Lady Aurora

“ Lady Aurora replied as quickly as possible that she knew a great deal about the poor—not the poor after the fashion of Rosy, but the terribly, hopelessly poor, with whom she was more familiar than Hyacinth would perhaps believe—and that she was often struck with their great talents and their quick wit, with their command of conversation really of much more interest to her than most of what one usually heard in drawing-rooms. ”

“ Another reflection consoled me; in a few years a very great change must happen in the lady Aurora’s appearance. The Spanish woman is like the Jewess; she does not improve by keeping. The delicate olive complexion turns into a disagreeable wrinkled yellow; the pretty shading of down on the upper lip thickens into a mustache considerable enough to raise the jealousy of a captain of dragoons; the lofty and elegant carriage decays into a tipsy waddle ”

“ Aurora gave me the most flattering attention. “I see. She would be simpler. To do very simply things not at all simple—that’s the American girl!”
I greatly enjoyed our intellectual relation. “I don’t know whether you’re a French girl, or what you are, but, you know, I find you witty.”
“Ah, you mean I strike false notes!” she quite comically wailed. “See how my whole sense for such things has been ruined. False notes are just what I want to avoid. I wish you’d always tell me.”
p. 400The conversational union between Miss Ruck and her neighbour, in front of us, had evidently not borne fruit. ”

“ Lady Aurora, with sudden courage, inquired of her distinguished companion, pointing a vague chin at her but looking into one of the upper angles of the room.
“I suppose one must always settle that for one’s self. I don’t like to be surrounded with objects I don’t care for, and I can care only for one thing—that is for one class of things—at a time. ”

“ Juliet could only shed tears, though tears so delicious, that it was luxury to shed them. Lady Aurora would have kissed them from her cheeks; but her own mingled with them so copiously, that it was not possible; and though the smiles of expressive joy that brightened each countenance, shewed their sensibility to be but fulness of happiness, the meeting, the acknowledgment, with the throbbing recollection of all that was passed, so touched each gentle heart, that they could but weep and embrace, embrace and weep, alternately. ”

“ Lucy Floyd's cheeks had lost much of their delicate colour when she returned to Felden, and it was pronounced, by all who observed the change, that the air of the East Cliff, and the autumn winds drifting across the bleak downs, had been too much for the young lady's strength.
Aurora seemed to have burst forth into some new and more glorious beauty since the morning upon which she had accepted the hand of Talbot Bulstrode. There was a proud defiance in her manner, which became her better than gentleness becomes far lovelier women. ”

“ He had spent the dull winter months upon the Continent, having no mind to go down to Bulstrode to encounter his mother's sympathy and his cousin Constance Trevyllian's chatter. He was unjust enough to nourish a secret dislike to that young lady for the good service she had done him by revealing Aurora's flight.
Are we ever really grateful to the people who tell us of the iniquity of those we love? Are we ever really just to the kindly creatures who give us friendly warning of our danger? No, never! We hate them; always involuntarily reverting to them as the first causes of our anguish ”

“ Don Luis then went away, and Aurora slipped into her cavalier's costume and met him at the inn.
"My dear Felix," said Don Luis, "your cousin is an adorable lady. I'm madly in love with her. If I can only win her, I'll marry and settle down on my estates."
Aurora gazed at him very tenderly, and then, with a gay laugh, she shook off her wig and let her curls fall about her shoulders.
Don Felix knelt at her feet and kissed her hands, crying, "Oh, my beautiful Aurora! Do you really care for me? How happy we shall be together!" ”

“ Who wants you to be different? Aurora, if you only knew yourself! Ceres, or Summer, or Peace sitting among the wheat-sheaves, 401what would it matter that she had not been educated at a fashionable boarding-school? Let her just breathe and be,–beautiful, benign, and any man not utterly a fool will prefer to lie at her knees, keeping still while her silence appeases and reconciles him, to hearing the most brilliant conversation of a lady novelist.”
“You can talk beautifully, Gerald, that’s one sure thing ”

