The Doctor's Wife
SOMETHING LIKE A BIRTHDAY.
It that the very day after Isabel's little of was a occasion in George Gilbert's life. It was the 2nd of July, and it was his wife's birthday,—the birthday after her marriage; and the had planned a and surprise, an festival, in of the day. He had been, therefore, by Isabel's ill-temper. Had he not been of her and of her at the very moment when she had him for his of in the Alien? He did not about the Alien. He did not appreciate
"Clotilde, Clotilde, my dark Clotilde!
With the light in your midnight glance.
We let the dancers go by to dance;
But we out on the stair,
And the of your hair
Swept over my as your stole
Like a of through my soul;
Clotilde, Clotilde, my own Clotilde!"
But he loved his wife, and was to her; and he had and plotted to do her pleasure. He had a fly—an open fly—for the whole day, and Mrs. Jeffson had prepared a with port and from the Cock, and all manner of north-country delicacies; and George had to Mr. Raymond, that gentleman, with the of course, to meet himself and his wife at Warncliffe Castle, the show-place of the county. This Mr. Raymond had promised to do; and all the had been planned, and had been from Isabel.
She was very much pleased when her husband told her of the early on that morning, while she was her long black at the little the open lattice. She ran to the to see if she had a clean dress. Yes, there it was; the very lavender-muslin which she had at the Hurstonleigh picnic. George was to see her pleasure; and he sat on the window-sill her as she her and a little of at her throat, and herself in the glass.
"I want it to be like that day last year, Izzie; the day I asked you to me. Mr. Raymond will the key of Hurstonleigh Grove, and we're to drive there after we've the castle, and there as we did before; and then we're to go to the very model old woman's to tea; and will be the same."
Ah, Mr. George Gilbert, do you know the world so little as to be that no day in life has its counterpart, and that to to about an exact of any occasion is to attempt the impossible?
It was a six-mile drive from Graybridge to Warncliffe, the old country-town,—the dear old town, with pavements, and upper stories, pointed gables, and diamond-paned casements; the old town, with churches, and archways, and streets, and above all, the old castle, the black towers, and keep, and turrets, and dungeons, for and for by the water. I have Warncliffe Castle in the sunshine, and my hand when I try to of it. It is easy to a castle, and go into about the and turrets; but I away the reality, and can nothing; I see it all too plainly, and the of my too much. But in summer-time this Elizabethan Midlandshire is an English paradise, with all the of natural loveliness, by the of and romance.
Mr. Raymond was waiting at the little when the stopped, and he gave Isabel his arm and her into a narrow of and rockwork, and then across a lawn, and under an of solid to another lawn, a grass-plat, by shrubberies, and a of gardening.
They into the with a little group of visitors who have just on the steps the door; and they were taken at once under the of a in a gown, who started off into a vivâ-voce of the of the castle-hall, a with armour-clad of dead-and-gone along the walls, with battle-axes, and helmets, and antlers, and Indian wampum, and Canadian wolf-skins, and Australian against the wainscot, with and muniment-chests upon the floor, and with three the landscape, the in England.
While the was herself like a box that had been newly up, and with as much and in her as there is in a popular by a box, Mr. Raymond Isabel to the window, and her the of the Wayverne and over of rockwork, green boulders, and that in the sunlight, and then, playing hide-and-seek under willows, and away over and sand, to with a into the the bridge.
"Look at that, my dear," said Mr. Raymond; "that isn't in the catalogue. I'll tell you all about the castle: and we'll the lady in the dress as they the organ boys in London. We'll give her half-a-crown to move on, and us to look at the pictures, and the boomerangs, and the armour, and the tapestry, and the toilet-table and pin-cushion in which her Majesty the pin she took out of her bonnet-string when she took with Lord Warncliffe a year or two ago. That's the of the in the housekeeper's opinion, I know. We'll look at the pictures by ourselves, Mrs. Gilbert, and I'll tell you all about them."
