During the summer weeks he had thus vouchsafed to the turfs and groves
of Exmundham, Leopold Travers was not the only person whose good
opinion Chillingly Gordon had ingratiated. He had won the warmest
approbation from Mrs. Campion. His conversation reminded her of that
which she had enjoyed in the house of her departed spouse. In talking
with Cecilia she was fond of contrasting him to Kenelm, not to the
favour of the latter, whose humours she utterly failed to understand,
and whom she pertinaciously described as "so affected." "A most
superior young man Mr. Gordon, so well informed, so sensible,--above
all, so natural." Such was her judgment upon the unavowed candidate
to Cecilia's hand; and Mrs. Campion required no avowal to divine the
candidature. Even Lady Glenalvon had begun to take friendly interest
in the fortunes of this promising young man. Most women can
sympathize with youthful ambition. He impressed her with a deep
conviction of his abilities, and still more with respect for their
concentration upon practical objects of power and renown. She too,
like Mrs. Campion, began to draw comparisons unfavourable to Kenelm
between the two cousins: the one seemed so slothfully determined to
hide his candle under a bushel, the other so honestly disposed to set
his light before men. She felt also annoyed and angry that Kenelm was
thus absenting himself from the paternal home at the very time of her
first visit to it, and when he had so felicitous an opportunity of
seeing more of the girl in whom he knew that Lady Glenalvon deemed he
might win, if he would properly woo, the wife that would best suit
him. So that when one day Mrs. Campion, walking through the gardens
alone with Lady Glenalvon while from the gardens into the park went
Chillingly Gordon, arm-in-arm with Leopold Travers, abruptly asked,
"Don't you think that Mr. Gordon is smitten with Cecilia, though he,
with his moderate fortune, does not dare to say so? And don't you