Estelle

“ Hardinge?" said Lady Estelle, with--but perhaps it was fancy--a curl on her red lip, as she reined-in her spirited horse sharply with one firm hand, and caressed his arching neck gracefully with the other, while he rose on his hind legs, and her veil flew aside.
Already dread of the future had chased away my first emotion of pique, nor was it possible to be long angry with Estelle; for with men and women alike, her beauty made her irresistible. ”

“ Nor bidding old love good by forever, and letting the new love in! ESTELLE.
“How came he mad?”—Hamlet.
Of all the beautiful demons who fasten on human hearts
To fetter the bodies and souls of men with exquisite, mocking arts,
The cruellest, and subtlest, and fairest to mortal sight,
Is surely a woman called Estelle, who tortures me day and night.
The first time that I saw her she passed with sweet lips mute,
As if in scorn of the vacant praise of those who made her suit ”

“ Estelle was one of those dark-eyed lively brunettes formed by nature for the creation of flutterings about the hearts of the sterner sex. She was full of naive mischief, and coquetry, and having been petted into imperial sway by the flattery of her courtiers, she punished them by wielding her sceptre with autocratic despotism—tremble, heart, that owned her sway yet dared disobey her behests! In the dance she was the nimblest, in mirth the most gleeful, and in beauty peerless. ”

“ Estelle sat silent. People said it came from stolen jewels, and she did not tell him. She knew him so well; she feared his burst of wrath, his going straight to Cyril Blakeney and demanding proof or retraction.
"It is time to go," Estelle said. "Bertie, I'll tell you to-morrow. Come to me about four. I'll be alone. I'll tell you then."
With a sudden thrill of fear and joy she knew that in her own sultry room she might be less strong.
"For if I lose you, I shall go to the Devil without you," Bertie said recklessly.
The heart of woman delights in self-sacrifice. ”

“ Her delicate fingers, twisting them, and chanting low as she wound;
The rune she sang rang sweet and clear like the chime of a witch's bell;
Its echo haunts me even now, with the word, Estelle! Estelle! ”

“ Both girls stood a little apart from each other, pale as death, tremulous with suppressed emotion, and with their lashes matted and their eyes filled with tears, that pride and the presence of others restrained from falling. They were calm externally, but their hearts were full of secret thoughts, to which I was long in getting the clue. In the eyes of Estelle there was that glance or expression of loving intensity which most men have seen once--it may be twice--in a woman's eye, and have never, never forgotten. ”

“ And then, for the first time, Esmé fainted; sank into a merciful blackness, lay cold and still, until Marie found her.
Estelle had decked her room with flowers; had put on a soft gown, when a messenger brought her a letter.
"Estelle, I will not come. You are not a woman for a selfish man to drag down. It is good-bye, and not good-bye for me, for I shall never lose sight of your dear face; but for you, you are a girl—young—forget me. Marry someone you can like; don't leave your life empty. Let home and the kiddies be the cloth to wipe my memory out with. Estelle, I've woken you. ”

“ Dances, parties, the theater and opera, were all lavished upon her.
For a time they sufficed; and yet, because she was a normal girl, no finer or less fine than thousands of others of her race, inevitably the time came when she found herself desiring something more.
Affairs of the heart, which usually play so large a part in feminine adolescence, had never seriously touched Estelle. That, too, was the inevitable result of her environment. Young men admired her, adored her, and plied her with attentions. But Estelle felt herself in some way above them all. ”

“ Yet in the instance of Lady Estelle I was not so foolish as poor Price of ours, the butt of the mess, who always fell in love with the wrong person--to whom the pale widow, inconsolable in her first crape; the blooming bride, in her clouds of tulle and white lace; the girl just engaged, and who consequently saw but one man in the world, and that man her own fiancé; or any pretty girl whom he met just when the route came and the mess-plate was packed prior to marching--became invested with remarkable charms, and a sudden interest that made his susceptible heart feel sad and tender. ”

