Ellen Wood

“ She leaned back, panting in her emotion, but hiding it from Captain Levison. As they came opposite to Justice Hare's she deliberately bent forward and scanned the garden with eager eyes.
There, in the bright moonlight, all too bright and clear, slowly paced arm in arm, and drawn close to each other, her husband and Barbara Hare. With a choking sob that could no longer be controlled or hidden, Lady Isabel sunk back again.
He, that bold, bad man, dared to put his arm around her, to draw her to his side; to whisper that his love was left to her, if another's was withdrawn. ”

“ We have each chosen our path in life, and must abide by it; the gulf between us is impassable but the fault was mine. I ought to have avowed my affection, and not have suffered you to throw yourself away upon Mr. Carlyle."
"Throw myself away!" she indignantly uttered, roused to the retort. "Mr. Carlyle is my dear husband, esteemed, respected, and beloved. I married him of my own free choice, and I have never repented it; I have grown more attached to him day by day. Look at his noble nature, his noble form; what are you by his side? You forget yourself, Francis Levison." ”

“ Jane, in her quiet, but far deeper grief, strove to soothe her; she whispered of his peaceful frame of mind, of his loving message of forgiveness; but Laura sobbed on hysterically, and would not be comforted.
A sight startled them both. A tall figure robed in a flannel dressing-gown, with an ashy pale face, came gliding in and stood gazing at the corpse. Laura had never seen her before, and the sight hushed her to silence; Jane knew her for Lady Oakburn. The nurse followed behind, wringing her hands, and audibly lamenting what it appeared she had no power to prevent. ”

“ Were I young, and wanted a wife, there's no one in all West Lynne I would so soon look out for as Miss Barbara. Not that she'd have me; and I was not speaking in that sense, Miss Corny."
"It's to be hoped you were not," retorted Miss Corny. "She is an idle, insolent, vain fagot, caring for nothing but her own doll's face and for Archibald."
"Ah, well, ma'am never mind that; pretty young girls know they are pretty, and you can't take their vanity from them. She'll be a good and loving wife to him; I know she will; it is in her nature; she won't serve him as—as—that other poor unfortunate did." ”

“ That I could wake up and find it but a hideous dream; that I were here as in old days, in health and happiness, your ever loving wife. Do you wish it, that the dark past had never had place?"
She put the question in a sharp, eager tone, gazing up to him with an anxious gaze, as though the answer must be one of life or death. ”

“ Our bodies lie there, to be raised again in beauty at the last day. We go into a blessed place of rest, where sorrow and pain cannot come. I wish—I wish," she uttered, with a bursting heart, "that you and I were both there!"
"Who says the world's so sorrowful, Madame Vine? I think it is lovely, especially when the sun's shining on a hot day, and the butterflies come out. You should see East Lynne on a summer's morning, when you are running up and down the slopes, and the trees are waving overhead, and the sky's blue, and the roses and flowers are all out. ”

“ Lionel Verner was one who possessed excessive conscientiousness: even as a boy, had impetuosity led him into a fault—as it often did—his silent, inward repentance would be always keenly real, more so than the case deserved. It was so now. He loved Sibylla: there had been no mistake there: but it is certain that the unexpected delight of meeting her, her presence palpably before him in all its beauty, her manifested sorrow and grief, her lonely, unprotected position, all had worked their effect upon his heart and mind, had imparted to his love a false intensity. ”

“ The excitement of his arrival had worn off, and she was looking herself again, pale and sad; he could not help observing that she was changed.
"I cannot expect to look so well at Castle Marling as I did at East Lynne," she answered.
"I trust it is a happy home to you?" said Mr. Carlyle, speaking upon impulse.
She glanced up at him a look that he would never forget; it certainly told of despair. "No," she said, shaking her head, "it is a miserable home, and I cannot remain in it. I have been awake all night, thinking where I can go, but I cannot tell; I have not a friend in the wide world." ”

“ Hare added, in a lower tone, while the tears glistened on her pale cheeks, "there will be a blessed rest for the weary, when this toilsome life is ended; let us find comfort in that thought."
"Ay! Ay!" murmured Lady Isabel. "It is all that is left to me."
"You are young to have acquired so much experience of sorrow."
"We cannot estimate sorrow by years. We may live a whole lifetime of it in a single hour. But we generally bring ill fate upon ourselves," she continued, in a desperation of remorse; "as our conduct is, so will our happiness or misery be." ”

“ The very best of us live but a short time, Lucy—for you know we must speak of time by comparison. Threescore years and ten here, and ages upon ages, life without ending, hereafter. Well, dear, care and sorrow and disappointment come to draw our love from this world and to teach us to long for the next— to long for it, and to prepare for it. ”

“ I never was false to you in thought, in word, or in deed."
"Oh, Archibald, I was mad—I was mad! I could not have done it in anything but madness. Surely you will forget and forgive!"
"I cannot forget. I have already forgiven!"
"Try and forget the dreadful time that has passed since that night!" she continued, the tears falling on her cheeks, as she held up to him one of her poor hot hands. "Let your thoughts go back to the days when you first knew me; when I was here, Isabel Vane, a happy girl with my father. At times I have lost myself in a moment's happiness in thinking of it. ”

