Daunt

“ Then as they passed Daunt Rock and, forming their scouting line, plunged into the head seas that swept their narrow decks, there came the test of the sailor’s morale. To learn to live and carry on in their cramped quarters, rolling, pitching, and thrashing about till it seemed as if neither flesh and blood nor steel could stand it any longer, while the cold, gray rollers, washing over the ship from stem to stern, chilled the very soul, was a feat that seemed to call for even more than human powers of adaptation. ”

“ If you, my dearest aunt, knew, as he knows, all the anxieties, or rather the terrors, I suffered during that agitating period of concealment—'
'Indeed, dear Madam,' said Mordaunt—or as we may now call him, Lord Dunoran—coming to the rescue, ''twas all my doing; on me alone rests all the blame. ”

“ She never can argue without coming to personalities. Besides, there never was another girl like you, my dear—I couldn't afford to take any chances."
"Away with your blarney, Ned! You know I'm right, though you won't admit it."
"Of course I won't. Daunt's not a woman's man. He never was. He's been getting along pretty well with Barbara, no doubt. But this man she's going [pg 321] to marry she's known for a year. The bishop told me about him the day after they landed. ”

“ Have you no nearer relations than an uncle and aunt?"
"I have no other relations whatever, my father and mother died before I was two years old, and I never had either brother or sister."
"That is sad," said the sisters, looking at each other, 'but still you have a home, and since you have no one else to look to, I suppose your uncle and aunt stand in the place of parents to you; could you not—" Janet stopped, she looked at the Baron and Baroness. It seemed really a waste of words to ask if anybody could love them. ”

“ The dearest of all my elderly relatives, is my mother's aunt—my Great-aunt Mary. I wish you could see her sitting in a corner of the fireplace, in a funny little black rocking-chair of hers, that is, no one knows how old, with a mosaic patch-work cover on the back, always busy with her knitting or sewing, and just the dearest, sweetest little old soul in the world; though she is my great aunt, I am so much larger and stronger, that I could, if I pleased, catch her up in my arms, and run all over the house with her, without her being able to help herself. ”

“ Niece. What, to burn Philocles, Artaxeres, Oroondates, and the rest of the heroic lovers, and take my country booby, cousin Humphry, for a husband!
Aunt. Oh dear, oh dear, Biddy! Pray, good dear, learn to act and speak like the rest of the world; come, come, you shall marry your cousin and live comfortably.
Niece. Live comfortably! What kind of life is that? A great heiress live comfortably! Pray, aunt, learn to raise your ideas—What is, I wonder, to live comfortably?
Aunt. To live comfortably is to live with prudence and frugality, as we do in Lombard Street. ”

“ Wealth, respect, and a family position are worth more than what you have lost. You wouldn't have been that fellow's wife long after my uncle's death, for I happen to know, through friends of his, that he intended to get rid of you. Come, my dear, let us understand each other, and live happily. You shall be my aunt, and nothing more than my aunt. You will take care that my uncle does not forget me in his will; on my side, you shall see how well I will have you treated in the marriage contract. ”

“ What has love to do with marriage, dear aunt? Love-marriages are so unmodish—'tis like plough-boy and dairy-wench—hugging and kissing—faugh, so vulgar and nauseous! Nay, aunt, I desire a marriage à la mode: 'Good-morrow to your ladyship, I trust your ladyship slept well?' A solemn bow, a kiss upon one extreme finger-tip!' O, excellently, sir, I hope you the same.' A smile and gracious curtsey—and so to breakfast. Now Major d'Arcy is a gentleman, rich, sufficiently handsome, and once a husband would be fairly easy to manage! ”

“ Millamant, Sir Wilfull.
SIR WIL. Aunt, your servant.
LADY. Out, caterpillar, call not me aunt; I know thee not.
SIR WIL. I confess I have been a little in disguise, as they say. ’Sheart! and I’m sorry for’t. What would you have? I hope I committed no offence, aunt—and if I did I am willing to make satisfaction; and what can a man say fairer? If I have broke anything I’ll pay for’t, an it cost a pound. And so let that content for what’s past, and make no more words. For what’s to come, to pleasure you I’m willing to marry my cousin. ”

