"Bless her! bless this lovely and beloved one!" were the words which preceded the opening of the door, accompanied by the sobbings of vehement emotion.--"Bless all this worthy family, and all sorts and conditions of men; and so lead them home" ... &c. were those which followed,--uttered, too, with very decent sobriety and discretion.
Rosalind, however, was not quite deceived by this, though far from guessing how perfectly indecent and profane had been the impassioned language and vehement emotion which preceded her appearance.
After the hesitation of a moment, she closed the door, and walking up to the side of Fanny, stood beside her for the minute and a half which it took Mr. Cartwright to bring his harangue to a conclusion. He then ceased, rose from his knees, and bowed to the intruder with an air so meek and sanctified, but yet with such a downcast avoidance of her eye withal, that Rosalind shrank from him with ill-concealed dislike, and would instantly have left the room, but that she did not choose again to leave Fanny, who still continued kneeling beside her, to a repetition of the scene she had interrupted.
"Fanny!" she said, in an accent a little approaching to impatience.
But Fanny heeded her not. Vexed and disgusted at this display of a devotion so unlike the genuine, unaffected, well-regulated piety in which she had been herself brought up, she repeated her call,--adding, as she laid her hand lightly on her shoulder,
"This is not the sort of worship which your excellent father, or good Mr. Wallace either, would have approved."
Fanny now rose from her knees, and the cause of her not doing so before became evident. Her face was as pale as ashes, and traces of violent weeping were visible on her swollen eyelids.
"Good Heaven, Fanny! what can have affected you thus?--What, sir, have you been saying to produce so terrible an effect on Miss Mowbray? The prayers of the church, in the discipline of which she has been most carefully bred up, produce no such paroxysms as these, Mr. Cartwright.--Come with me, Fanny, and do endeavour to conquer this extraordinary vehemence of emotion."
Fanny took her arm; but she trembled so violently that she could scarcely stand.
"Mr. Cartwright," said Rosalind with a burst of indignation that she could not control, "I must beg of you not to repeat this species of experiment on the feelings of this young lady during the absence of her mother. At her return she will of course decide upon your continuance, or discontinuance, in the office you have been pleased to assume; but, till then, I must beg, in her name, that we may have no more of this."