Aimée

“ After the first emotion of surprise and admiration, she feared to see the stranger land who appeared to be so very gallant. "Everything informs me of the love of an unknown admirer," said Aimée to herself; "but I feel that the Prince of the Pleasant Island is alone worthy to inspire me with that sentiment which I too plainly perceive is entertained for me by another. Fatal portrait!" she exclaimed; "why did destiny present it to my view at a time when, so far from defending myself from its influence, I was even ignorant that it was possible to love anything more tenderly than flowers." ”

“ Aimée, that frail white rose of a girl, in her bonds of terror....
He saw the flame in Aziza's eyes. He saw the stiffening of her defiance, of half-incredulous affront. Then, her form drawn up, her bared arms outflung, her vivid, painted, furious face challenging him. "I am not beautiful—like Aimée?" she said in a voice of venom, and in the English, for double measure, "You not like me—no?"
"You are beautiful and I do like you," Ryder combated, feeling a bungling fool. And then went on to thrust into that half-second of suspended fury, a faint breath of appeasing. ”

“ Aimee looked at Iddo with an expression that the girl did not quite understand.
"What are you thinking of?" she asked.
"I was thinking how much more I respected the pilgrims who are not ashamed of their King and their Country," said Aimee.
"Oh!" said Iddo, "I am afraid you despise me, I could not bear to think that."
"Well, my dear, don't think of it! See, the game is beginning again. Notwithstanding your lack of courage, there is something about you that I like; come, they are looking for you." ”

“ He felt again the tightening of his nerves, like quivering wires, as he crossed the violated reception room and entered the boudoir. It was empty, but on the divan the flickering candle light revealed the damp, spreading stain where Aimée's drenched satins had been. ”

“ Isola was loud and stubborn in her Cevenol patois. Mademoiselle (so she still called my wife) was perfect. What would I? Did I wish to freeze the warm southern blood in her veins, and teach her the cunning and caution of the cold-hearted northerners? Had not Aimée’s father and mother, each in dying, committed their darling to her care, and no power in heaven or earth would induce her to betray the trust. ”

“ She carried upon her shoulder a mace of iron, of a terrible weight; and as she looked carefully on all sides, she must have seen the Prince and Princess, had they not been at that moment in the thickest part of a wood. "The matter is hopeless," said Aimée, weeping; "here comes the cruel Tourmentine, whose sight chills my blood: she is more cunning than Ravagio. If either of us speak to her, she will know us, and eat us up without more ado. Our trial will be soon over, as you may imagine." "Love, Love, do not abandon us!" ”

“ And Aimee had married another and sought the Australian shore.
She must have thought I was dead, Heaven help me, betwixt us ocean's roar.
I have sometimes wondered if gold is ever aught but a curse,
No, that's wrong--if honestly gained, no harm in a well filled purse,
But I often think of the little home standing there by the sea,
For far off merry England, the home planned for Aimee and me. ”

“ Marie-Aimée swept her hand across her forehead. "And I," she continued, raising her voice in a tone of plaintive exculpation, "I was born mad for music! A voice has power over me like a spell. And I am flesh and blood! And so——" she ended feebly, "do you wonder?"
Silence, while Marie-Aimée turned her face wholly from the light. But even while she made application of her little damp pocket-handkerchief, a stealing sense warmed her in all her woe that she had somehow made a friend of Miss Cheriton. ”

“ Marie-Aimée said earnestly. "Your quarrel is with his whole manner of being. One must take him as he is."
"Yes! And whatever he is is to be enough, so he thinks in his calm Jovian babyhood. How could he but satisfy any woman? How should any but feel honored to be his servant and worshipper? the great, heavy, self-pleased, all-sufficient Male!" ”

“ It gives the tender Aimee a dull ache of the heart. A lone feeling of helplessness overwhelms her, as fears rise up for her poor love that, in so short a space, has become the one sweet thing in life. True, she herself is a Bourbon! But with the bar sinister. How then shall she, obscure and poor and by the left hand, hope to sustain herself in the heart of her lover against the wiles and siren wooings of one who is at once the most legitimate, the most beautiful, and the most wealthy woman in France! ”

