I am sure. The general is an invalid, you know, and these matters are important to his health."
And so saying, she glided away, leaving Lettice almost too much astonished to be delighted with all this consideration and kindness – things to which she had been little accustomed. But the impression she received, upon the whole, was very sweet. The face and manner of Mrs. Melwyn were so excessively soft; her very dress, the color of her hair, her step, her voice; every thing spoke so much gentleness. Lettice thought her the loveliest being she had ever met with. More charming even than Catherine – more attaching even than Mrs. Danvers. She felt very much inclined to adore her.
She was but a very few hours longer in the house before pity added to this rising feeling of attachment; and I believe there is nothing attachés the inferior to the superior like pity.
Dressed in one of her best new dresses, and with her hair done up as neatly as she possibly could in that hurry, Lettice made her way to the dining-room.
It was a large, lofty, very handsome, and rather awfully resounding room, with old family pictures upon every side. There was a sideboard set out sparkling with glass and plate; a small table in the middle of the apartment with silver covers and dishes shining in the light of four wax candles; a blazing fire, a splendid Indian screen before the door; two footmen in liveries of pink and white, and a gentleman in a black suit, waiting. The general and Mrs. Melwyn were seated opposite to each other at table.
The soup had been already discussed, and the first course was set upon the table when Miss Arnold entered.
Had she been a young lady born, an obsequious footman would have been ready to attend her to her seat, and present her with a chair: as it was, she would have been spared this piece of etiquette, and she was making her way to her chair without missing the attention, when the general, who observed his saucy footmen standing lounging about, without offering to move forward, frowned in what Lettice thought a most alarming way, and said in a stern voice, and significant manner, "What are you about?" to the two footmen. This piece of attention was bestowed upon her to her surprise and to Mrs. Melwyn's great satisfaction.
"We thought you would excuse us. The soup has been set aside for you," said the lady of the house.
"Oh, thank you, ma'am, pray don't trouble yourself."
"Give Miss Arnold soup."
Again in a stern, authoritative voice from the General. Mrs. Melwyn was used to the sternness, and most agreeably surprised at the politeness, and quite grateful for it. Lettice thought the voice and look too terrible to take pleasure in any thing connected with it.
She had no need to feel gratitude either – it was not done out of consideration for her. The general, who, with the exception of Randall, kept, as far as he was concerned, every servant in the utmost subservience, did not choose that any one who had the honor of a seat at his table should be neglected by those "rascals," as he usually styled his footmen.
It being the first evening, Mrs. Melwyn had too much politeness to require Miss Arnold to enter upon those after-dinner duties, the performance of which had been expressly stipulated for by Catherine; stipulated for, not only with Lettice, but with the general himself. She has made her father promise that he would suffer this young lady to undertake the place of reader – which Catherine had herself filled for some time, to the inexpressible relief of her mother – and that Miss Arnold should be permitted to try whether she could play well enough at backgammon to make an adversary worth vanquishing.
He had grumbled and objected, as a matter of course, to this arrangement, but had finally consented. However, he was not particularly impatient to begin; and besides, he was habitually a well-bred man, so that any duty which came under his category of good manners he punctually performed. People are too apt to misprize this sort of politeness of mere habit; yet, as far as it goes, it is an excellent thing. It enhances the value of a really kind temper in all the domestic relations, to an incalculable degree – a degree little appreciated by some worthy people, who think roughness a proof of sincerity, and that rudeness marks the honest truth of their affections. And where there is little kindness of nature, and a great deal of selfishness and ill-tempered indulgence, as in this cross, old man before us, still the habit of politeness was not without avail; it kept him in a certain check, and certainly rendered him more tolerable. He was not quite such a brute bear as he would have been, left to his uncorrected nature.
Politeness is, and ought to be, a habit so confirmed, that we exercise it instinctively – without consideration, without attention, without effort, as it were; this is the very essence of the sort of politeness I am thinking of. It takes it out of the category of the virtues, it is true, but it places it in that of the qualities; and, in some matters, good qualities are almost as valuable, almost more valuable, than if they still continued among the virtues – and this of politeness, in my opinion, is one.
By virtues, I mean acts which are performed with a certain difficulty, under the sense of responsibility to duty, under the self-discipline of right principle; by qualities, I mean what is spontaneous. Constitutional good qualities are spontaneous. Such as natural sweetness of temper – natural delicacy of feeling – natural intrepidity; others are the result of habit, and end by being spontaneous – by being a second nature: justly are habits called so. Gentleness of tone and manner – attention to conventional proprieties – to people's little wants and feelings – are of these. This same politeness being a sort of summary of such, I will end this little didactic digression by advising all those who have the rearing of the young in their hands, carefully to form them in matters of this description, so that they shall attain habits– so that the delicacy of their perceptions, the gentleness of their tones and gestures, the propriety of their dress, the politeness of their manners, shall become spontaneous acts, done without reference to self, as things of course. By which means, not only much that is disagreeable to their is avoided, and much that is amiable attained, but a great deal of reference to self is in after life escaped; and temptations to the faults of vanity – pride – envious comparisons with our neighbors, and the feebleness of self-distrust very considerably diminished.
And so, to return, the politeness of the general and Mrs. Melwyn led to this result, the leaving Miss Arnold undisturbed to make her reflections and her observations, before commencing the task which Mrs. Melwyn, for the last time, undertook for her, of reading the newspaper and playing the hit.
Lettice could not help feeling rejoiced to be spared this sort of public exhibition of her powers, till she was in a slight degree better acquainted with her ground; and she was glad to know, without being directly told, what it was customary to do in these respects. But in every other point of view, she had better, perhaps, have been reader than listener. For, if she gained a lesson as to the routine to be followed, she paid for it by receiving at the same time, a considerably alarming impression of the general's ways of proceeding.
"Shall I read the newspaper this evening?" began Mrs. Melwyn, timidly.
"I don't care if you do," roughly.
Polite men, be it observed, en passant, do not at all make it a rule to exercise that habit to their wives. The wife is a thing apart from the rest of the world, out of the category of such proprieties. To be rude to his wife is no impeachment of a man's gentleman-like manners at all.
"Is there any thing worth reading in it?"
"I am sure I don't know what you will think worth reading. Shall I begin with the leading article?"
"What is it all about?"
"I am sure I can't say."
"Can't you look?"
"The sugar question, I think."
"Well, what
