Isabella Crawford

“ With a horse, or a tennis court, or even a ball to amuse her, she would appear at her very best; would be at ease and do the right thing. But when called upon to sustain a conversation, such as that into which her curiosity about Isaacs had plunged her, she did not know what to do. She was constrained, and even some of her native grace of manner forsook her. Why did she avoid his eyes and resort to such a petty little trick as threading a needle in order to get a look at him? An American girl, or a French woman, would have seen that her strength lay in perfect frankness ”

“ And what were you wishing, Miss Westonhaugh, if I may ask?" Isaacs came up, and paused beside us. The beautiful girl stood quite still, looking to westward, a red glow on the white-gold masses of her hair.
"Did you say you were wishing for something, Miss Westonhaugh?" he asked. "Perhaps I can get it for you. More flowers, perhaps? They are very easily got."
"No—that is, not especially. I was wishing—well, that a tiger-hunt might last for ever; and I want a pair of tiger's ears. My old ayah says they keep off evil spirits and sickness ”

“ Yet sweeter were the tender notes of Isabella's song!
So soft into the ear they steal, so soft into the soul,
The deep'ning pain of love they soothe, and sorrow's pang control.
I look'd upon the pure brook that murmur'd through the glade,
And mingled in the melody that Isabella made;
Yet purer was the residence of Isabella's heart!
Above the reach of pride and guile, above the reach of art. ”

“ Why, this hairbrained young Kildare has been proposing to my niece——" his horse stumbled, but recovered himself in a moment.
"You don't mean it," said I, rather startled.
"Oh no, no, no. I don't mean that at all. Ha! ha! ha! very good, very good. No, no. Lord Steepleton wants us all to go on a tiger-hunt to amuse John, and he proposes—ha! ha!—really too funny of me—that Miss Westonhaugh should go with us."
"I suppose you have no objection, Mr. Ghyrkins? Ladies constantly go on such expeditions, and they do not appear to be the least in the way"
"Objections? ”

“ Isabella was now left with a young child to fight the world alone. Health and vigour, however, were her portion; and hearing that plenty of work for women was to be had at Cleator near Whitehaven, she repaired thither, and found a settlement and a living. While there, she was one day agreeably surprised by a visit from her kind friend Lady Curwen, who had driven from Workington Hall expressly to tell her that an advertisement applying for the heirs of John Pearson who worked in Beerpot Foundry, had that week appeared in the columns of a London newspaper, and urged her to attend to it. ”

“ Writing was very easy to her. After some years in Edinburgh, Mrs. Bird died, a crushing sorrow to her two daughters. Isabella wrote: “She has been my one object for the eight years of her widowhood.” Isabella sought comfort in working for the poor people in Edinburgh and tried to do something to get rid of the miserable slums in that city. She wrote a book about them to rouse people to a sense of shame. Her hard work was often interrupted by distressing illness; she suffered a great deal from her spine, but even when ill, she managed to read and study. ”

“ Poor Miss Westonhaugh!
"It is easy to see what you are thinking about most, Miss Westonhaugh," said Lord Steepleton: "the tigers are uppermost in your mind; and therefore in mine also," he added gallantly.
"Indeed, no—I was thinking about Mr. Isaacs." She blushed scarlet—the first time I had ever seen her really embarrassed. It was very natural that she should be thinking of Isaacs and the strange adventures he had just recounted; and if she had not cared about him she would not have changed colour. ”

“ He will not obey any more than you yourself." Her glance, turning towards Isaacs, did not reach him, and, in fact, she could not have seen anything beyond the side of his chair. Isaacs, on the contrary, seemed to be counting her eyelashes, and taking a mental photograph of her brows.
"Snap!" said he. The jackal instantly rose and trotted to him, fawning on his outstretched hand.
"You malign me, Miss Westonhaugh. Snap is no less obedient than I."
"Then why did you insist on playing tennis left-handed the other day, though you know very well how it puzzles me?" ”

