Mr. Mordaunt, finding it impossible to persuade Sir Henry Seymour's
veteran coachman to resign his office of charioteer, or even willingly
to admit a partner on his throne, was obliged to solace himself with
Mrs. Galton's conversation, till they entered the park of Deane. At
last, as the carriage turned up the long dark avenue which led to the
magnificent though antique mansion, his delighted eye beheld Selina, as
she supported her father, whilst "with measured step and slow" he walked
up and down the broad smooth terrace, which stretched along the south
front of the house, and commanded all the beauties of the rich vale
below. Her fragile form and firm yet elastic step were contrasted with
Sir Henry's tottering feeble gait. But though her sparkling eyes gave a
joyous welcome, even from a distance, to Mrs. Galton and Augustus, yet,
with the fond solicitude of filial love, she restrained her father's
hastening steps, till Augustus relieved her from her charge; then light
as a zephyr which scarcely bends the flower over which it passes, she
flew to Mrs. Galton, and had already seen, if not examined, all her
purchases, recapitulated her various occupations during her three hours'
absence, and made Mrs. Galton repeat twice over all the particulars she
could recollect, of "dear Mrs. Temple," and Miss Wildenheim, before
Augustus had conducted Sir Henry to the hall door, or replied to more
than half his inquiries about "poor Brown's lease, and the arrangements
that were made for his wife and children."
Selina Seymour was nearly seventeen; her person
"Fair as the forms that, wove in fancy's loom,
Float in light vision round the poet's head;"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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