Various

“ But he loved her—he loved her: daily with more passion, because daily holding a stronger check on himself, and so accumulating by concentration. It was the old combat between love and reason, personal desires and social feelings, and as yet it was undecided which side would win. Now it was Adelaide and her exact suitability for her part, when he would avoid Leam Dundas for days; now it was Leam and his fervid love for her, his passion of doubt, his fever of longing, when he would all but commit himself and tempt the fortune of the future irrevocably. ”

“ As the afternoon draws on a chill mist creeps over the hills and provokingly blots out the coast, which gets more beautiful every league we go. I wanted to remain up and see the light on the bluff just outside Port d'Urban, but a heavy shower drove me down to my wee cabin before ten o'clock. Soon after midnight the rolling of the anchor-chains and the sudden change of motion from pitching and jumping to the old monotonous roll told us that we were once more outside a bar, with a heavy sea on, and that there we must remain until the tug came to fetch us. ”

“ Miss Elliott's eyes flashed with a sudden impulse, and the color deepened on her cheek as she eagerly asked, "Would you carry so poor a little flag as a Carolina girl can present to you? Many a good knight has gone into battle with no richer standard than a lady's scarf."
"If Miss Elliott will honor my command by entrusting her kerchief to its keeping, I swear to fly it in the face of Tarleton's Legion and defend it to the last drop of my blood."
"Then let this be your flag," cried the noble girl with a burst of enthusiasm which echoed that which rung in Colonel Washington's tones. ”

“ One day, when inspired by choice wine and soothed by the fragrant fumes of his tschibuq, Mirza-Schaffy was moved to tell of the love his heart had cherished—love such as man had never before known. The object of his adoration was Zuléikha, daughter of Ibrahim, the chan of Gjändsha. Her eyes, darker than the night, shone with a brighter glow than the stars of heaven: passing description were the graceful loveliness of her form, the dainty perfection of hands and feet, her soft hair long as eternity, and the sweet mouth whose breath was more fragrant than the roses of Schiraz. ”

“ Not that she understood all this or ever should, but it gave him courage.
"When you first saw me, Leam, after my illness you said that you wanted me to live," he began in a low voice, husky with emotion. "Do you mean this?"
"Yes," she said, looking straight before her.
"Live for you?" he asked.
"For us all," she answered.
"No, not for us all—for you," he returned with insistence.
[pg 353] "That would be silly," said Leam quietly. "I am not the only person in the world: you have your mother."
"For my mother, perhaps; but for the world, nothing. You are the world to me," said Alick. ”

“ Leam replied.
"I hope not against your will and not to your displeasure," said Edgar, still looking down into her face with the man's admiration of a woman's beauty so strongly marked in his own.
"No," she answered: "I have liked it."
"Let us take her between us, major, and give her a good spin," said Alick, grasping the upper part of her arm uncomfortably.
Edgar slightly pressed the hand he held crosswise. "Would you like to double your protectors?" he asked. "Shall I share my office?"
"No," said Leam. "I like best to be with one person only." ”

“ Edgar laughed. The vein of cruelty traversing his nature made him find more amusement than chagrin in Adelaide's patent jealousy: he thought she was silly, and he was rather amazed at her want of dignity; still, it was amusing, and he enjoyed it as so much fun.
But when he laughed Leam's discomfiture was complete. "I am sorry I came on the ice at all," she said with a mixture of her old pride and new softness that made her infinitely lovely, the proud little head held high, but the beautiful eyes dewy. "I have offended every one, and I do not know why." Just then Alick came rambling by. ”

“ The fever, while it had confined itself to the ill-drained, picturesque little cottages below, was lamentable enough, but not more than lamentable on the broad platform of a common humanity; and those who had lost nothing told those who had lost all that they must bear their cross with patience, seeing that it was the divine will that it should be so. Now, when the fiery epidemic had come upon the gentry face to face in their homes, it was a monster from which they must flee without delay, for no one knew whose house was safe, nor for how long his own might remain uninfected. ”