“ Do you think of anything, sleeping or waking, but the one woman for whom you have changed your mind? Is not her picture ever before you, and the breath of her beauty upon your soul? Have you not met her in the spirit as well as in the flesh? Surely we shall hear no more of your doubts about women for some time to come. I congratulate you, as far as that goes, on your conversion. You have made a step towards a higher understanding of the world you live in."
Isaacs did not seem in the least surprised at his visitor's intimate acquaintance with his affairs. ”

“ By the time she was seven, Isabella was an eager reader of books of all kinds, even of serious history. When she was eleven, her father moved to a parish in Birmingham, and there she soon became a keen Sunday school teacher and worker in the parish; later, her father again had a country living in Huntingdonshire. Isabella was not strong, and the doctor recommended a sea-voyage; so when she was twenty-three, she made her first journey, going to Canada and America. ”

“ Isabella is full of resources, and, perhaps, may devise many means that would never strike me."
These thoughts passed through her mind as she was approaching the house, and very soon after she stood in her cousin's dressing-room, finding her, even at that early hour, up and partly dressed.
"Why, dearest Mary," exclaimed Isabella, "where have you got all those roses? The morning air must be very good for the health, as every one says, to change your cheek, which was yesterday as pale as twilight, into the very aspect of the dawn." ”

“ Certainly she belongs to nobody else. Let us treat her as our own child. We have but one, yet God has given us means enough to care for many more. I confess I should find it hard to give Isabella up to any one else. ”

“ When she descended, every ray of color had gone out of her face—it was white and passionless as stone; but she kissed the children all around, gave a little present to Isabella, who had been her only bridesmaid, shook hands and said a word or two of thanks to honest James Ferguson, her "father" for the day, and then found herself driving through the familiar streets—not alone. She never would be alone any more. ”

“ If there is any truth in my heart, Isabella, that truth is yours alone. Can you trust me, as the woman who loves trusts—through life and till death, under every shadow and through every cloud?"
I don't know whether essence of peppermint, tincture of myrrh, and hair-oil, are the proper ingredients in a cough-mixture; but I know that Isabella poured them into the glass measure very liberally.
"You do not answer me, Isabella. Ah, you cannot trust the branded criminal—the escaped lunatic—the man the world calls a murderer!"
"Not trust you, Richard?" ”

“ Then he dropped the big coffeepot with a clang and began running his way, grunting as each foot struck the ground, his short, bandy legs looking as if they would collapse every time the prodigious weight of his torso descended on them in a step.
"Dios, Crawford," he shouted. "Válgame Dios. What happened? Que hace? Who is it? Are you all right? What happened?"
He was halfway to Crawford by the time Aforismo stumbled into view at the bunkhouse door, pulling bare brown legs into his stiff, greasy chivarras and blinking sleepily. ”

“ One short night, a night of tears and repugnance on the one hand, of flatteries, of menaces and intimidation, on the other decided the fate of Isabella. With her sister less trouble was requisite. It needed no great persuasive art to induce a child of fourteen to accept a husband, as willingly as she would have done a doll. It might have been thought necessary to consult the will of the Spanish nation, fairly represented in freely elected Cortes. Such, at least, was the course pointed out by the constitution of the country. ”

“ Can we play too quickly at such a game with fate? There will be time, just time, no more. For when the news is known, it will spread like fire. I wonder that no one comes yet."
He listened, and Inez' hearing was ten times more sensitive than his, but there was no sound. For besides Dolores and Inez only the dwarf and the Princess of Eboli knew that Don John was living; and the Princess had imposed silence on the jester and was in no haste to tell the news until she should decide who was to know it first and how her own advantage could be secured. ”

“ While there is life there is hope."
"Proverbs," said Ram Lal scornfully, "are the wisdom of wise men prepared in portable doses for the foolish; and the saying you quote is one of them. There is life yet, but there is no hope."
"Well, I am afraid you are right. I saw her this morning—I suppose I shall never see her again, not alive, at least. She looked nearly dead then. Poor girl; poor Isaacs, left behind!"
"You may well say that, Mr. Griggs," said the adept. "On the whole, perhaps he is to be less pitied than she; who knows? Perhaps we should pity neither, but rather envy both." ”