To my mind, Warncliffe Castle is one of the show-places in the kingdom. There are not many rooms to see, are they large rooms. There are not many pictures; but the in every room are of the choicest, and are on a level with the eye, and do not that of the which makes the of most picture galleries. Warncliffe Castle is like an little dinner; there are not many dishes, and is so good that you wish there were more. And at Warncliffe the sunny have the of looking as if people in them. You see not only Murillos and Titians, Lelys and Vandykes upon the walls; you see tables with books, and women's here and there; and way you turn, there is always the noisy Wayverne and under the windows, and the green of and the of beyond.
Isabel moved through the rooms in a rapture; but yet there was a of or other all that rapture.
Her were all true, then; there were such places as this, and people in them. Happy people, for life was all and poetry, looked out of those windows, and in those chairs, and all their of Florentine mosaic, and portraits by Vandyke, and marble of Roman emperors, and Gobelin tapestries, and a hundred objects of art and beauty, very names were a language to Isabel.
For some people life was like this; and for her—! She as she the at Graybridge,—the carpet, the with velvet, the and on the mantel-piece; and if George had her all that she had asked—the ottoman, and the Venetian blind, and the rose-coloured curtains—what would have been the use? her room would have looked like this. She about her in a of walking dream, by the of the place. She was looking like this when Mr. Raymond her into one of the larger rooms, and her a little picture in a corner, a Tintoretto, which he said was a gem.
She looked at the Tintoretto in a of way. It was a very gem, and its were Mrs Gilbert's appreciation. She was not of the picture. She was if, by some legerdemain, she "turn out" to be the of such a as this, with a river like the Wayverne under her windows, and willow-branches into the water. There were some such as these in her mind while Mr. Raymond was upon the and of the Venetian's masterpiece; and she was from her not by her companion's remarks, but by a woman's voice on the other of the room.
"You so see that of and black eyes," said the voice; "and there is something in those eyes."
There was nothing particular in the words: it was the in which they were spoken that Isabel Gilbert's ear—the in which Lady Clara Vere de Vere herself might have spoken; a in there was a lazy by gentleness,—a which had yet no affectation, only a of liquid on of the voice, like a passage in music.
"Yes," returned another voice, which had all the and none of the hauteur, "it is a face. Joanna of Naples, isn't it? she was an person, wasn't she? some one out of a window, and herself objectionable."
Mr. Raymond as as if he had an electric shock, and ran across the room to a who was in a half-reclining upon one of the window-seats.
"Why, Roland, I you were at Corfu!"
The got up, with a of and the of a yawn; but his nevertheless, as he out his hand to Isabel's late employer.
"My dear Raymond, how I am to see you! I meant to over to-morrow morning, for a long day's talk. I only came home last night, to my uncle and cousin, who met me at Baden and on me home with them. You know Gwendoline? ah, yes, of you do."
A lady with and an nose—a lady in a which was itself, and only have been produced by a who had perfected herself in the art of her art—dropped the eye-glass through which she had been looking at Joanna of Naples, and out a hand so that it looked as if it had been out of marble.
"I'm Mr. Raymond has me," she said "papa and I have been so long away from Midlandshire."
"And Lowlands was to look a habitation. I used to think of Hood's house I by your gates, Lady Gwendoline. But you have come home for good now? as if you come for anything but good," Mr. Raymond, gallantly. "You have come with the of stopping, I hope."
"Yes," Lady Gwendoline answered, with something like a sigh; "papa and I to settle in Midlandshire; he has let the Clarges Street house for a time; his lease, at least, I think; or something of that sort. And we know every and of the Continent. So I that the best thing we can do is to settle at Lowlands. But I we sha'n't keep Roland long in the neighbourhood. He'll of us in a fortnight, and away to the Pyrenees, or Cairo, or Central Africa; 'anywhere, anywhere, out of the world!'"