“ When she awoke again she felt stronger, and, hearing a movement, opened her eyes. A strange face was bending over her; a sweet face, though old, wrinkled, and weather-beaten. Estelle stared at it in amazement. A poor woman, evidently, but clean and tidy in her coarse blue serge dress and white apron. A black lace cap almost concealed her grey hair, and in her hands was a great bundle of knitting. Seeing the child was awake she hastily put this down, and brought some broth from a little saucepan over the fire. ”

“ Dropping the little girl as he realised the danger, Thomas glanced round the cave, still lighted up by Estelle's candle-ends. His quick eye noted the high-water mark, and some projections of rocky wall which it would be quite possible for him to reach, and remain in safety till the tide went down. But what about the children? For Julien he cared nothing, but Estelle was of the utmost importance to him. It would be better to lose his own life than let harm come to her. She represented his gold-mine, without which he had no means of living. She must be saved at all costs, therefore. ”

“ The tale of Estelle is one of pathos and beauty, and 'Peculiar,' the negro, shines in it like a black diamond of the purest water. The book cannot fail to interest all who trace the cause of the mighty transition through which we are passing to its true source, the heart of man. ”

“ The whirlwind followed upon my brain and beat my thoughts to rack:
Who knows the many a month I lay ere memory floated back?
Even now, I tell you, I wonder whether this woman called Estelle
Is flesh and blood, or a beautiful lie, sent up from the depths of hell. ”

“ All these and a hundred other commingling and disturbing thoughts floated through Estelle's brain as she watched the quiet face of her sister during the ordeal of marriage. Even after the hopelessly binding words, "I pronounce you husband and wife," had been spoken, she still stood, gazing and wondering. She could never, never do it. Marriage was nice enough in the abstract, and she liked to go to weddings, at least she had always liked to before this one. But to single out one man and make him the centre of all these solemn and unalterable vows! And that man to be Lewis Morgan! ”

“ My mind being so filled with Estelle and her fancied image, caused me to be unusually soft and tender to Winifred. I seemed to be mingling one woman's presence with that of another. I regarded Winifred as the dearest of friends; but I loved Estelle with a passion that was full of enthusiasm and admiration.
"No two men have the same idea of beauty," said Winifred, after a pause. ”

“ The weather was in favour of the crossing, so Estelle and Jack had come for a last walk on the cliff before that sad day came. To Mrs. Wright and her son the loss of the child was a deep sorrow; to Estelle, though she was going home to her beloved Aunt Betty, to the kindest of uncles and aunts, to her most loving cousins, it was a wrench. She loved those dear ones at home deeply, truly. But she loved Goody and her dear, kind Jack. What should she do when she could not see them? ”

“ Ernest was her ally, for he loved poetry—an understanding denied to her other friends. So Estelle passed through a period of dreaming, while her intellect grew larger and her human sympathy no less. She had developed into a handsome woman with regular features, a large and almost stately presence and a direct, undraped manner not shadowed as yet by any ray of sex instinct. Nature, with her many endowments, chose to withhold the feminine challenge. ”

“ And this girl had presented these facets of herself to me.
But from repeated, if sketchy, observation of Estelle I was forced to admit that there was no more sense in trying to deny her sheer physical perfection than there would be in a husband's denying the enhancement of his wife's beauty by a new gown or lingerie or something about the price of which he was excessively disturbed. Beauty is beauty, whether one wants it or approves it or not, and Estelle certainly possessed the doubtful gift from the skin out. ”

“ Nature had proved itself stronger than convention. The impulsive heart was more than a match for the calculating head. For the first time in my life I saw the new heavens and the new earth which love brings in. Estelle now seemed all the dearer to me for her very helplessness,—for the degradation and isolation in which slavery had placed her. ”

“ And yet, if I do, I am quite sure Estelle will just shut herself up in the armor of her pride and refuse to make herself known. Taking both the testimony of the chains and the very pronounced family resemblance, there can be no reasonable doubt of the identity."
"I think Estelle would refuse," said Win slowly. "She's foolishly proud. She thinks, Mother, that you pay more than the house is worth and so she does her level best to make it up to us in other ways."
"I believe I will write to Carrie," mused Mrs. Thayne. "She'd be interested and anxious to see the girls. ”