“ Her faithful follower, Martyr, was with the court at this time in Medina del Campo. In a letter to the count of Tendilla, dated October 7th, he states that the most serious apprehensions were entertained by the physicians for the queen's fate. "Her whole system," he says, "is pervaded by a consuming fever. She loathes food of every kind, and is tormented with incessant thirst, while the disorder has all the appearance of terminating in a dropsy." [4]
In the mean while, Isabella lost nothing of her solicitude for the welfare of her people, and the great concerns of government. ”

“ Matilda made signs to Isabella to prevent Hippolita’s rising; and both those lovely young women were using their gentle violence to stop and calm the princess, when a servant, on the part of Manfred, arrived, and told Isabella that his lord demanded to speak with her.
“With me!” cried Isabella.
“Go,” said Hippolita, relieved by a message from her lord: “Manfred cannot support the sight of his own family. He thinks you less disordered than we are, and dreads the shock of my grief. Console him, dear Isabella, and tell him I will smother my own anguish rather than add to his.” ”

“ Mazzuchelli writes; "what was most remarkable in her was, that in a profession universally judged to be dangerous to female honour, she joined to a rare beauty, the most perfect correctness, and a most blameless life." And he adds, oddly enough, "the value of these good gifts was increased by her skill in singing, and music, and by her knowledge of Spanish!"
On the 10th of June, 1604, Isabella died in childbirth at Lyons, in the forty–second year of her age, and was buried by the municipality of that city with much pomp, and all sorts of honours. ”

“ The truth is that all characters have more than one side; and there are in history as in everyday life comparatively few figures we can either deify or wholly condemn. Isabella was not an angel,—she was a woman, and with failings, as every woman has. ”

“ You are Donna Faustina Montevarchi?"
"Yes—this is the Princess Sant' Ilario."
"Will you come with me? I will give you the best room we have—it is not very like a prison."
"This is," said Faustina, shuddering at the sight of the massive stone walls, quite as much as from the dampness of the night air.
"Courage, dear!" whispered Corona, drawing the girl's slight figure close to her and arranging the mantle upon her shoulders. But Corona herself was uneasy as to the result of the ghastly adventure, and she looked anxiously forward into the darkness beyond the nun's lantern. ”

“ Isabel could never learn the subsequent fate of Fowler, but heard, in the spring of '49, that his children had been seen in Kingston-one of whom was spoken of as a fine, interesting girl, albeit a halo of sadness fell like a veil about her.
ISABELLA'S RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. We will now turn from the outward and temporal to the inward and spiritual life of our subject. It is ever both interesting and instructive to trace the exercises of a human mind, through the trials and mysteries of life ”

“ We rose and entered my friend's rooms, where the warmth of the lights, the soft rugs and downy cushions, invited us temptingly to sit down and continue our conversation. But it was late, for Isaacs, like a true Oriental, had not hurried himself over his narrative, and it had been nine o'clock when we sat down to smoke. So I bade him good-night, and, musing on all I had heard and seen, retired to my own apartments, glancing at Sirius and at the unhappy-looking moon before I turned in from the verandah. ”

“ Isabella’s spirit will never be satisfied with power and grandeur; and your heart, Joanna, will never be filled with the love for which alone it asks. It is possible to be beautiful, honored, and a mighty queen, and yet be very miserable—oh, very miserable! Leave me now, my children, for the hour of audience is at hand; and I am to listen to a strange suitor and weigh a mighty project.”
Queen Isabella sat in her private audience-chamber, surrounded by her nobles. There was a shadow on her brow deeper than the shade of business cares ”

“ Ingram advanced with the air and visage of the stage manager of a theater, when he steps forward to announce that the favorite of the public will not be able to play. "Since you drive us so hard, sir, we must tell the painful truth. My poor child would rather have had nothing said about it. The truth is that she has mistaken the character of her affection for you. She has a high esteem for you, but she does not love you."
Crawford stood silent, looking with formidable eyes from the father to the mother. "I must insist upon seeing Elizabeth," he said at last. ”