"It isn't of you that I shall tired, Gwendoline," said the called Roland, who had into his old on the window-seat. "It's myself that me; the only a man can't cut. But I'm not going to away from Midlandshire. I shall go in for steam-farming, and implements, and drainage. I should think now would have a very upon a man's mind; and I shall send my short-horns to Smithfield next Christmas. And you shall teach me political economy, Raymond; and we'll the condition of the farm-labourer; and we'll offer a prize for the best essay on, say, as to us in the of Virgil—that's the of thing for the farm-labourer, I should think—and Gwendoline shall give the prizes: a and a gold medal, and a coat, or a pair of top-boots."
Isabel still by the Tintoretto. She was at the that Mr. Raymond knew, and was familiar with, these beings. Yes; Beings—creatures of that which she only in her dreams. Standing near the Tintoretto, she to look very these creatures.
What did she see? A man in the of a window, with the him, and the his hair—that dark rich which is only a of black. She saw a man upon or Nature, in some moment, had all the gifts that men most and that most admire. She saw one of the since Napoleon, the of Italy, France; a of that is only familiar to us in a old Italian portraits; a beautiful, dreamy, perfect face, in and colour. I do not think that any of mine can Roland Lansdell's appearance; I can only the features, which were perfect in their way, and yet so small an item in the of this man's appearance. The nose was an and a Grecian, but it was in the of the nostril, the and yet of the outline, that it from other noses; the was of medium height, broad, and full at the temples; the was in the faculties, very in benevolence, wanting in destructiveness; but Mr. Raymond have told you that and were in Roland Lansdell's cranium,—a to be by those who and loved the man. His and mouth the of his face; and yet I can neither, for their in the that they were indescribable. The were of a colour; the mouth was in expression. Sometimes you looked at the eyes, and they to you a dark bluish-grey; sometimes they were hazel; sometimes you were into them black. And the mouth was somehow in with the eyes; as looking at it one minute you saw an of in the thin lips; and then in the next a smile. Very people Mr. Lansdell, and this was his charm. To be puzzled is the next thing to being interested; to be is to be charmed. Yes, Nature had her gifts upon Roland Lansdell. She had him handsome, and had his voice to a low music, and had him clever; and, all this, had upon him that of grace, which she and she alone can bestow. He was always graceful. Involuntarily and he into attitudes. He not himself into a chair, or his upon a table, or against the of a doorway, or himself full-length upon the to asleep with his upon his arms, without making himself into a of picture. He looked like a picture just now as he in the window, with his Mr. Raymond.
The lady, who was called Lady Gwendoline, put up her eye-glass to look at another picture; and in that Isabel had time to her, and saw that she too was graceful, and that in every of her dress—it was only muslin, but a different from Isabel's muslin—there was an which her as the of that which the girl only in her books. She looked longer and more at Lady Gwendoline than at Roland Lansdell, for in this being she saw the image of herself, as she had herself so often—the image of a divinity, for people cut their throats, and blood-vessels, and themselves.
George came in while his wife was looking at Lady Gwendoline, and Mr. Raymond the he had taken upon himself to chaperone.
"I must you to some new friends of mine, Roland," he said; "and when you are you must send for Mr. Gilbert of Graybridge, who, I am to understand, is a very surgeon, and I know to have the best region I had under my hand. Gilbert, my dear boy, this is Roland Lansdell of Mordred Priory; Lady Gwendoline, Mrs. Gilbert—Mr. Lansdell. But you know something about my friend Roland, I think, don't you, Isabel?"
Mrs. Gilbert and and in a bewilderment. To be introduced, to two Beings in this off-hand manner was almost too much for Mr. Sleaford's daughter. A perfume of and orange-blossom her from Lady Gwendoline's handkerchief, and she to see the fair-haired lady who at her, and the dark-haired who had at her approach, through an that her senses.
"I think you know something of my friend Roland," Mr. Raymond repeated; "eh, my dear?"
