/* THE EXCLUSIVES. VOL. II. */ /* THE EXCLUSIVES. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. II. SECOND EDITION. LONDON: HENRY COLBURN AND RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 1830. */ /* LONDON: Printed by J. L. Cox, Great Queen Street, Lincoln's-Inn Fields. */ THE EXCLUSIVES. CHAPTER I. THE CLOSING SCENE AT RESTORMEL. On the evening previous to Lord Albert's departure, while Mr. Foley and Lady Hamlet Vernon were intently engaged in playing at chess, Lord Albert announced to Lady Ellersby his intention of leaving Restormel, and paid her the usual compliment of thanks for the honour she had done him in inviting him there. "You have lost your queen," cried Mr. Foley, addressing Lady Hamlet Vernon, "now in two moves I will give you checkmate, lady fair. But see--what is the matter?--she is ill--she faints--lend assistance for heaven's sake!" Lord Albert flew towards the spot, and caught Lady Hamlet as she was falling to the ground. The usual remedies were applied; and when sufficiently recovered, the sufferer was carried to her room, apparently still unable to speak. "I hate all scene-makers," said Lady Boileau; "if there is a thing I cannot bear, it is the getting up of a sentimental catastrophe.--Don't you, Mr. Leslie Winyard?--Don't you think it is the acmé of bad taste?" "Oh! most undoubtedly; nothing argues a decided _roturièrism_ more than allowing your feelings, if _real_, to get the better of you in public; and if feigned, nothing is so easily seen through as counterfeiting them, therefore, either way, it is at best a _mistake_." "One don't look well when one faints--that is to say, _really_ faints," observed Lady Ellersby; "it is surely best to avoid doing so." "One may always command one's-self," observed Lady Baskerville. "Oh!" said Lady Tilney, who now and then really thought and felt right, "it is very easy to distinguish between a _feint_ and a _faint_; and I believe every body would ridicule the first, and nobody would like to do the latter; because, as Lady Ellersby observes, no real fainting, or crying, or any of the convulsions produced by the feelings, are the least graceful, except in the _beau ideal_ of a Magdalen, or on a painter's easel; and secondly, because nothing is less likely to produce interest than these kind of physical causes; for, as some great author says, 'all physical sufferings are soon forgotten even by the sufferer, when they are past, and by our friends certainly never remembered beyond their immediate duration, if so long;' consequently I believe Lady Hamlet Vernon did faint _tout bonnement_: she had probably _une indigestion_; poor Lady!--but she will soon be well again." "Spoken like an orator," said Mr. Spencer Newcombe; "and not only an orator, but a philosopher."