“ And yet I should be stronger.
⁠Never burn
Your letters, poor Aurora! for they stare
With red seals from the table, saying each,
‘Here’s something that you know not.’ Out alas,
’Tis scarcely that the world’s more good and wise
Or even straighter and more consequent
Since yesterday at this time—yet, again,
If but one angel spoke from Ararat,
I should be very sorry not to hear:
So open all the letters! let me read.
Blanche Ord, the writer in the ‘Lady’s Fan,’
Requests my judgment on . . that, afterwards. ”

“ Mellish, and asked so many questions as to what Aurora did and said, where she went, whom she saw, and how she agreed with her husband, that at last the groom, although only a simple country lad, refused to answer any more interrogatories about his mistress.
Steeve Hargraves rubbed his coarse, sinewy hands, and chuckled as he spoke of Aurora.
"She's a rare proud one,—a regular high-spirited lady," he said, in that whispering voice that always sounded strange. "She laid it on to me with that riding-whip of hers; but I bear no malice—I bear no malice. She's a beautiful creature, and I wish Mr. ”

“ Where Aurora is concerned, I feel very strongly. To hurt her little finger is to torture my whole body. To stab her once is to stab me a hundred times. I have no wish to be discourteous to a lady; I am only sorry that you have been unable to love a poor girl who has rarely failed to win friends amongst those who have known her. Let us part without animosity, but let us understand each other for the first time. You do not like us, and it is better that we should part before you learn to hate us."
The ensign's widow waited in utter stupefaction until Mr. ”

“ That asserts itself anywhere."
She certainly contrived to make herself a very lovely and interesting object seen against those rich cushions. No color reflected upon her but light, in her slight languor and pallor of convalescence, her cheeks delicately thinned, she was like a white rose drooping in the heat of noonday.
The nursery sent down its treasure. First came Aurora in her Madonna dress, and was received with acclamations. ”

“ Such was the beginning of Aurora's reign over the heart of the Elector of Saxony—a reign of unclouded splendour and happiness for the woman in whom pity for her lover was soon replaced by a passion as ardent as his own. Fêtes and banquets and balls succeeded each other in swift sequence, at all of which Aurora was Queen, the focus of all eyes, and receiving universal homage, won no more by her beauty and her position as the Elector's favourite than by her sweetness and graciousness to the humblest. No mistress of a King was ever more beloved than this daughter of Sweden. ”

“ Made cool the forehead with fresh-sprinkling dreams,
And, rounding to the spheric soul the thin
Pined body, struck a colour up the cheeks,
Though somewhat faint. I clenched my brows across
My blue eyes greatening in the looking-glass,
And said, ‘We’ll live, Aurora! we’ll be strong.
The dogs are on us—but we will not die.’
Whoever lives true life, will love true love. ”

“ And now, having first conceived a wondrous pity for the bassoon, and then having become imbued with an admiration of his wit, sarcasm, badinage, repartee, and humor, it followed naturally and logically that Aurora should fall desperately in love with him; for pity and admiration are but the forerunners of the grand passion.
"Aunt Eliza," said Aurora one day, "you have instilled into my sensitive nature an indelible aversion to men, compared with which all such deleble passions as affection and love are as inconsequential as summer zephyrs. ”

“ In vain did young Magnus, the banker, seek to learn the cause of her agitation, and it seemed like a cruel mockery when Aurora's mother said: "You must remember, dear, that it is not real; it is only a play." After this memorable evening, wherein an unexpected and indescribable sweetness had crept into the young woman's life, Aurora more frequently insisted upon going to the opera. A strange fascination attracted her thither, and on each succeeding evening she found some new beauty in the bassoon, some new phase in his kaleidoscopic character to wonder at, some new accomplishment to admire. ”