"Oh, n—no indeed," Isabel stammered; "I saw—"
"You saw him to-day," answered Mr. Raymond, his hand on the man's with a of protecting in the gesture. "But you've read his verses; those drawing-room Byronics, that and Alfred-de-Musset-ism, that you told me you are so of:—don't you me who the verses, Mrs. Gilbert? I told you the Alien was a country squire; and here he is—a Midlandshire of high degree, as the old has it."
Isabel's gave a great throb, and her all over with a carnation. To be to a Being was something, but to be to a Being who was also a poet, and the very were her last and idolatry! She not speak. She to say something—something very commonplace, to the that the were very pretty, and she liked them very much, thank you—but the to come, and her only trembled. Before she her confusion, Mr. Raymond had his arm through that of Roland Lansdell, and the two men had walked off together, talking with animation; for Charles Raymond was a of father to the owner of Mordred Priory, and was about the only man Roland had loved or trusted.
Isabel was left by the open window with Lady Gwendoline and George, common him and in the presence of these creatures.
"You like my cousin's poetry, then, Mrs. Gilbert?" said Lady Gwendoline.
Her cousin! The dark-haired being was to this fair-haired being in the Parisian bonnet,—a white-chip bonnet, with just one of heather, and thick white-silk strings, under an chin—a chin, Mr. Raymond would have told Isabel.
Mrs. Gilbert took of now that Roland Lansdell was out of hearing, and said, "Oh, yes; she was very, very of the 'Alien's Dreams;' they were so pretty."
"Yes, they are pretty." Lady Gwendoline said, seating herself by the window, and playing with her bonnet-strings as she spoke; "they are very graceful. Do down, Mrs. Gilbert; these show-places are so fatiguing. I am waiting for papa, who is talking politics with some Midlandshire people in the hall. I am very you like Roland's verses. They're not very original; all the men the same of nowadays—a of mixture of Tennyson, and Edgar Poe, and Alfred de Musset. It me of Balfe's music, somehow; it pleases, and one the without how or why. The book a little sensation. The 'Westminster' was very complimentary, but the 'Quarterly' was dreadful. I Roland reading the article and laughing at it; but he looked like a man who to be in tight boots, and he called it by some term—'a slate,' I think he said."
Isabel had nothing to say to this. She had that the "Quarterly" was a popular review; and, indeed, the "quarterly" had only one for her, and that was rent, which had been almost as painful a as taxes in the Camberwell household. Lady Gwendoline's papa came in presently to look for his daughter. He was Angus Pierrepoint Aubrey Amyott Pomphrey, Earl of Ruysdale; but he a black and and waistcoat, just like other people, and had thick boots, and didn't look a like an earl, Isabel thought.
He said, "Haw, hum—yes, to be sure, my dear," when Lady Gwendoline told him she was to go home; "been talking to Witherston—very good fellow, Witherston—wants to his son returned for Conventford, gen'ral 'lection next year, lib'ral int'rest—very f'ler, the son;" and then he to look for Roland, he in the next room with Charles Raymond; and then Lady Gwendoline Isabel good morning, and said something very kind, to the that they should most likely meet again long, Lowlands being so near Graybridge; and then the Earl offered his arm to his daughter.
She took it, but she looked at her cousin, who was talking to Mr. Raymond, and every now and then in a half-amused, half-admiring way at Isabel.
"I am so to think you like my scribble, Mrs. Gilbert," he said, going up to her presently.
Isabel again, and said, "Oh, thank you; yes, they are very pretty;" and it was as much as she do to avoid calling Mr. Lansdell "Sir" or "Your lordship."
"You are with us, I suppose, Roland?" Lady Gwendoline said.
"Oh, yes,—that is to say. I'll see you to the carriage."
"I you were to luncheon."
"No; I meant to come, but I must see that Percival, the lawyer, you know, Gwendoline, and I want to have a little more talk with Raymond. You'll go on and Mrs. Gilbert the Murillo in the next room, Raymond? and I'll and look for my cousin's carriage, and then come back."
"We can the very well without you, Roland," Lady Gwendoline answered quickly. "Come, papa."
