Page:Shirley (1849 Volume 1).djvu/198

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
186
SHIRLEY.

millowner a third tumbler, but the clergyman, who never transgressed, nor would suffer others in his presence to transgress the bounds of decorum, checked him.

“Enough is as good as a feast, is it not, Mr. Sykes?” he said, and Mr. Sykes assented; and then sat and watched Joe Scott remove the bottle at a sign from Helstone, with a self-satisfied simper on his lips, and a regretful glisten in his eye. Moore looked as if he should have liked to fool him to the top of his bent. What would a certain young kinswoman of his have said, could he have seen her dear, good, great Robert—her Coriolanus—just now? Would she have acknowledged in that mischievous sardonic visage the same face to which she had looked up with such love, which had bent over her with such gentleness last night? Was that the man who had spent so quiet an evening with his sister and his cousin—so suave to one, so tender to the other—reading Shakspeare and listening to Chénier?

Yes, it was the same man, only seen on a different side; a side Caroline had not yet fairly beheld, though perhaps she had enough sagacity faintly to suspect its existence. Well, Caroline had, doubtless, her defective side too: she was human, she must then have been very imperfect, and had she seen Moore on his very worst side, she would pro-