“ In uttering these words he took hold of the little Bee, whom he never ceased gazing upon. "Thou shalt be satisfied," answered the generous Trufio. She recommenced her ceremonies, and the Princess Aimée appeared with so many charms that there was not one of the ladies who was not envious of her. Linda hesitated within herself, whether she ought to be pleased or vexed at so extraordinary an adventure; and, particularly, at the metamorphose of the Bee. ”

“ And go on with Tod's pinafores and dresses, my dear, and don't be discouraged if they are a failure at first,—though to my eyes that dress is a most sumptuous affair. And as to being like Aimée, you cannot be like any one better and wiser and sweeter than that same little maiden. ”

“ I'd strangle Love tho' Life by Love were slain,
Saying, O Soul, Death were the nobler choice,
For ill is Love when shared twixt partners twain.'"
"You are fond of your poets," said Aimée with stiff lips. ”

“ Ah, if I were alone, I should not care for my life; but yours, my dear mistress, is threatened." "I am hopeless, if the wand will not aid us," added Aimée, weeping. "I wish," said she, "in the name of the royal fairy, Trufio, that our camel may become a pond, that the Prince may be a boat, and myself an old woman, who is rowing it." Immediately, the pond, the boat, and the old woman were there, and Ravagio arrived at the water's edge. "Hola, ho! old mother," he cried, "have you seen a camel, and a young man and woman, pass by here?" ”

“ Well, Dan, I am an egotistical aggravating fellow, and I daresay you have more insight than I have. I am really a good deal puzzled about Aimée Le Breton. She talked like a woman who had both education and intellect to-day. I wonder if her mother’s melancholy preyed upon her, and reflected itself in a curious way, so as to mislead people in her earlier days? You know—or perhaps you don’t know—that in the prairie doctors’ opinions are but rarely asked or obtained. It may be that in new and better surroundings the girl has awakened to her real self. ”

“ She would admit the ball.... She would never admit the young man....
With conscious eyes and flushing cheeks, woefully aware of dew-drenched satin slippers and an upsettingly hammering heart, Aimée presented the young image of irresolute confusion.
To her surprise there was no outburst. Her father was suddenly gay and smiling, with a flow of pleasant phrases that invited her affection. In his good humor—and Tewfick Pasha liked always to be kept in good humor—he had touches of that boyish charm that had made him the enfant gâté of Paris and Vienna as well as Cairo and Constantinople. ”

“ Queen Aimee wept for a while but as she loved the genius she was not inconsolable; indeed, she promptly consented to wed him. The king of the genii granted to her as a wedding present the power of participating in all the privileges of her husband: never to die, never to grow old and the ability to transport herself in the twinkling of an eye wherever she wished to go. Aimee used this power very often to visit her son and his children.
King Marvellous and Queen Violette had eight sons and four daughters and they were all charming. ”

“ The sorceress began with shuffling tones and glances, which grew more sure as she went on:
"I watched for the little one returning on the afternoon of Sunday—he told me to do so. I was to give her the message that Antoine desired to meet with her at the entrance of the Dwarf's Valley: I had but to give the message: it was not my fault. I am but a poor old woman that does the bidding of others."
"Well, well," said Aimée, impatiently, "what else did you tell her?" ”

“ Meredith; and there is surely not much to harm Aimée in one person’s knowledge. Percy Joscelyn suspects something—you may remember that he found you with Aimée on that awfully unlucky day—but he does not know anything. ”

“ At last! The older women were going. Not even for a wedding would they deeply infringe upon that rule which keeps the Moslem women indoors after the sun has set. Ceremoniously each made to the bride her adieux and good wishes, and ceremoniously a frantically impatient Aimée returned the formal thanks due for "assistance at the humble fête."
She did not see that black mantle anywhere.
Her heart sank. Stupid, she told herself with quivering lips, to dream that he could dare to linger, that he had any way to get her out. By help he meant no more than getting letters to France for her.... ”