The man stopped, and a little over his face.
"Did you ask me to luncheon?" he said.
"You to come, after this morning, when you us here."
"Did I? Oh, very well; in that case I shall let the Percival over; and I shall to Oakbank to-morrow morning, Raymond, and on the and talk to you all day long, if you'll let me waste your time for once in a way. Good-bye; good morning, Mrs. Gilbert. By the bye, how do you to the day, Raymond?"
"I'm going to take Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert to Hurstonleigh Grove; or they take me, for they've a that one of the Derby-day. We're going to in the grove, and drink tea at a in of Isabel's—Mrs. Gilbert's—birthday."
"You must come and at Mordred some day. It's not as as Hurstonleigh, but we'll manage to a spot. If you for partridges, Mr. Gilbert, you'll in the Mordred next September."
The man put on his hat, and after his and her father. Isabel saw him walk along the of rooms, and in a of that the great when the door was opened. The beings were gone. For a she had been the of life; but she now into the prose, and that the of the was gone with those visitors.
"And how do you like my kinsman?" Mr. Raymond asked presently.
Isabel looked at him with surprise.
"He is your relation—Mr. Lansdell?"
"Yes. My mother was a Lansdell. There's a of cousin-ship Roland and me. He's a good fellow—a very noble-hearted, high-minded fellow; but—"
But what? Mr. Raymond off with so a sigh, that Isabel an entire upon the of the inspiration. Had he done anything wicked? that dark creature, who only wanted the soul-harrowing memory of a to him perfect. Had he his country, like Byron? or a fellow-creature in a cave, like Mr. Aram? Isabel's opened to their extent; and Charles Raymond answered that glance.
"I when I speak of Roland," he said, "because I know the man is not happy. He alone in the world, and has more money than he how to spend; two very for a man. He's and fascinating,—another disadvantage; and he's without being a genius. In short, he's just the of man to away the years of his life in the drawing-rooms of a of women, and take to trash about men in his old age. I can see only one of for him, and that is a happy marriage; a marriage with a woman, who would the whip-hand of him he where he was. All the luckiest and men have been henpecked. Look at the of the men who won't be henpecked. Look at Swift: he was a lord of the creation, and the him; look at him and under the of a servant-maid. Look at Sterne; and Byron, who his wife in fact, and her in fiction. Were their so much the they the of the apron-string? Depend upon it, Mrs. Gilbert, the men who lead great lives, and do deeds, and die happy deaths, are married men who their wives. I'm a bachelor; so of I speak without prejudice. I do most wish that Roland Lansdell may a good and woman."
"A good and woman!"
Isabel gave an shudder. Surely, of all the upon this over-populated earth, a woman was the very last Roland Lansdell ought to marry. He should some being in white muslin, with long hair,—the dark men always married in Isabel's novels,—a who would at his feet, and watch with him, as Astarte with Manfred, till hours in the night; and who should be consumptive, and should die some evening—promiscuously, as Mrs. Gamp would say—with flowers upon her breast, and a upon her face.
Isabel very little more of the pictures, or the men in armour, or the in the that yet to be at Warncliffe Castle. She was to let Mr. Raymond and her husband talk. George the cannon, and the old-fashioned and keys, and the model of a by a man out of old corks, and a other of the same order; and he himself, and was happy to see that his wife was pleased. He tell that, by the upon her lips, though she said so little.
The drive from Warncliffe to Hurstonleigh Grove was as as the drive from Graybridge to Warncliffe; for this part of Midlandshire is a park. Isabel sat in the carriage, and of Lady Gwendoline's and white-chip bonnet, and she was the woman Roland Lansdell would marry. They would be a very couple. Mrs. Gilbert them Arabs—nobody speaking of anything but Arab horses, in Isabel's fancy—in Rotten Row. She see Lady Gwendoline with a and a long feather, and Roland Lansdell over her horse's to talk to her, as they along. She them in that saloon, which was one of the stock always to be pushed on the stage of her imagination. She them in the of that who wait upon the of and heroines. She pictured them to herself going to the through an of dinner-parties, and Rotten Row, and balls, and Ascot cups. Ah, what a happy life! what a destiny!
