Augusta J. Evans

“ Not for perfumed pink billets-doux, nor yet for adulation and vows of deathless devotion from high-born gentlemen handsome and heartless enough to serve in Le Musée du Louvre as statues of Apollo, but for gold, Mr. Laurance, only for gold!"
"Do not inexorably exile me—do not refuse my prayer for the privilege of sometimes seeing you. Permit me to come here and teach you to believe in my——"
"Le jeu n'en vaut pas la chandelle!" she exclaimed, with a quick nervous laugh that grated grievously upon his ear.
"Madame, I implore you not to deny me the delight of an occasional interview." ”

“ The world has not your charity, but let it do its worst. Come what may, my mother is still my own mother, and God will hold the scales and see that justice is done. Perhaps some day we may follow you to India, and spend the remainder of our lives in some cool quiet valley, under the shadow of the rhododendrons on the Himalayan hills. Who knows what the end may be? But no matter how far we wander, or where we rest, we shall never find a home so sweet, so peaceful, so full of holy and happy associations, as this dear parsonage has been to me. ”

“ Yes, mamma! quite ready, and coming, Go to sleep, snowdrop, and dream that you are like me, a topaz-bedizened odalisque swimming in sunshine."
She stooped, kissed the girl softly on both cheeks, and looked tenderly, pityingly at her; then suddenly gathered her close to her heart, holding her there an instant, as if to shelter her from some impending storm.
"If you love your mother, and she loves you, run away now and join her, before the chains are tightened. Your guardian is setting snares; little white rabbit, flee for your life, while escape is possible." ”

“ Something like a sob impeded her utterance, and the minister took her hand.
"Where is your husband? Are you widowed so early?"
"Husband—my husband? One to cherish and protect, to watch over, and love, and defend me;—if such be the duties and the tests of a husband,—oh! then indeed I have never had one! Widowed did you say? That means something holy,—sanctified by the shadow of death, and the yearning sympathy and pity of the world; a widow has the right to hug a coffin and a grave all the weary days of her lonely life, and people look tenderly on her sacred weeds. ”

“ Life is a huge sham, and we are all masked puppets, jumping grotesquely, just as the strongest hands pull the wires. Regina, I have gone to and fro upon the earth long enough to learn that the most acceptable present is never labelled advice; nevertheless, I would fain warn your unsophisticated young soul against some of the pitfalls into which I floundered, and got sadly bruised. Never openly defy or oppose your apparent destiny, so long as it is in the soft hands of that willow wand—your present guardian. Strategy is better than fierce assault, bloodless cunning than a gory pitched battle ”

“ Regina laid aside her sewing, opened her eyes wider, and looked perplexed.
"You have not lived in moral Constantinople long enough to comprehend the terms of traffic? You look like a stupid fawn, the first time the baying of the hounds scares it from its quiet sleep on dewy moss and woodland violets! Oh you fair pretty, innocent young thing! Why does not some friendly hand strangle you right now, before the pack open on your trial? You ought to be sewed up in white silk, and laid away safely under marble, before the world soils and spoils you." ”

“ Regina Orme! what an embryo diplomatist, what an incipient Talleyrand, Kaunitz, Bismarck you are! Mamma is as invulnerable to all human weaknesses as one of the suits of armour hanging in the Tower of London; and during my extended and rather intimate acquaintance with her, I have never discovered but one foible incident to the flesh, love of her morning nap! You have adroitly struck Achilles in the heel. Sound the timbrel and sing like Miriam over your victory; for it were better to propitiate one of the house of Palma, than to strangle Pharaoh. ”

“ I fear his grief at the loss of Douglass has hastened the end."
"When Mrs. Lindsay comes to-morrow it will kill her," groaned Regina, whose soul seemed to grow sick, as she thought of the devoted fond sister, and the anguish that awaited her already bruised and aching heart.
"No, sorrow does not kill people, else the race would become extinct."
"It has killed Mr. Hargrove."
"Not sorrow, but the disease, which sorrow may have aggravated."
"Mrs. Lindsay would not go to India with her son, because she said she could not leave her brother whose sight was failing, and who needed her most. ”

“ Regina's features writhed, and, pressing her face closer against her mother's knee, she sobbed unrestrainedly:
"My darling, blessings often come so thoroughly disguised that we brand them as curses, learning later that they garner all our earthly hopes, sometimes our heavenly; and when I look at you now, my soul yearns over you with a love too deep for utterance. I know that you were born to avenge your wrongs and mine, to aid by your baby fingers in lifting the load of injustice and libel that has so long borne me down. ”