“ I have no one in the world but my father and my aunt, to look to for protection. My father lies upstairs on a bed of sickness, and he has no one but myself to nurse him; and where my aunt is I know not. Oh! gentlemen, have pity on me, if not on my father;—he is my father, whatever evil he may have done. Spare him for my sake! Consider, squire Pendray, you have daughters of your own,—consider their feelings if placed in my situation. ”

“ During the four years and a-half of their married life there does not appear to have been a cloud upon their happiness. Mrs. Anderton's letters to her great aunt, Miss B—— (to whom I am indebted for almost the whole of the important information I have been able to collect respecting the family) are full of expressions of attachment to her husband and instances of his devotion to her. ”

“ Thank you, my dear aunt, for your most kind and touching letter. You have been for three months daily and hourly soothing, and indulging, and nursing me body and mind, and making me forget the sense of pain which I could not have felt suspended in any society but yours. My uncle's opinion and hints about the Life I have been working at this whole week. Nothing can be kinder than Lovell is to all of us. ”

“ Name the day, my dear aunt, which will be the least inconvenient if you can, and Molly or John Langan shall bring him in the old or new chaise to your door, where I hope he will not salute you with a cry, but if he does do not be surprised.
You see, my dear aunt, that I am in a great hurry by my writing, but no hurry, believe me, can drive out of my mind the remembrance of all the kindness I received at Black Castle. Oh, continue to love your niece; you cannot imagine the pleasure she felt when you kissed her, and said you loved her a thousand times better than ever you did before. ”

“ Pray, niece, forbear this idle trash, and talk like other people. Your cousin Humphry will be true and hearty in what he says, and that's a great deal better than the talk and compliment of romances.
Niece. Good madam, don't wound my ears with such expressions; do you think I can ever love a man that's true and hearty? What a peasant-like amour do these coarse words import! True and hearty! Pray, aunt, endeavour a little at the embellishment of your style.
Aunt. Alack-a-day, cousin Biddy, these idle romances have quite turned your head. ”

“ Aunt found consolation for all her sorrows in the family of her favourite sister. The promise of uncommon merit, which appeared in the rising branches of that singularly fine family, was to her a peculiar gratification; for no mother could love her own children more tenderly than she did them. The two daughters, which were amongst the eldest, passed, by turns, much of their time with her, and were, from their beauty and their manners, the ornaments of her society ”

“ Every old lady has a fancy for imagining possible marriages; but your aunt is a reasonable woman, and could not possibly object to your marrying a girl like Sheila?"
"Oh, couldn't she? Then you don't know her: 'Frank, my dear, what are the arms borne by your wife's family?' 'My dear aunt, I will describe them to you as becomes a dutiful nephew. The arms are quarterly: first and fourth, vert, a herring, argent; second and third, azure, a solan-goose, volant, or. The crest, out of a crown vallery, argent, a cask of whisky, gules. ”

“ Her aunt had been steadily pursuing a scheme which had been busy in her brain since the first unlooked for recognition of her sister’s long lost child, which was the union of her eldest son, Sir Frederic, to his beautiful cousin, and thus preserve undivided the family estate. Poor Ally little dreamed of the snares that were laid for her. The kindness of her aunt won her gentle, affectionate heart to implicit obedience, and her handsome cousin, possessed of every art of pleasing—beauty, rank, wealth, grace, (few could resist their united influence,) moved her by every loving device. ”

“ Aunt Janet, who was sitting by the fireplace, looked the most troubled of all, though she said nothing. It was 'Why, John, what's the matter?' from Aunt Mary, and 'Well, John, how goes it?' from Uncle Philip, who looked as if he knew that it went very badly indeed; and 'What makes you look so worried? With a home like this, no man ought to look worried,' from his Cousin Austin, who had recently become engaged and was thinking about homes. ”

“ Oh, Lord! there's only one chance: aunt cant know me—she has'nt seen me since I became a man; but then, you, cousin! if I am a man! shall I, like a base selfish—No—it mounts!—the Roland blood mounts high within me. Noise.
Ul. Hush! I rely on him they select to be my husband. His heart's elsewhere; and by securing your own escape now, you may hereafter effect mine. [Stage door opens.] The baron! ”

