Amélie

“ Amélie could not but look admiringly on the beauty of the radiant girl. “How handsome you have grown! but you were always that. We both took the crown of honor together, but you would alone take the crown of beauty, Angélique.” Amélie stood off a pace or two, and looked at her friend from head to foot with honest admiration, “and would deserve to wear it too,” added she. ”

“ But Amélie knew human nature too well to press her advantage at such a moment; she smiled, shook her finger threateningly, and went her way down the hill, leaving the two young men less triumphant than she had found them, and very anxious to clear themselves of having broken their word to a lady, and eager to redeem it a second time if Amélie desired. ”

“ Amelie, sweet, modest flower that she is, pays her vows to Our Lady of St. Foye, Pierre his to Amelie! I will be bound, dame, there is no saint in the calendar so holy in his eyes as herself!"
"Nor deserves to be, master! Theirs is no ordinary affection. If love be the fulfilling of the law, all law is fulfilled in these two, for never did the elements of happiness mingle more sweetly in the soul of a man and a woman than in Pierre and Amelie!"
"It will restore your youth, dame, to live with Pierre and Amelie," replied the Bourgeois. ”

“ Amélie is always breathlessly eager to attain her object, and distressed at the hindrances which hold her back. How pitiful that difficulties so contemptible and vulgar should be raised in order to turn aside the flight of this poor soul from the heavenly Bridegroom! ”

“ No real mother, she reflected, could love more deeply than she this child. Evening fell upon the grim castle and shadows darkened the Marquise's boudoir. Amélie, folding Baby's hands bade him pray, after which she placed him in bed. She barricaded the doors by drawing pieces of furniture against them and prepared to pass the night in vigil. ”

“ Amélie rose up in honest indignation, her cheek burning like a coal of fire. “I know your wild talk of old, Angélique, but I will not believe you are so wicked as to make deadly sport of our holiest affections.”
“Ah, if you knew men as I do, Amélie, you would think it no sin to punish them for their perjuries.”
“No, I don't know men,” replied Amélie, “but I think a noble man is, after God, the worthiest object of a woman's devotion. We were better dead than finding amusement in the pain of those who love us ”

“ Amélie's eyes were suffused with tears: it was in her heart, if ever in any mortal's, to love her enemies.
“Oh, we cared for them the best we could. The Baron de St. Castin sheltered them in his château for the winter, and his daughter devoted herself to them with the zeal and tenderness of a saint from Heaven—a noble, lovely girl, Amélie!” added La Corne, impressively; “the fairest flower in all Acadia, and most unfortunate, poor girl! God's blessing rest upon her, wherever she may be!” ”

“ If she be bad, and her beauty is simply used as a lure, the world is the worse for it.
Either for good or evil, the power of Lady Amelie was great, for a more royally beautiful woman had seldom been seen. She was the very ideal of glowing, luxurious loveliness, and her beauty was perhaps the least of her charms. She had that wonderful gift of fascination which makes even a plain woman irresistible. Allied to beauty so wondrous as hers, it was fatal.
It is morning, and Lady Amelie, fresh and radiant as a June rose, is in her boudoir, an exquisite little room, hung with pink silk and white lace ”

“ Now you look something like human girls," she said gaily. "Run and have a beautiful time. Ah, Amélie, you little fairy! They will all be on their knees to you to-night. Where is Enid?"
"Nowhere near dressed, and she won't hurry," Amélie explained. "Oh, I am so excited, I shall die! What if no one asks me to dance!"
"Silly!" Mrs. Baldwin laughed. "I am only afraid of your dancing yourself to death. Ah, Mrs. Merritt, how good of you to come with your dear girls! ”

“ The wife of an honest man is a more suitable position for your station—"
"Is this a nightmare?" cried Amélie. Then with supreme disdain, she added, "Not even René, himself, could obtain from me what you propose. My life is in your hands, the life of the woman whom your son loves. But my will you cannot conquer. Drag me to the altar I will say no with my last breath."
The Duchess seemed taken aback at the emphasis with which the refusal was spoken. She revealed her true character, that of a pompous impertinent woman, performing awkwardly an assigned role. ”