The a thing after these in the carriage. The met their uncle at the lodge-gate; and they all across the grass, just as they had gone before, to the little low iron gate which Mr. Raymond was to open with a special key; and into the grove, where the and a darkness.
Was it the same grove? To Isabel it looked as if it had been smaller since that other picnic; and the waterfall, and the vistas, and the paths, and the where they were to dine,—it was all very well for the to clap their hands, and themselves upon the grass, and off at a every now and then to wild-flowers; but, after all, there was nothing so very in Hurstonleigh Grove.
Isabel a little way by herself, while Mr. Raymond and George and the the basket. She liked to be alone, that she might think of Lady Gwendoline and her cousin. Lady Gwendoline Pomphrey—oh, how it sounded! Why, to have such a name as that would alone be bliss; but to be called Gwendoline Pomphrey, and to wear a white-chip with that of just on the brim, and those broad, tied, strings! And then, like the of a in a theatre, the darkened, and Isabel of her own life—the life to which she must go when it was dark that night: the common parlour, or the best parlour,—what was the distinction, in their wretchedness, that one should be called than the other?—- the bread-and-cheese, the radishes,—and, oh, how George eat radishes, crunch, crunch, crunch!—till would have been relief. This girl a blank as she of her home,—her home for and ever,—unbrightened by a hope, by a memory; her home, in which she had a shelter, and to eat and to drink, and with which to herself; and where, had she been a good or a woman, she ought of to have been happy.
But she was not happy. The slow that had been so long in her was now a and fire. She wanted a life, a happy life, a life; she wanted to be like Lady Gwendoline, and to live in a house like Warncliffe Castle. It was not that she Lord Ruysdale's daughter, remember; had no part in her nature. She Gwendoline Pomphrey too much to her. She would like to have been that creature's sister, and to have her and her in a of reverence. She had none of the radical's to tear the from the aristocrat; she only wanted to be an too, and to wear the same trappings, and to through life to the same music.
George came presently, very much out of breath, to take her to the where there was a salad, and that high-coloured Graybridge sherry, and some German which Mr. Raymond to the feast.
The and the two themselves very much. Mr. Raymond talk about medicine as well as political economy; and he and George entered into a in which there were a great many hard words. The ate—to do that was to be happy; and Isabel sat in a of the arbour, looking out at the on the grass, and why Fate had her the of being an earl's daughter.
The of the summer's afternoon, the Rhine wine, and the of his companion's voice, had such a upon Mr. Raymond, that he asleep presently while George was talking; and the man, this, produced a Midlandshire newspaper, which he unfolded, and to read.
"Will you come and some flowers, Izzie?" one of the orphans. "There are wild roses and in the outside. Do come!"
Mrs. Gilbert was very to the arbour. She away with the two children along those paths, which now into a of ravine, and then to the grove. The had a good to say to their late governess. They had a new instructress, and "she isn't a like you, dear Mrs. Gilbert," they said; "and we love you best, though she's very kind, you know, and all that; but she's old, you know, very old,—more than thirty; and she makes us frills, and go on so if we don't put away our things; and makes us do such sums; and of telling us when we're out with her, as you used,—oh, don't you telling us Pelham? how I love Pelham, and Dombey!—about the little boy that died, and Florence—she teaches us and jology" (the called it 'jology'), "and sandstone, and old red formations, and like that; and oh, dear Izzie, I wish you had been married."
Isabel at the orphans, and them, when they themselves about her. But she was of the Alien's dreams, and Lady Gwendoline was the "Duchess! with the and eyes," the Alien was cynical, not to say abusive. Mrs. Gilbert as if she had read the Alien enough. She had him, and spoken to him,—a poet, a real, living, poet, who only wanted to himself, and turn his down, to a Byron.
