Chapter 13

The following day brought a large party of the military _elegants_ to the
Hall, in acceptance of the baronet's hospitable invitation to dinner. Lady
Moseley was delighted; so long as her husband's or her children's interest
had demanded a sacrifice of her love of society it had been made without a
sigh, almost without a thought. The ties of affinity in her were sacred;
and to the happiness, the comfort of those in which she felt an interest,
there were few sacrifices of her own propensities she would not cheerfully
have made: it was this very love of her offspring that made her anxious to
dispose of her daughters in wedlock. Her own marriage had been so happy,
that she naturally concluded it the state most likely to ensure the
happiness of her children; and with Lady Moseley, as with thousands of
others, who averse or unequal to the labors of investigation, jump to
conclusions over the long line of connecting reasons, marriage was
marriage, a husband was a husband. It is true there were certain
indispensables, without which the formation of a connexion was a thing she
considered not within the bounds of nature. There must be fitness in
fortune, in condition, in education, and manners; there must be no glaring
evil, although she did not ask for positive good. A professor of religion
herself, had any one told her it was a duty of her calling to guard
against a connexion with any but a Christian for her girls, she would have
wondered at the ignorance that would embarrass the married state, with
feelings exclusively belonging to the individual. Had any one told her it
were possible to give her child to any but a gentleman, she would have
wondered at the want of feeling that could devote the softness of Jane or
Emily, to the association with rudeness or vulgarity. It was the
misfortune of Lady Moseley to limit her views of marriage to the scene of
this life, forgetful that every union gives existence to a long line of
immortal beings, whose future welfare depends greatly on the force of
early examples, or the strength of early impressions.

The necessity for restriction in their expenditures had ceased, and the
baronet and his wife greatly enjoyed the first opportunity their secluded
situation had given them, to draw around their board their
fellow-creatures of their own stamp. In the former, it was pure
philanthropy; the same feeling urged him to seek out and relieve distress
in humble life; while in the latter it was love of station and seemliness.
It was becoming the owner of Moseley Hall, and it was what the daughters
of the Benfield family had done since the conquest.

"I am extremely sorry," said the good baronet at dinner, "Mr. Denbigh
declined our invitation to-day; I hope he will yet ride over