"Nor ever can, if she treats him as you do, Miss Torrington," answered Fanny, colouring. "I believe Mr. Edward Wallace was an especial favourite of yours, my dear; and that perhaps may in some degree account for your prejudice against our good Mr. Cartwright.--Confess, Rosalind;--is it not so?" "He was indeed an especial favourite with me!" replied Rosalind gravely; "and for the love I bear you all, and more particularly for your sake, Fanny, and your poor mother's, I would give much--much--much, that he were in the place which Mr. Cartwright holds." "But if mamma is in want of a man to transact her business, why does she not write to Charles and desire him to return?" said Helen. "The taking his degree a few months later would be of little consequence." "Charles?" said Fanny with a smile that seemed to mean a great deal.--"Charles is one of the most amiable beings in the world, but the most incapable of undertaking the management of business." "How can you know any thing about it, Fanny?" said Helen, looking at her with surprise. "I heard Mr. Cartwright say to mamma, that Charles was quite a boy, though a very charming one." Helen looked vexed, and Rosalind fixed her eyes upon Fanny as if wishing she would say more. "In short," continued Fanny, "if Sir Gilbert chooses to cut us, I don't see what mamma _can_ do so proper and so right as to make a friend of the clergyman of the parish." Her two companions answered not a word, and the conversation was brought to a close by Fanny's drawing from her pocket, her bag, and her bosom, sundry scraps of paper, on which many lines of unequal length were scrawled; and on these she appeared inclined to her fix whole attention. This was always considered by Helen and Rosalind as a signal for departure: for then Fanny was in a poetic mood; a word spoken or a movement made by those around her produced symptoms of impatience and suffering which they did not like to witness. Their absence was indeed a relief: for pretty Fanny, during the few moments of conversation which she had enjoyed at the gate of the shrubbery in the morning, had promised Mr. Cartwright to compose a hymn. To perform this promise to the best of her power was at this moment the first wish of her heart: for the amiable vicar had already contrived to see some of those numerous offerings to Apollo with which this fairest and freshest of Sapphos beguiled her too abundant leisure. He had pronounced her poetic powers great, and worthy of higher themes than any she had hitherto chosen: if was most natural, therefore, that she should now tax her genius to the utmost, to prove that his first judgment had not been too favourable: so the remainder of that long day passed in melancholy enough _tête-à-tête_ between Rosalind and Helen, and in finding rhymes for all the epithets of heaven on the part of Fanny. CHAPTER XII. MR. CARTWRIGHT'S LETTER TO HIS COUSIN.--COLONEL HARRINGTON.