“ There he ran up the sail, while Estelle lay quite still in an ecstasy of pleasure. It was one of those golden moments which are seldom forgotten in a lifetime, when mere living and breathing are a delight; when the tongue is silent, because the eyes and thoughts are full of the beauty of the light, and the colour of trees, sea, rocks, and sky! With anxiety Mrs. Wright watched her little charge, as, speechless with delight in the sunlight and sweet air, she lay drinking in health with every breath. ”

“ She murmured to herself:
"One love, one life." She was not thinking of Winn, but she had always meant to say that on her wedding morning.
Then she had early tea. Her mother came in and kissed her, and Estelle implored her not to fuss, and above all not to get red in the face before going to church, where she was to wear a mauve hat.
It was difficult for Mrs. Fanshawe not to fuss, Estelle was the most expensive of her children and in a way the most important; for if she wasn't pleased it was always so dreadful. ”

“ Estelle smiled in the way which had from the first aroused all of the hostility to be found in the nature of a naturally kind and easy-going fellow like myself. There was something about her smile that every man who has knocked about a little would recognize. It is the facial hall-mark of a spoiled, flattered, pampered feminine nature in which selfishness and cruelty are mingled. ”

“ Sister Estelle did not approve of tears even when shed in such circumstances as these and by the pupil of her heart.
"How can I get up there and read to them," Elizabeth asked, "with our parting before me? You will help me, I know; tell me that I must do it, and that I shall do it well."
The nun smiled serenely. "Assuredly you will do it well, my dear," she said, almost lightly. "We cannot have you fail at this of all times. You will do justice to yourself and to us." ”

“ Now, when a bride-elect begins to deal in double meanings of this sort with her fiancé, the course of true love is likely to be entering on a piece of rough road-bed.
"How did you find Estelle when you called?"
Estelle? Estelle? Estelle! Nothing in Blodgett and Blatherwick's notes about Estelle. "A whole directory of names," as Judge Blodgett had said, but no Estelle. The world full of useless people—a billion and a half of them—and not an Estelle at poor Amidon's call in this time of need. ”

“ Nellie said in genuine girl parlance; "and it looks just exactly like Estelle."
Louise laughed; she had been thinking something very like that herself. Don't imagine that I think I have startled you now with a bit of news; I have given you credit for penetration enough to have surmised, long ago, that the gala day was in honour of a coming bride, and the bride none other than Estelle herself. I did not propose to say much about that; such things are so constantly occurring in all well-regulated families that you would have been stupid, indeed, not to have foreseen it. ”

“ But in her fiery pride Estelle will never, never forgive him; though he was already engaged to one whom he, then at least, loved well."
"Ah--the Irish girl, I suppose?"
"Yes," said Winifred, with a short little sigh, as she looked down.
"Such a girl as Estelle Cressingham must always find admirers."
"Hundreds; but as the estates, like the title, have passed to the next male heir, and Lady Naseby has only a life-rent of the jointure house in Hants--Walcot Park, a lovely place--she is anxious that her daughter should make a most suitable marriage." ”

“ Unlike Juliet, Estelle became wise enough to give over fretting and borrowing trouble. She goes much into society, though less devoted to it than her elder sister, but looks considerably to her household affairs, and on the whole makes a tolerable wife and mother. ”

“ Let the secret of this private marriage ever remain unknown and unsuspected. It was known that Captain Studleigh admired Lady Estelle before he went abroad; it will not seem strange to any one that, having succeeded to the earldom, and finding her still with us, he seeks to marry her. Visit Downsbury Castle when you will, my lord; you can speak of Lady Estelle with all the rapture of a Studleigh. It will soon be rumored about that you have renewed the old love. At the end of six weeks I will take my daughter to Paris, you can follow us. ”