“ Why cannot you do as others do?" cried Mr. Dundas.
He wanted to get rid of her for a while, and he was not unwilling that Alick, whose affection he suspected, should rid him of her for ever if he cared to saddle himself for life with such an uncomfortable companion.
"I do not like it," repeated Leam.
"Nonsense!" said her father again. "Other girls are on. Why should you not join them? I see Adelaide Birkett and the Fairbairns. Why not go to them with Alick?"
"It looks silly balancing one's self on the edge of a knife. And I should fall," said Leam.
"No, you shall not fall," Alick pleaded. ”

“ Look at the Florence and all the other vessels. Still at it, see-saw, backward and forward, roll, roll, roll! How thankful we all are to have escaped a long day of sickening, monotonous motion! But there is the getting on board to be accomplished, for the brave little tug dare not come too near to her big sister steamboat or she would roll over on her. So we signal for a boat, and quickly the largest which the Florence possesses is launched and manned—no easy task in such a sea, but accomplished in the smartest and most seamanlike fashion. ”

“ From the deck of the Edinburgh Castle the effect is monotonous enough, although just now everything is brightly green; and, with their long ribbon fringe of white breaker-foam glinting in the spring sunshine, the stretches of undulating hillocks looked their best. This part of the coast is well lighted, and it was always a matter of felicitation at night when, every eighty miles or so, the guiding rays of a lighthouse shone out in the soft gloom of the starlight night. ”

“ There is a time for everything, even for forgetting, and for being happy after sorrow."
"Never a time for me to forget mamma, nor to be happy," said Leam.
"Why not?" answered Mrs. Corfield in her impatient way. "You are young, nice-looking, in tolerably good health, but you are black round your eyes to-day. You have friends: I am sure all of us, from my husband downward, think a great deal of you. And Alick has always been your friend. Why should you not be happy?" ”

“ It was the moral arbitrariness of the superior being, which, amusing now in the maiden, might become wearisome, not to say oppressive, in the wife.
"Well, I do not know her as you do, of course, but I cannot see why you should dislike her so much," persisted Edgar.
"Trust me, some day it will be seen why," she answered. "I feel confident that before long Leam will show herself in her true colors, and those will be black. I pity the man who will ever be her husband." ”

“ If the one, he felt bound by self-respect to overcome it—that self-respect which a man of his temperament puts into his successes with women; if the other, he must enlighten it. "Does it not please you to talk of those you like?" he asked after a short pause.
"Yes," said Leam, her face suddenly softening into tenderness as she thought of her mother; of whom Edgar did not think. ”

“ The ordinary weather along this coast is something frightful, and the great reputation of our little Florence is built on the method in which she rides dry and safe as a duck among these stormy waters. Now that we are close to "fair Natal," the country opens out and improves in beauty. There are still the same sloping, rolling downs, but higher downs rise behind them, and again beyond are blue and purpling hills. Here and there, too, are clusters of fat, dumpy haystacks, which in reality are no haystacks at all, but Kafir kraals. ”

“ Like Paris? Of course I do—heartily and truly. Cold indeed must the heart be that does not find space in its depths for a true affection for the fair queen-city which welcomes all strangers so kindly and hospitably, which has a smile for all, and which at the wide banquet of her bounty sets forth food for every phase of mental hunger. Do you wish to study? Her libraries lie open to your research—her monuments, her galleries, her public institutions are given to your inspection, freely and without price. Do you seek amusement? ”

“ With a wild yell, which drowned the regular cheer of the Englishmen, the men dashed after their brave and impetuous leader, who was ever the first to cross a sabre with the enemy. Rising in his stirrups as the gallant chestnut answered the spur, Walter Peyton looked backward at the men as he raised the light staff of his little banner and shook its folds to the breeze, and the next moment he was close by the side of his chief in the very thickest of the mêlée. ”