The following day Mrs. Downe Wright arrived with her son, evidently
primed for falling in love at first sight. He was a very handsome young
man, gentle, and rather pleasing in his manners; and Mary, to whom his
intentions were not so palpable, thought him by no means deserving of
the contempt her cousin had expressed for him.
"Well!" cried Lady Emily, after they were gone, "the plot begins to
thicken; lovers begin to pour in, but all for Mary; how mortifying to
you and me, Adelaide! At this rate we shall have nothing to boast of in
the way of disinterested attachment nobody refused!--nothing renounced!
By-and-bye Edward will be reckoned a very good match for _me,_and _you_
will be thought greatly married if you succeed in securing
Lindore--_poor_ Lord Lindore, as it seems that wretch Placid calls him."
Adelaide heard all her cousin's taunts in silence and with apparent
coolness; but they rankled deep in a heart already festering with pride,
envy, and ambition. The thoughts of her sister--and that sister so
inferior to herself--attaining a more splendid alliance, was not to be
endured. True, she loved Lord Lindore, and imagined herself beloved in
return; but even that was not sufficient to satisfy the craving passions
of a perverted mind. She did not, indeed, attach implicit belief to all
that her cousin said on the subject; but she was provoked and irritated
at the mere supposition of such a thing being possible; for it is not
merely the jealous whose happiness is the sport of trifles light as
air--every evil thought, every unamiable feeling, bears about with it
the bane of that enjoyment after which it vainly aspires.
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