G. J. Whyte-Melville

“ Ah! she would make a charming wife to a fellow who admired that kind of beauty. It was not his style, of course; and with this reflection, the image of a lovely laughing face, and a pair of kind blue eyes, seemed to brighten even the gloom of his dismal railway carriage.
Thinking of Mrs. Lascelles somehow called Sir Henry unpleasantly to mind. And he bethought him how that easy-going personage had expressed certain vague intentions of starting on an expedition of his own, to see some yearlings, leaving his daughter at The Lilies. "Then I'll write to Miss Hallaton herself," thought Goldthred. ”

“ A canary was perched in the window, a fire blazed in the grate, a pug-dog was snoring happily on the rug, a bullfinch swelling in splendid sulks on the work-table: with a peal at the door bell this simple machinery seemed all set in motion at once—the canary twittered, the pug barked, the bullfinch subsided, Mrs. Lascelles jumped up, the door opened, and a footman announced "Miss Ross!"
If Miss Ross looked well under the dim light of a railway carriage, she lost nothing of her prestige when exposed to the full glare of day. ”

“ Picard heeded not. Bending over that little bundle, folded so carefully in his pea-jacket, on its mother's knee, he kissed the soft brow tenderly, gently, almost reverently, while a tear hanging in the man's shaggy whiskers, dropped on the pure delicate cheek of the child.
"No wonder I loved you," he muttered. "I wish I had been a better man, for your sake."
Miss Ross was touched. "Allons!" said she; "you and I may come to an understanding, after all. Speak the truth and so will I. How did you find the boy, and where?" ”

“ I have no pity for the nobler sex, as they call themselves. 'War to the knife!' that's my motto!"
"I think I have been used badly enough," said Mrs. Lascelles, looking the while extremely prosperous and self-satisfied. "I am sure my early life has not been the happier for my relations with the lords of the creation. Two or three false lovers, my dear, and a bad husband, are not calculated to raise one's opinion of the race; but I am not so bitter as you are, by many degrees."
"Heaven forbid!" replied Miss Ross, while a shadow passed across her dark, expressive face. ”

“ Draggled, limp, exhausted, dripping from top to toe, Miss Ross clung tight to her preserver, with the more reason that although the stream here scarcely reached her knees, it ran so hard she found some difficulty in keeping her feet. She behaved, thought Frank, very pluckily and well. No nonsense, no hysterics, no theatrical gratitude of gasps and groans. She held one of his hands, indeed, very tight, and her face was paler than ever, but she only said:
"How stupid of me to upset the boat! What a ducking we've both had, Captain Vanguard! You'll never take me on the water again." ”

“ In the second floor of a shabby little house, a window stands as wide open as it can be propped by a bit of wood, and from that window, with a weary sigh, speaking volumes of patience, suffering, and sorrow, turns Miss Ross, to take her seat once more by the side of a low sofa-bed, and watch a toss of black curls, a little wan, pinched face, with a dull aching pain about her heart, that grows and strengthens as hope fades, and dies out, day by day. Poor Jin's own face has turned very white and thin too. Her features are sharpened, and the black eyes seem large, out of all proportion ”

“ It was bad grammar, but people are very obstinate about grammar in common conversation, particularly when they turn away their heads with a blush.
"Who?" repeated Mrs. Lascelles. "Why, this new admirer, of course. This hero, perhaps I ought rather to say, this Leander, this Windsor Bridge swan, this duck of a dragoon! Shall you be able to abide by our compact, and treat him like the rest? Jin, Jin, I should be sorry for you, my poor girl, very sorry, of course, but yet I should laugh, I am afraid, too, if you were to be caught at last, and fall in love—souse!—as you fell into the Thames!" ”

“ People are so different, you know, and Helen's is one of those deep, quiet, reserved natures that suffer awfully, though they suffer in silence. I think, Jin, between you and me, that Helen likes Somebody, and that Somebody would like her if it wasn't for Somebody else!"
Though almost sublime in its ambiguity, Miss Ross understood this "dark sentence" perfectly, and scorned to affect misconception of its purport.
"You mean Captain Vanguard!" She came out with his name in a burst of defiance. "Well, how can I help that?"
"Oh, Jin, as you are strong be merciful!" pleaded Mrs. Lascelles. ”

“ If I cared two straws for a fellow, and he did as you've done, I'd never speak to him again! There!"
The whip was again dropped on the pony, and they shaved the wheels of an omnibus to an inch.
"Don't take it so to heart, Kate!" laughed Frank. "If I have deserted you, I'll come back again. You know, Miss Cremorne, that you are the only woman I ever loved, and all that. Fate has been obdurate; but rather would I be torn with wild——"
"Will you be serious?" demanded the fair charioteer, knitting her brows, and looking intensely austere. "Do you know where I am driving you now?" ”

“ Young hearts are sadly impatient of sorrow. Like young horses first put in harness, they are given to fret and bounce, and dash at any distraction which serves to divert their thoughts from the collar and the curb. Frank felt in no mood for self-communing to-night; but he was well disposed to snatch at any gratification the hour could afford. As the champagne mounted to his brain, Helen's pale, proud image faded into distance, and Jin's black eyes seemed to chain him in their spells. ”