“ Always joking she is more crazy than funny. Do you recognize her, sir? She's your aunt.
VALERE: It's herself. Well, you are telling me you won money from my aunt at cards?
FRONTIN: A little. But I won more of her heart. She adores me.
VALERE: She loves you!
FRONTIN: Yes, sir. And better yet. She wants to marry me.
VALERE: Great.
FRONTIN: Your valet Frontin could become your uncle or uncle in law tomorrow.
VALERE: What! Seriously?
FRONTIN: The lady is serious. I have the looks to make an old woman amorous.
FRONTIN: Without doubt. But still, to marry you must know the man. ”

“ DEB. (Goes to fireplace R.) Oh, aunt, how naughty you are, always talking of being “gone,” just as if you were an old woman.
MRS. R. No, no, lass, I bean’t talking of being gone now. I’ve many a year before me yet, please God. But it must come sometime, thee knaws, and I like to think that when it do there’ll be someone to gie the lad his bit of food, and look arter un loike—and, Lord, a man do want a power of looking arter to be sure.
DEB. (At fire R. making it up.) I think that’s why we love ‘em, aunt, because they’re so helpless. ”

“ Such as saints might feel above.
* * * * *
Dear aunt, in the olden time of love,
When women like slaves were spurned,
A maid gave her heart, as she would her glove,
To be teased by a fop, and returned!
But women grow wiser as men improve.
And, tho' beaux, like monkeys, amuse us,
Oh! think not we'd give such a delicate gem
As the heart to be played with or sullied by them;
No, dearest aunt, excuse us.
We may know by the head on Cupid's seal
What impression the heart will take;
If shallow the head, oh! soon we feel
What a poor impression 'twill make!
Tho' plagued, Heaven knows! ”

“ Thus, my dear father,” he continued, “you see how erroneous we are in opinions we often form of things, since what we often consider as the bitterest evil leads to the most supreme good. We will, as soon as possible, hasten everything to be prepared for Freelove, and thus I make no doubt, disappoint the little malice of his soul.
“My aunt, my sister, are unacquainted with your uneasiness, nor shall an intimation of it from me ever transpire to them. Of fortune, sufficient will remain to allow, though not the splendors, the comforts and elegancies of life. ”

“ The aunt said, ‘Charlotte, Miss Wade is wearing you to death, and this must not continue.’ I repeat the very words I heard.
Now, what did she answer? Did she say, ‘It is I who am wearing her to death, I who am keeping her on a rack and am the executioner, yet she tells me every night that she loves me devotedly, though she knows what I make her undergo?’ No; my first memorable experience was true to what I knew her to be, and to all my experience. She began sobbing and weeping (to secure the aunt’s sympathy to herself) , and said, ‘Dear aunt, she has an unhappy temper ”

“ Aunt Hannah and Aunt Maria are only half-aunts to me, you know.’
‘I hope they are half as nice as you are.’
9 ‘Roger, be still; they certainly will hear us.’
‘Well, don’t you want them to know we are married?’
‘Yes, but not just married. There’s all the difference in the world.’
‘You are afraid we look too happy!’
‘No; only I want my happiness all to myself.’
‘Well, the little room?’
‘My aunts brought mother up; they were nearly twenty years older than she. I might say Hiram and they brought her up. ”

“ Surely, now, these are the same for the woman, She cannot marry her uncle, either by blood or affinity. Her aunt's husband is as much her uncle by marriage as her father or mother's brother is by blood. ”

“ She is my aunt, say you, in an easy careless way, when your friend asks if Miss MacWhirter is any relative? Your wife is perpetually sending her little testimonies of affection, your little girls work endless worsted baskets, cushions, and foot-stools for her. What a good fire there is in her room when she comes to pay you a visit, although your wife laces her stays without one! ”

“ You can have no superior, but most true on mine.—She is a complete angel. Look at her. Is not she an angel in every gesture? Observe the turn of her throat. Observe her eyes, as she is looking up at my father.—You will be glad to hear (inclining his head, and whispering seriously) that my uncle means to give her all my aunt's jewels. ”