“ Certainly Lionel Verner’s star was not in the ascendant—though Lucy Tempest had used the words in jest. His love gone from him; his fortune and position wrested from him; all become the adjuncts of one man, Frederick Massingbird. Serenely, to outward appearance, as Lionel had met the one blow, so did he now meet the other: and none, looking on his calm bearing, could suspect what the loss was to him. But it is the silent sorrow that eats into the heart; the loud grief does not tell upon it. ”

“ Carlton was on his way down again, for Pompey had appeared on the scene. Laura listened for the closing of the hall door; for the last echoes of the footfalls on the gravel-path, footfalls that for her ear were as the sweetest music; and when they had died away to silence, she heaved a sobbing sigh, born of intense emotion, and stepped on to her father’s room. ”

“ Bitterly did she stand out that night to his mind, in contrast to Lucy. He turned away, after some minutes, with an impatient movement, as if he would fain throw remembrance and vexation from him. Lionel had himself chosen his companion in life, and none knew better, than he, that he must abide by it: none could be more firmly resolved to do his full duty by her in love. Sibylla was standing outside the window alone. Lionel approached her, and gently laid his hand upon her shoulder. ”

“ Near to her, in robes of mourning as deep, sat the earl’s daughters, Jane, Laura, and Lucy. Lucy the child cried incessantly; Laura ever and anon gave vent to a frantic burst; Jane was tranquil. Tranquil outwardly; and none, save perhaps the countess, suspected the real inward suffering. What with the loss of him, gone from their sight in this world for ever, and the loss of one they knew not how gone, Jane Chesney’s grief was too bitterly acute for outward signs; it lay deeper than the surface. ”

“ The torment, the uncertainty did not cease with the day, and it brought a rich colour to her pale face, rarely seen there; never save in moments of deep emotion. As she entered Lady Jane’s presence with this bloom on her cheeks and the purple light shining from her magnificent hair, her handsome gown rustling behind her and her fine figure drawn to its full height, even Jane, with all her prejudice, was struck with her real grandeur. ”

“ The relief was so great to Lucy; the revulsion of feeling so sudden; the idea called up altogether so comical, that she clasped her hands one within the other, and laughed out in glee.
“Oh, Lady Verner! Poor Jan! I never thought you meant him. Papa,” she added, turning eagerly to Sir Henry, “Jan is downright worthy and good, but I should not like to marry him.”
“Jan may be worthy; but he is not handsome,” gravely remarked Sir Henry.
“He is better than handsome,” returned Lucy. “I shall love Jan all my life, papa. ”

“ Lionel Verner was just in that frame of mind which struggles to be carried out of itself. No matter whether by pleasure or pain, so that it be not that particular pain from which it would fain escape, the mind seeks yearningly to forget itself, to be lifted out anywhere, or by any means, from its trouble. Conscience was doing heavy work with Lionel. He had destroyed his own happiness: that was nothing; he could battle it out, and nobody be the wiser or the worse, save himself: but he had blighted Lucy’s. ”

“ Laura turned her face away from her sister's view, or even in that fading hour Miss Chesney would have seen the red flush that overspread it at the words, dyeing it of a blood-red. She made no answer.
"It was not seemly, Laura. Mr. Carlton is but a surgeon: a man, so far as we know, without connections. And you are a Chesney."
"With connections," retorted Laura, who was growing vexed and angry. "And much good they do me!"
"Laura dear, we are, as may be said, of the noblesse: we may not lose caste." ”

“ Should I die?”
“No, dear,” laughed Jane Chesney, the little girl’s quaint earnestness was so droll. “It does not come to run away with people after that fashion; it rather comes to teach them how to live, I will repeat to you a sentence, Lucy, which you must treasure up and remember always, ‘Adversity'—adversity is but another name for care and sorrow, no matter what their nature,” Jane Chesney broke off to say, "'Adversity hardens the heart, or it opens it to Paradise.’ When it shall come to you, the great ugly skeleton of adversity, Lucy, you must let it do the latter.” ”

“ Standing before the fire, her young, slender form habited in its black robes, was Sibylla. No one, looking at her, would have believed her to be a widow: partly from her youth, partly that she did not wear the widow’s dress. Her head was uncovered, and her fair curls fell, shading her brilliant cheeks. It has been mentioned that her chief beauty lay in her complexion: seen by candle-light, flushed as she was now, she was inexpressibly beautiful. A dangerous hour, a perilous situation for the yet unhealed heart of Lionel Verner. ”

“ Try and like me, Lady Jane! It will not be difficult to me to love you.”
Jane wheeled round, her white lips trembling, her face ablaze with scorn.
“Like you!” she repeated, her voice, in her terrible emotion, rising to a hiss. “Like you! Can we like the serpent that entwines its deadly coils around its victim? You have brought your arts to bear on my unsuspicious father, and torn him from his children. As you have dealt with us, Eliza Lethwait, may you so be dealt with when your turn shall come!”
The countess drew back in agitation. She laid her hand on Lucy. ”

“ Lionel remained where he was.
“The cold room would not hurt me, but I am glad not to go,” began Lucy, subsiding into a more easy tone, a more social manner, than she ventured on in the presence of Lady Verner. “I think morning visiting the greatest waste of time! I wonder who invented it?”
“Somebody who wanted to kill time,” answered Lionel.
“It is not like friends, who really care for each other, meeting and talking. The calls are made just for form’s sake, and for nothing else. I will never fall into it when I am my own mistress.” ”