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Margaret Capel, vol. 1
Margaret Capel: A Novel, vol. 1 of 3
"One of the best kind of fashionable novels, not only free from the vulgar impertinences of the 'silver-fork school,' but has the tone of good society, and better still, a vein of pure and healthful sentiment. The grave incidents of the story are treated with good taste and genuine pathos, but enlivened by very amusing scenes, in which the ridiculous and vicious peculiarities of character, so often met with in real life, are cleverly hit off with a pencil which emulates the witty drollery of caricature without its coarseness."
—Spectator.
"A very superior work. Without the coarseness of Mrs. Trollope's writings, it has all her vigour and rapidity of narrative, with touches of ideal grace and beauty, and a perception of the elevating impulses of the heart to which that lady seems utterly a stranger. It might almost be called a dramatic novel, for the characters and story are developed in a series of animated conversations which are sustained with remarkable power, distinctness, and variety. The descriptive portions of the work are written with much elegance."
—John Bull.
CHAPTER I
And he had ever on his lip some word of mockery.
MAISTRE WACE.
Therefore whenever that thou dost behold
A comely corse with beauty fair endewed,
Know this for certain, that the same doth hold
A beauteous soul, with fair conditions thewed;
Fit to receive the seed of vertue strewed,
For all that fair is, is by nature good;
That is a sign to know the gentle blood.SPENSER.
"Left guardian to her, are you?" said Mr. Casement, looking with an expression of much satisfaction at his friend Mr. Grey.
"I told you so three months ago," returned Mr. Grey, in a tone of voice that betrayed his vexation.
"I have been very busy for these three months, and forgot all about it," said Mr. Casement.
"I thought you never were busy, Casement," remarked Mr. Grey.
"One of your mistakes," returned Mr. Casement, as if Mr. Grey's mistakes were a synonyme for the dullest of all possible blunders. "Why, you seem to have the luck of it; you are always being made guardian, or executor, or what not."
"I know I am," said Mr. Grey, looking more and more cold, and vexed, and peevish; and rubbing his knee with great perseverance, as he drew closer to the fire; "but never before to a girl."
"What has become of the two young Trevors?"
"One of them drowned near Ilfracombe the summer before last—the other in India."
"Can't you marry her to one of them?"