“ But a pair of lynx-eyes had been watching Helen's movements; a keen and busy brain was working eagerly to account for every change in the girl's demeanour, from the first flush of pleasure with which she read her letters to the buoyant step and joyous air with which she re-entered the drawing-room after depositing their answers in the box. Miss Ross knew well enough that a communication from Goldthred was insufficient to produce this unusual agitation, and a keen instinct of jealousy whispered that Helen's other letter must be from Frank Vanguard. ”

“ After a bottle of sound claret, it was not to be expected that a man should enact "his grandsire cut in alabaster" in such company. Goldthred, armed with a flat hat and a coffee-cup, advanced in tolerably good order to the attack.
It was a fine night even in London. The moon sailed broad and bright in a clear, fathomless sky. The very gas-lamps, studding street and square, through the flickering leaves of spring flashed out a diabolical enchantment of their own, half revelry, half romance. The scent of geraniums and mignionette stole with a soft, intoxicating fragrance on the rebellious senses ”

“ Arriving at this conclusion, and the end of his cigar, he was aware of a light step on the lawn, a rustle of muslin skirts trailing across the sward,—a familiar sound, to which, I fear, Sir Henry's ear turned, as turns the charger's to the trumpet call, the hunter's to the well-known challenge of a "find." Miss Ross, carrying a plateful of strawberries, bent over him, a world of mirth and mischief gleaming in her bright black eyes.
"You take life very easily, Sir Henry," said she, looking down on his recumbent figure with a sort of sarcastic admiration. ”

“ I haven't a friend in the world—I never did have a woman friend; if I had—well, it's no use thinking of that now. Never mind; I'll tell you every thing, because—because I fancy I can guess something, and you ought to know. Have you ever seen Miss Hallaton, Helen Hallaton?—a girl with black eye-brows, and a face like an old Greek bas-relief. Well, I was to be Helen's companion;—does that surprise you? If you were a widower, Mrs. Lascelles, and had daughters, am I the sort of person you would engage as their companion? ”

“ You know you are one of the most taking creatures in the world if you only try. Look at Uncle Joseph, look at even Mr. Goldthred, though I consider him the truest of the true. Look at Sir Henry. To be sure, it's no compliment from him, for he's the same to everybody. Look at all the men who come near us. You needn't even take the trouble of shooting, like Mr. Picard's American colonel and his squirrel—down they come at once. Can't you let this squirrel alone? Can't you leave him to Helen, dear? Everybody will be so pleased, and I should be so much obliged to you, Jin, if you would! ”

“ Parties of pleasure cannot always be equally pleasant to everybody concerned. Miss Ross, too, seemed out of spirits and pre-occupied; less gracious to Goldthred, less confiding with Mrs. Lascelles, less susceptible to the attentions of Uncle Joseph himself. Jin, as she was now called in her own set, sank back among the cushions, buried in strange, sad memories, that made her unconscious of the noise, the dust, the glare, the confusion of tongues, the crush of carriages, all the charms of the expedition. ”

“ She stole a glance—it was well he did not observe it—at the hated form of the man by her side, and all the masculine part of her nature rebelled in the remembrance of its former thraldom. The thought of Frank Vanguard's open brow, of his loving eyes, his manly, kindly smile, and feminine instincts of tender generosity, rose strong within her as she turned scornfully from the suggestion that he, her own, who had chosen her so nobly, so chivalrously, should be at the mercy of such a man as Picard. "No!" thought Jin, walking on very fast, and hugging Gustave tighter than ever to her breast. ”

“ It is well for man and woman too to have known a deep, engrossing, and sincere affection; so elevating as to have ennobled their existence with its lustre, so strong as to have swept all rivalry from its path, so prosperous that they have never been driven to seek in paltry imitations some fictitious solace for its loss.
Sir Henry Hallaton had been twice married; first, in his early youth, when he became the victim of one of those women happily rare in our English society, who literally go about seeking whom they may devour. ”

“ Two or three large drops fell on the sleeves of her habit, then came a squall and a driving shower, such as wets the best broadcloth through and through in less than five minutes. Even the good horse shook his ears in mute protest; and Mrs. Lascelles was fain to sidle him under the hedge, cowering for as much shelter as could be got from the ivy-covered stem of a stunted pollard tree.
People have different ideas of pleasure. For some, the most uncomfortable incidents of the chase borrow a charm from the seductive pursuit to which they are unavoidable drawbacks. ”

“ For ease, merriment, and good-fellowship, give me the habitation of the dragoon; but when you talk of pomp, luxury, taste, and refinement, I am prepared to back the duchess, ay, even though she be a dowager duchess, against all the cavalry regiments in the Army List, and give you the Horse Artillery in!
Let us take, for example, the room in which Frank Vanguard lies fast asleep, at ten in the morning, though a summer sun, streaming through the open window, bathes him, like a male Danaë, in floods of gold. ”