“ She nodded mysteriously, and beckoned.
"Come," she whispered, catching up her candle, and after holding it high for a moment, staring at him, she extinguished it suddenly, and turned to lead the cautious way across the stone spaces while Ryder closely followed.
Not Aimée, then. But some messenger, he could only suppose. Some confidante, at need. A handmaid? The whisper of her silks, the remembered gleam of jewels in the henna hair flouted that thought, and not troubling his ingenuity with alternatives he was content to follow her swift steps. ”

“ CHAPTER XVIII AZIZA IS OFFENDED
This was no emissary from Aimée. This was no philanthropic bystander. It was some girl of the palace, jealous and daring, conspiring shrewdly for the removal of her rival.
"Take her away," she was saying urgently. "Out of this palace. We want no brides here." Lowering and sullen, she turned bitter on the word.
"To-night, I was watching," she went on swiftly. "I heard—the noise—and then the whispering.... The darkness has ears and eyes—and a tongue. ”

“ As Wilde says: “The simplest thing is a joy when it is secret!”
The one fly in the amber, so to speak, was Aimée. She was always on the spot, and as ubiquitous as only a baby less than a year old can be. True, Mrs Stannard commanded the services of a nurse-boy called September, but the latter was mostly busy with the pots and pans, and Aimée preferred the society of her mother or, failing that, of Bettington. ”

“ He thought of that family in France in whose name he had urged his interference. That unknown Delcassé aunt who had sent out her agents for her lost heirs—would she welcome and endow this lovely girl?
He could not doubt it.... Aimée's youth and beauty would be treasure trove to a jaded lonely woman with money to invest in futures. Aimée would be a belle, an heiress.... ”

“ She knows them when they walk among men, and she knows them in their homes in the dark valley."
"Chut, chut," cried Aimée, the more irritably that her maternal feelings had to overcome her natural inclination to superstition. "It is only one thing you have to tell—how did you frighten Marie so that she is ready to go out of her wits at the sight of Antoine?"
"Nay, it was Geoffroi that frightened her, as they went up the ravine together. I had but told her not to go alone, for that They were abroad that night." The old woman broke into a curious chuckle. ”

“ But while the family council was thus laying plans for keeping Aimée and her old acquaintance apart, Fortune, which sometimes takes up weapons and fights for those who have neither heart nor power to fight for themselves, had most unexpectedly brought them together. ”

“ You are the son of King Ferocious and the queen Aimee, concealed till now under the appearance of a modest farmer woman. The name of your father sufficiently indicates his character. Your mother having prevented him from killing his brother Indolent and his sister-in-law Nonchalante, he turned his rage against her. ”

“ Nothing is known of the female saint, Amata, or Aimée, but that the people of Northern France used to honour her, and she had namesakes in old French pedigrees, so that there can be little doubt that Norman families brought in the pretty simple Amy that has never been entirely disused, and has been a frequent peasant name in the West of England. St. Amatus, or Amé, was about the end of the seventh century a hermit in the Valais, and afterwards became Bishop of Sion, and was persecuted by one of the Merovingian kings. ”

“ I began to grow, and my health was pretty good. Sister Marie-Aimée said that she was proud of me. She used to squeeze me so tight when she kissed me that she sometimes hurt me. Then she would say, putting her fingers on my forehead, "My little girl; my little child." During recreation I often used to sit near her, and listen to her reading. ”

“ Almost every one has had occasion to learn more than once in life the extreme difficulty of keeping all trace of strong feeling out of the voice. Kyrle was conscious of being somewhat exasperated with himself and Fate, as he uttered the last words, and naturally the inflection of his tone betrayed the feeling. Aimée glanced at him quickly—involuntarily, it appeared—and in the light of that glance there suddenly flashed upon him an understanding of what interpretation she might give to his words. ”

“ Her delicate frame was convulsed with nervous quiverings, and her faint breathing painfully issued from her heaving chest.
"Poor girl!" the chief murmured.
"Why, chief!" said the Linda, with a sardonic smile. "I scarcely know you! Good Heavens! how love can change a man! What, you, intrepid warrior, pity the fate of this poor maudlin chit! I really believe you will weep over her like a woman, next!"
"Yes," the chief said; "my sister speaks truly, I scarcely know myself! Oh!" he added, bitterly, "is it possible that I, Antinahuel, to whom the Huincas have done so much wrong, can be so? ”