladies rose to retire. Helen had dropped her bracelet. Lord Teviot stooped for it, but with an air of such unwillingness that Helen said, "Pray do not give yourself so much trouble, I will send for it presently."

"As you please," he answered coldly, and stepped back to let her pass.

"Stay, Nell," said Trevor, "I will find it; Amelia has brought me into excellent training. I am quite in the habit of groping about under the table for all the things she drops. I am much more pliable than Teviot."

"That you are," said Helen; "thank you, dear Alfred"; and without another look at Lord Teviot she passed on. Amelia did not at all like the aspect of affairs, but consoled herself with the hope that it was a mere lovers' quarrel, and would end in a burst of sentiment; and in the meantime she was glad to divert Mrs. Douglas's attention by showing her Helen's trousseau. It was indeed "showing her eyes to grieve her heart"; but if her saturnine dispositions could exhaust themselves on the senseless gowns and the poor dumb trinkets, it would be better than