“ I have an abiding faith that they had Borgia hair, hazel eyes, red lips, and sloping white shoulders just like mine. They have peopled the world; a large colony settled in this country, we are nearly all Ellewomen now, and you are an ignorant, wretched little Iduna, minus the apples, and must get rid of your heart at once, in order to smile constantly as we do."
"Olga, don't libel yourself and society so unmercifully. Don't marry Mr. Congreve. Think how horrible it must be to spend all your life with a man whom you do not love!" ”

“ Poverty, obscurity terrify her, and for the fleshpots of fashion she would literally sell me, as she once sold herself to Godwin Palma. Repeatedly I have been urged to accept offers of marriage that revolted every instinct of my nature, that seemed insulting to a woman who long ago gave away all that was best, in her heart's idolatrous love. To-day my Belmont is ten-fold dearer, than when in the dawning flush of womanhood, I plighted my lifelong faith to him; and reigns more royally than ever over all that is good and true in my perverted and cynical nature. ”

“ The honourable name of Laurance is talismanic, and offers much to Odille Orme; yet I will stain my soul with no dissimulation. With love and romance, I finished long, long ago; and to-day I have not patience to trifle even with its phraseology. I am thirty-three, and in my early girlhood the one love dream of all my life was rudely broken, leaving me no more capacity to indulge a second, than belongs to those marbles in the Musée Bourbonique. For my dear young husband I felt the only intense, idolatrous, yes, blindly worshipping devotion, that my nature could yield to any human being. ”

“ She merely lifted her eyes.
"I want you to be happy in my house."
"Thank you, sir."
"Don't speak in that sarcastic manner. It does not sound respectable to one's guardian."
She was growing paler, and all her old aversion to him was legible in her countenance.
"Let us be friends. Try to be a patient, cheerful girl."
"Patient,—I will try. Cheerful,—no, no, not here! How can I be happy in this house? Am I a brute, or a stone? Oh! I wish I could have died with my dear, dear Mr. Hargrove, that calm night when he went to rest for ever while I sang!" ”

“ To-day buried beneath the tide of sorrow, to-morrow shining clear and imperishable?
Gazing out across the sapphire sea that mirrored a cloudless sapphire sky, Mrs. Orme's beautiful solemn face seemed almost a part of the classic surroundings, a statue of Fate shaken from its ancient niche; and the cameo Sappho on her breast was not more faultlessly cut and polished than the features that rose above it.
A shadow fell aslant the glassy water through which was visible the glint of the submerged pavement, and turning her head, she saw the familiar countenance of her quondam physician. ”

“ The one true heart in all the wide world that loves and clings to me. You forsook and disowned me, repudiated your vows, offered them elsewhere, making unto yourself strange new gods; profaning the altar, where other images should have stood. The banker's daughter, and the Laurance heiress she bore you, are entitled to what remains of your fickle selfish heart, and I trust that the two who supplanted my baby and me will suffice for your happiness in the future as in the past. Into my own and my darling's life you can enter no more. 'Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he reap. ”

“ In future you must never walk to see Mrs. Mason, always go in the carriage; and I am unwilling that you should be out as late as this, unless Mrs. Palma accompanies you, or I am with you. You need not ask my reasons; it is sufficient that I wish it, and it is my caprice to be obeyed without questions. One thing more: I do not at all like your name—never did. Latinity is not one of my predilections, and Regina, Reginae, Reginam, wearily remind me of the classic-slough of declensions and conjugations of my Livy, Sallust, Tacitus. ”

“ Her sands of life seamed ebbing fast,—the end might not be distant; who could tell? Why not go back—give up the chase for the empty shadow of a name—gather her baby to her bosom, and die, finding under an humble cenotaph the peace that this world denied her?
An intolerable yearning for the sight of her child, for the sound of her voice, broke over her like some irresistible wave bearing away the vehement protests of policy, the sterner barriers of vindictive purpose, and with a long shivering moan she clasped her hands and shut her eyes. ”

“ Would you deprive me of the pleasure of admiring a fine work of art, merely to shut it in, converting yourself into a pagan, and the portrait into an idol?"
"But, Mr. Palma, you never loved any one or anything so very dearly, that it seemed holy in your eyes; much too sacred for others to look at."
"Certainly not. I am pleased to say that is a mild stage of lunacy, with which I have as yet never been threatened. Idolatry is a phase of human weakness I have been unable to tolerate." ”

“ Would General René Laurance have pardoned him, and received me as his sister, or his daughter?"
"Could I censure any man for surrendering to charms which have so completely vanquished me? Thank heaven! I have neither brother nor son to rival me. My only child Cuthbert is safely anchored in the harbour of wedlock, and having his own family ties, I am free to consult only my heart in the choice of a bride. I have not journeyed so far down the hill of life as you cruelly persist in asserting, and the fervour of my emotions denies your unkind imputation. ”

