Sedley was going to make one of
the most eloquent speeches possible, and had begun--"O Miss Sharp,
how--" when some song which was performed in the other room came to
an end, and caused him to hear his own voice so distinctly that he
stopped, blushed, and blew his nose in great agitation.
"Did you ever hear anything like your brother's eloquence?"
whispered Mr. Osborne to Amelia. "Why, your friend has worked
miracles."
"The more the better," said Miss Amelia; who, like almost all women
who are worth a pin, was a match-maker in her heart, and would have
been delighted that Joseph should carry back a wife to India. She
had, too, in the course of this few days' constant intercourse,
warmed into a most tender friendship for Rebecca, and discovered a
million of virtues and amiable qualities in her which she had not
perceived when they were at Chiswick together. For the affection of
young ladies is of as rapid growth as Jack's bean-stalk, and reaches
up to the sky in a night. It is no blame to them that after
marriage this Sehnsucht nach der Liebe subsides. It is what
sentimentalists, who deal in very big words, call a yearning after
the Ideal, and simply means that women are commonly not satisfied
until they have husbands and children on whom they may centre
affections, which are spent elsewhere, as it were, in small change.
Having expended her little store of songs, or having stayed long
enough in the back drawing-room, it now appeared proper to Miss
Amelia to ask her friend to sing.
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