“ Against our mother's judgment, had our father confided the project to his brother, who advised that the iniquitous Valory, a creature possessed body and soul by the Count of Provence, should be entrusted with the details of the flight.
A program was mapped out whose happy exit seemed assured. To what purpose all the minute precautions? Why was I disguised as a girl and told I should say my name was 'Amélie,' were I asked: Amélie, a name to me eternal and which I have given to the daughter of my soul. Reflect, Thérèse, upon that sinister journey, and decide who profited thereby. ”

“ Amélie, dear, you look tired; I am afraid you have had too much gaiety this afternoon."
"Oh, I love it! It's the breath of life to me," said [Pg 1978] Amélie rapturously. The twins again exchanged solemn looks and sat down to their tea in silence. Mrs. Baldwin attacked them peevishly at intervals; she was cross at Enid also, who had not kept Harry to supper, and preserved an indifferent silence under questioning. "When I was your age—!" was the burden of her speech.
"I must give a dance for you young people," she decided. "You need livening up." ”

“ There shall be one man in the world who knows the true god from the false. Some woman shall be glad through my pain. Some day, when a woman loves my Bobby, she shall be able to say: 'This is my beloved and this is my friend!'"
Sue glanced quickly at her, but her expression was wholly unconscious. She was not thinking of Amaldi in that moment. She was only thinking that love to be real, to be perfect, to be lasting must include friendship, comradeship, understanding, mutual endeavour. ”

“ Emsworth could find no use for, yet he gave her very honestly another way of love: he gave her very strong and honest affection; he gave her immense admiration; he gave her as much, for he was of ardent nature, as many men have ever felt. All the chords of his lyre sounded for her. But once there had been another chord; that he could not give her, for it was gone.
Consequently, when he wondered whether continuous contact with American milieu might not prove absolutely intolerable, he did not include in his misgivings his continuous contact with Amelie. ”

“ Emily!—Emily!—how I love to repeat and to linger over that beautiful name! If to see, to address, and, more than all, to touch you, has been a rapture, what word can I find in the vocabulary of happiness to express the realisation of that hope which now burns within me—to mingle our youth together into one stream, wheresoever it flows; to respire the same breath; to be almost blent in the same existence; to grow, as it were, on one stem, and knit into a single life the feelings, the wishes, the being of both! ”

“ Dead leaves occasionally, loosened by the fitful wind, fell, turning slowly in their descent, now between the startled ears of Pokeberry, themselves most leaf-like, now upon Virginia’s skirt or hat, as she sat wordless, listlessly supporting the reins upon her knee. ”

“ One cannot stand face to face with genuine love without feeling a stir in chords long dumb. Loring's young, idealising passion had set certain strings in Sophy's nature vibrating. It gave her that sensation of aching melancholy with which we listen to the faint notes of an old piano that was rich and mellow in our youth. ”

“ You are beautiful, Miss Wildenhaim.—Upon my honour, I think so. I have travelled, and seen much of the world, and yet I can positively admire you.
Amelia.
I am sorry I have not seen the world.
Count.
Wherefore?
Amelia.
Because I might then, perhaps, admire you.
Count.
True;—for I am an epitome of the world. In my travels I learnt delicacy in Italy—hauteur, in Spain—in France, enterprize—in Russia, prudence—in England, sicerity—in Scotland, frugality—and in the wilds of America, I learnt love.
Amelia.
Is there any country where love is taught? ”

“ And Amis said to the pilgrim, had he seen or heard tidings in any land of Amile, son of the Count of Alverne. And the pilgrim answered him all marvelling: “Who art thou, Knight, who thus mockest a pilgrim? Thou seemest to me that Amile who this day asked of me if I had seen Amis his fellow. I wot not for why thou hast changed thy garments, thy folk, thine horses, and thine arms. Thou askest me now what thou didst ask me to-day about tierce; and thou gavest me this coat.”
“Trouble not thine heart,” said Amis, “I am not he whom thou deemest; but I am Amis who seeketh Amile.” ”

“ Green marsh lands spread in gentle melancholy beneath. Suddenly two orange sails in sunlight unfurled their burning petals against the green. And these great, burning sail-petals, drifting slowly along hidden waterways across the sad, green reaches, lent a thrill as of the passionate mystery of the sea to the tranquil inland.
There was more pain than joy for Sophy in this beauty. One should first see Venice with first love in one's heart, not third love, she told herself bitterly. And she was glad that she had written Amaldi not to meet her. ”