“ Pressing her tightly to her heart, Mrs. Laurance turned to Mr. Palma, and said sternly:
"Is there indeed no such thing as honour left among men? You who knew so well my loneliness and affliction—you, sir, to whom I trusted my little lamb—have tried to rob me of the only treasure I thought I possessed, the only comfort left to gladden my sunless life! You have tried to steal my child's heart, to win her from me." ”

“ Well, no dog that ever barked is worth a household hurricane. You must make up your mind to surrender him, to shed a few tears and say vale Hero! Now I am disposed to be generous for once, though understand that is not my habit, and I will buy him. I will pay you—let me see—thirty-five, forty—well, say fifty dollars? That will supply you with Maillard's bonbons for almost a year; will sweeten your bereavement."
She rose instantly, with a peculiar sparkle leaping up in her splendid eyes.
"There is not gold enough in New York to buy him." ”

“ It was a picture taken after Regina's removal to the parsonage, and represented her with the white rabbits nestling in her arms.
"My proud little Regina! my pure sensitive darling! How much longer must we be separated? Will the time ever come when the only earthly rest that remains for me can be taken in her soft clinging arms? Patience—patience. If it were not for her—for my baby—I might falter even now,—but she must, she shall be righted—at any sacrifice, at every cost; and may the widow's and the orphan's God be pitiful—be pitiful—at last." ”

“ With an ugly furrow of discontent between her heavy brows, Hannah obeyed, and as she renewed the fire smouldering in the dining-room, she slowly shook her grizzled head: "Many a time I have heard my father say, 'Mystery breeds misery,' and take my word for it, there is always something wrong when a woman shuns women-folks, and hunts sympathy and advice from men."
"Hush, Hannah! Charity,—charity; don't forget that you live in a parsonage, where 'sounding brass or tinkling cymbals' are not tolerated. All kinds of sorrow come here to be cured, and I fear that lady is in distress. ”

“ What right has a nameless, homeless waif to think of love? God grant me a father and a mother, a stainless name, and I shall never need, never wish, never tolerate a lover! Do not insult my misery."
She lifted her clenched hands almost menacingly, and her passionate vehemence startled her companion, who could scarcely recognize in the glittering defiant gaze that met his the velvet violet eyes over which the silken fringes had hung with such tender Madonna grace but a half-hour before.
"Regina, how could you deceive me so shamefully?" ”

“ A heavy sigh crossed her lips that were beginning to wear the patient lines of resignation, and turning from the red geranium which had aroused the memory coiled in her heart she stepped upon the terrace, leaned over the marble balustrade, and looked out.
The sun was up, and in the verdant setting of its shore the lake seemed a huge sapphire, girdled with emerald.
In the distance a fishing boat glided slowly, its taut sails gleaming as the sunlight smote them, like the snowy pinions of some vast bird brooding over the quiet water ”

“ To-morrow morning I will give you an answer. Then I am going away for a few days to Pæstum, and cannot see you again till we meet in Paris. Recollect, I warned you, I bring no heart, no love; both are lost hopelessly in the ashes of the past. I never loved but one man—the husband of my youth, the father of my baby; and his loss I shall mourn till the coffin closes above me. General Laurance, you are running a fearful hazard, and the very marble of the altar should find a voice to cry out and stay your madness. ”

“ Between the two had fallen an utter silence with reference to the past, and not an allusion had been made to Cuthbert Laurance since the night he had first held his daughter to his heart. Death had dropped like a sacred seal upon its memorable incidents, which all avoided; but mother and child seemed hourly to cling more closely to each other.
To-day sitting on a low ottoman, with her arm thrown across her mother's knee, while the white hand wearing the black agate wandered now and then over her drooping head, Regina read the "Madonna Mia." ”

“ Do not our hearts yearn with an intense and tender longing toward that church, at whose font we were baptized, at whose communion-table we reverently bowed, before whose altar we breathed the marriage vows, from whose silent chancel we shall one day be softly and slowly borne away to our last, long sleep? Why not lay us down to rest, where the organ that pealed at our wedding and sobbed its requiem over our senseless clay may still breathe its loving dirges across our graves in winter's leaden storms, or in fragrant amber-aired summer days? ”

“ She went toward the cattle-shed, swinging her copper milk-pail, which was burnished to a degree of ruddy glory beautiful to contemplate, and which, alas! is rarely seen in this age of new fashions and new-fashioned utensils.
"Come, Hero, let us go and meet the master."
But Regina had not left the verandah before Mr. Hargrove came slowly towards the easy chair, walking wearily, she thought, as if spent with fatigue.
"How tired you are! Give me your hat and cane." ”

“ Palma, do you want to throw her back into delirium by this cruel excitement? Do go away, and leave us in peace."
"She will feel far happier after a little while, and tears will ease her heart. Olga, you have not yet given me your promise."
"Be patient! Some day you will learn perhaps that though the idol you worshipped so long has fallen from the niche where you set it, even the dust is sacred; and you want no strange touch to defile it. Oh the love, the confidence, the idolatry—I have so lavishly squandered! ”