She was walking slowly along the pathway, with the about her, like a modern Laocoon family without the serpents, when she was by a of the a from her, and looking up, with a half-frightened glance, she saw the tall of a man her and the sunlight.
The man was Mr. Roland Lansdell, the author of "An Alien's Dreams."
"I'm I you, Mrs. Gilbert," he said, taking off his and bareheaded, with the of the and about him like things. "I I should Mr. Raymond here, as he said you were going to picnic, and I want so much to talk to the dear old boy. So, as they know me at the lodge, I got them to let me in."
Isabel to say something; but the orphans, who were in no way by the stranger's presence, Mr. Lansdell that their Uncle Charles was asleep in the where they had dined.—"up there." The pointed the as she spoke.
"Thank you; but I don't think I shall him very easily. I don't know the and of this place."
The Mr. Lansdell that the way to the was straight,—he couldn't miss it.
"But you don't know how I am," the answered, laughing. "Ask your uncle if I'm not in the organ of locality. Would you mind—but you were going the other way, and it so selfish to ask you to turn back; yet if you would take upon my stupidity, and me the way—?"
He to the orphans, but he looked at Isabel. He looked at her with those eyes,—blue with a of hazel, with a of blue,—eyes that were always under the thick of their lashes, like a of water rushes.
"Oh, yes, if you like," the simultaneously; "we don't mind going a bit."
They as they spoke, and Isabel with them. Mr. Lansdell put on his hat, and walked the long the narrow pathway.
The were very lively, and with Mr. Lansdell. They were Mr. Raymond's nieces? then they were his Rosa Harlow's children, of he had so much from that dear good Raymond? If so, they were almost of his, Mr. Lansdell on to say, and they must come and see him at Mordred. And they must ask Mrs. Gilbert to come with them, as they so of her.
The girls had to say for themselves. Yes; they would like very much to come to Mordred Priory; it was very pretty; their Uncle Charles had them the house one day when he took them out for a drive. It would be fun to come, and to have a in the grounds, as Mr. Lansdell proposed. The were for anything in the way of holiday-making. And for Isabel, she only blushed, and said, "Thank you," when Roland Lansdell talked of her visiting Mordred with her late charges. She not talk to this and creature, who in his own person all the of her heroes.
How often this of had herself in such as this; with an of persiflage, scornful, playful; her own against a love-stricken marquis; making as light of a as Mary Queen of Scots of a Chastelar! And now that the was realized; now that this Byronic was by her side, talking to her, trying to make her answer him, looking at her those eyelashes,—she was and dumbfounded; a miserable, school-girl; a Pamela, and by the address of her persecutor.
She had a painful of her own deficiency; she all at once that she had no power to play the part she had so often herself to the of beholders. But with all this pain and there a happiness. The had come true at last. This was romance—this was life. She now what a and broker's copy of a picture that last year's had been; the on the to be by a country surgeon; the long courtship; the dowdy, vulgar, wedding,—she now how and a all that had been. She looked with at the tall now and then under the of the trees; the tall in garments, which, in the careless perfection of their fashion, were so anything she had before; the in which there was the and colour of a Guido. She a at Mr. Lansdell, and a picture of him in her mind, which, like or unlike, must be the only image by which she would or think of him. Did she think of him as what he was,—a English gentleman, idle, rich, accomplished, and with no light to his than an which he called honour? Had she of him thus, she would have been surely than to give him so large a place in her mind, or any place at all. But she of him in this way. He was all this; he was a and creature, to no laws. He was here now, in this hour, under the and shadows, and to-morrow he would melt away for and into the regions of light, which were his every-day habitation.
What did it matter, then, if she was and and by his presence? What did it if the solid earth air under this girl's footsteps? Mrs. Gilbert did not ask herself these questions. No of or had any place in her mind. She nothing, she nothing; that a modern Lord Byron was walking by her side, and that it was a very little way to the arbour.