“ Anthony has a trick of running between the limbs of youth, no matter how cleanly—indeed, he seems to take an evil joy in tripping the cleanliest, if only once. It was these chance tumbles into the mire that scalded Loring's heart with shame, as he knelt now at the white shrine of his lady. He would have liked to have a new body as well as a new soul to love her with. ”

“ And now, Emilie, we must not forget to put a little fence around the lake and on the border of the river. Great God! if our child should—
“You see, Emilie, as I know your heart, this fear will not appear exaggerated to you. It will not make you smile. No, no, but tears will fill your eyes. Oh, is not that true? is it not? I know you so well!
“Is there an emotion of your heart to which I am a stranger? But tell me, how have I deserved so much love? What have I done so good, so great, that Heaven should recompense me thus? ”

“ Sophy started for Le Vigne about ten o'clock. She took Luigi with her to run the launch—he was fortunately cleverer as a meccanico than as a valet. The sky was coloured like blue morning-glories, and the lake like gentian. Clouds and foam dissolved on the great sheets of blue like snow melting upon flame. But the beauty of the day seemed cruel to Sophy. It was like the laughter of water in sunlight above the place where a ship has foundered. Camenis had happened to mention the fact that Amaldi was in Milan, else she could not have gone for that farewell visit, onerous as she felt it to be. ”

“ Her life with Morris Loring was as past as though they had lived it in another age, on another planet. She knew that she would be inflexible. Her mood might soften, pity might rise murmuring. She, herself—her very self of self—would never change—could not change indeed. It was her inmost being—her realest self—that had locked thus vise-like.
Had she desired to with all her might she could not have dragged it open. One may not love, or hate, or even be wroth at will. ”

“ She began to feel that there was a stranger within her—a woman she had never known. Some one wild and shy and spun of moonbeams—a sort of fairy-Sophy that this ecstatic youth was moulding out of dream-stuff—that was coming into ensorceled life under his touch as Galatea softened from marble into flesh under the caresses of Pygmalion.... ”

“ But this writing was not yet clear to Sophy. She toiled through the hot, clogging sands, and what was traced upon them seemed to her only the wanton hieroglyphics of the wind ... the wild wind that blew men and women hither and thither like rootless stalks. Yet she believed in this vaster and more splendid meaning that Life kept hidden, under all its dark pranks and sardonic jesting. She imagined Life, in those days, as a huge, Afrit clown, under whose motley is secreted the Seal of Solomon. ”

“ Notwithstanding the little clouds piled up by suspicion and created by curiosity, a light of joy shone in Emilie’s soul, for she found life delicious when thus intimately connected with another than herself. She began to understand the relations of life. Whether it is that happiness makes us better, or that she was too fully occupied to torment other people, she became less caustic, more gentle, and indulgent. This change in her temper enchanted and amazed her family. ”

“ As in a pale shadow-play, she saw her shadow-self, repeating the rôle that she had once enacted in a more vivid drama—the rôle of wife to a man whom she had ceased to love, but towards whom she felt a compassionate affection. ”

“ AMELIA. How I envy your Amelia!
CHARLES. Oh, she is an unhappy maid. Her love is fixed upon one who is lost—and it can never—never be rewarded.
AMELIA. Say not so! It will be rewarded in heaven. Is it not agreed that there is a better world, where mourners rejoice, and where lovers meet again?
CHARLES. Yes, a world where the veil is lifted—where the phantom love will make terrible discoveries—Eternity is its name. My Amelia is an unhappy maid. ”

“ Anhalt.
Are you of opinion that she will never fall in love?
Baron.
Oh! no. I am of opinion that no woman ever arrived at the age of twenty without that misfortune.—But this is another subject.—Go to Amelia—explain to her the duties of a wife and of a mother.—If she comprehends them, as she ought, then ask her if she thinks she could fulfil those duties, as the wife of Count Cassel. ”

“ A woman fully developed, heart and body full of the South from bright head to nimble feet, as the South is full of beauty; free as the birds that cleaved her native air with strong, untiring wings; unlearned in all emotion whether of love or of hate ”