“ If you are never guilty of anything worse, you and your guardian will not quarrel."
Her face had drooped beyond the range of his vision, and when he put one hand under her chin and raised it, he saw that the missing light in the alabaster vase had been supplied, and her smooth cheeks were flushed to brilliant carmine.
How marvellously lovely she was in that rush of colour that dyed her dainty lips, and made the large soft eyes seem radiant as stars, when they bravely struggled up to meet his, so piercing, so coolly critical. ”

“ The soul of Thales possesses you all, whereas we who sit at the cradle, and guide the little tottering feet, study the ground and sweep away the stumbling-blocks. Day after day you and Douglass discuss all kinds of scientific theories, and quote pagan authorities and infidel systems in the presence of Regina, who sits in her low chair over there in the corner of the fireplace as quiet as a white mouse, listening to every word, though 'Hans Christian Andersen' lies open on her lap, and scarcely winking those blue eyes of hers, that are as solemn as if they belonged to the Judges of Israel. ”

“ There are indeed sorrows "that bruise the heart like hammers," and age it suddenly, prematurely. In subsequent years Regina looked back to the incidents of this eventful Sabbath, and marked it with a black stone in the calendar of memory as the day on which she "put away childish things," and began to see life and the world through new, strange disenchanting lenses, that dispelled all the gilding glamour of childhood, and unexpectedly let in a grey dull light that chilled and awed her. ”

“ Is a woman sweeter, more gentle, more useful to her family and friends, because she is unlearned? Does knowledge exert an acidulating influence upon female temper, or produce an ossifying effect on female hearts? Is ignorance an inevitable concomitant of refinement and delicacy? Does the knowledge of Greek and Latin cast a blight over the flower-garden, or a mildew in the pantry and linen closet; or do the classics possess the power of curdling all the milk of human-kindness, all the streams of tender sympathy in a woman's nature, as rennet coagulates a bowl of sweet milk? ”

“ I understand how mother feels, I cannot blame her; and while I know that her care and anxiety in this matter are chiefly on my account, I could never respect, never forgive myself, if to promote my own importance or interest I selfishly consented to beggar poor Maud. She cannot live long; death has set a shadowy mark already upon her weird eyes, and until they close in the peace of the grave let us leave her the name she seems so proud of. She pronounced it Maud Ames Laurance, as though it were a royal title. ”

“ Lying there on the top of the billets-doux, the elegant, graceful chirography of the "Madame Odille Orme" drew her gaze, like the loathsome fascination of a basilisk, and taking a package of notes from her pocket, she held them for a moment close to the satin envelope. Upon one the name of the popular actress; on the others—in the same peculiar beautiful characters—"Minnie Merle." She put away the latter, and a flash of scorn momentarily lighted her rigid face.
"Craven as of old! Too cowardly to boldly ask the thing his fickle fancy favours; he begs under borrowed names. ”

“ The little blue-eyed child has grown into a woman, of whom the haughtiest mother in the land might be proud. My darling is all I wish her."
"Ah, mother! the flattery is inexpressibly sweet, falling like dew on parched leaves; but the eyes of your idolatrous baby have grown very keen, and I know that the sight of me brings you a terrible pain you cannot hide. Last night, when Mrs. Waul made me shake out my hair to show its length, and praised it and my eyebrows, you dropped my hand, and walked away; and in the mirror on the wall, I saw your countenance shaken with grief. ”

“ Palma, if I can only make him happy! I owe him so much. When I remember all that he did so tenderly for years, and especially on that awful night of the storm, I feel that I ought not to refuse what he asks of me."
"If he knew how you felt, I think I could safely promise for him that he would not accept your hand. The heart of the woman he loves, is the boon that a man holds most precious. Lily, you know your inmost heart does not prompt you to marry Mr. Lindsay." ”

“ Would worldly vampires, such as political or financial schemes, track a man's footsteps down the aisle, and flap their fatal numbing pinions over his soul so securely even in the Sanctuary of the Lord, if from his family pew his eyes wandered now and then to the marble slab that lay like a benediction over the silver head of an honoured father or mother, or the silent form of a beloved wife, sister, or brother? ”

“ But when your chair remained vacant your guardian darkened like a thunder-cloud in an August sky, and Roscoe, poor Elliott Roscoe, looked precisely as I imagine a hungry wolf feels, when crouching to catch a tender ewe lamb he finds that the watchful shepherd has safely locked it in the fold. Evidently he believes that you and Erle Palma have conspired to starve him out, and really he is ludicrously irate. Don't trifle with his expanding affections; they are not quite fledged yet, and are easily bruised. Deal with him kindly; he is better than his cousin, better than any of us. ”