The new delight of this fresh project, with the prospect of bringing to a happy termination her negotiation with Sir John Hunter, sustained Mrs. Beaumont’s spirits in the midst of the disappointments she experienced respecting the marriages of her son and daughter; and enabled her, with less effort of dissimulation, to take apparently a share in the general joy which now pervaded her family. Her son expressed his felicity with unbounded rapture, when he found his proposal to Miss Walsingham graciously received by the object of his affections, and by all her family: his gratitude to his mother for no longer opposing his wishes gave a tenderness to his manner which would have touched any heart but that of a politician. Amelia, also, even in the midst of her love for Captain Walsingham, was anxiously intent upon showing dutiful attention to her mother, and upon making her some amends for the pain she had caused her of late. Whenever the brother and sister were together, in all their views of future happiness their mother was one of their principal objects; and these dispositions both Miss Walsingham and Captain Walsingham were earnest to confirm. No young people could have higher ideas than they had of the duty of children towards parents, and of the delight of family confidence and union. In former times, when Mr. Beaumont had been somewhat to blame in the roughness of his sincerity towards his mother, and when he had been disposed to break from her artful restraints, Captain Walsingham, by his conversation, and by his letters, had always used his power and influence to keep him within bounds; and whenever he could do so with truth, to raise Mrs. Beaumont in his opinion. She now appeared in a more advantageous light to her family, and they were more disposed to believe in her sincerity than they had ever been since the credulous days of childhood. The days of love and childhood are perhaps, in good minds, almost equally credulous, or, at least, confiding. Even Mr. Walsingham was won over by the pleasure he felt in the prospect of his daughter’s happiness; and good Mr. Palmer was ten times more attentive than ever to Madam Beaumont. In his attention, however, there was something more ceremonious than formerly; it was evident, for he was too honest to conceal his feelings, that his opinion of her was changed, and that his attention was paid to her rather as the widow of his old friend than on her own account. Amelia, who particularly remarked this change, and who feared that it must be severely painful to her mother, tried by every honest art of kindness to reinstate her in his regard. Amelia, however, succeeded only in raising herself in his esteem. “Do not disturb yourself, my dear young lady,” said he to her, one day, “about your mother and me. Things are on their right footing between us, and can never be on any other. She, you see, is quite satisfied.”