“ These unusual and somewhat sensational characters give high color, warmth, and variety to the romance. The two exquisite Creole women, Aurora and her daughter, Clotilde, are a triumph of delicate characterization, being at one and the same time winning, lovable, illogical, innocent, capable, and noble. The love scene in which Aurora says "no," while she means "yes," and is not taken at her word, is as delicious a bit of humor and sentiment as there is in modern fiction. ”

“ And then, to let you into another secret, Aurora was by no means a very entertaining companion: nobody can be, with their heads full of themselves: and she had often the mortification, even in that scene of her triumph, a ball-room, of feeing her admirers drop off, to amuse themselves with other people ”

“ Nor had Gerald suggested that one of his reasons for wishing her not to haunt his bedside was a fear of her becoming inconveniently fond of him. A hint could be found, if one chose, that he feared becoming too fond of her, but of the other no vestige, no shadow, or ghost of a shadow. Yet by those two points the spirit of Aurora’s reply must be inspired. Centuries of civilization have ground into the female of the species one particular lesson. ”

“ Vainly would Love, since mercy is disdained, And Anger flings his most envenomed dart, In aid of you his else protecting shield impart! Doomed in tormenting fire to die, they lay Hands on the maid; her arms with rough cords twining. Rudely her mantle chaste they tear away, And the white veil that o'er her drooped declining: This she endured in silence unrepining, Yet her firm breast some virgin tremors shook; And her warm cheek, Aurora's late outshining, Waned into whiteness, and a color took, Like that of the pale rose, or lily of the brook. The crowd collect ”

“ There was a single instant of silence, and Aurora burst into tears.
For a moment Madame Grandissime assumed a frown that was almost a reminder of her brother's, and then the very pride of the Fusiliers broke down. She uttered an inaudible exclamation, drew the weeper firmly into her bosom, and with streaming eyes and choking voice, but yet with majesty, whispered, laying her hand on Aurora's head:
"Never mind, my child; never mind; never mind."
And Honoré's sister, when she was presently introduced, kissed Aurora and murmured:
"The good God bless thee! It is He who has brought us together." ”

“ There is something satisfactory, too, in the sense of possession; and Aurora felt, as she looked down the long avenues, and away through distant loopholes in the wood to the wide expanse of park and lawn, and the picturesque, irregular pile of building beyond, half Gothic, half Elizabethan, and so lost in a rich tangle of ivy and bright foliage as to be beautiful at every point,—she felt, I say, that all the fair picture was her own, or her husband's, which was the same thing. She had never for one moment regretted her marriage with John Mellish. ”

“ There stood near the door of her dressing-room an unknown female, wearing intricate gold ear-pendants and a dingy cotton dress without any collar.
“Chi è voi?” inquired Aurora, lifting her head.
“I am the Ildegonda,” answered the woman, whose smile and everything about her apologized, and deprecated displeasure. She must be the kitchen-maid, fancied Aurora, engaged by Clotilde, and not supposed to show her nose above the subterranean province of the kitchen. ”

“ As in a dream, as though they were indeed being sucked up through the blue unsteady air, Aurora tried to pull the locket from her bosom, and desisted, for, throwing aside the faded leaf, D'Rubiera extended his arms with an "Aurora!" which held all pleading and all command, all passion and all delight, that love can give to the human voice. ”

“ I beg that you will spare no effort to ensure that justice is done to them."
His mother's pleading, however, was not necessary to ensure a favourable hearing from the Elector, whose eyes were eloquent of the admiration he felt for the two fairest women who had ever visited his land. Aurora's beauty, enhanced by her attitude of appeal, the mute craving for protection, was irresistible. From the moment she entered his presence he was her slave, as anxious to do her will as any lovesick boy. ”

“ Aurora found herself pitying this happier woman, who would, after all, win but the second love of that proud heart; the pale reflection of a sun that has set; the feeble glow of expiring embers when the great blaze has died out. They had made her a couch with shawls and carriage-rugs, outspread upon a rustic seat, for she was still far from strong; and she lay in the bright September sunshine, looking down at the fair landscape, and listening to the hum of beetles and the chirp of grasshoppers upon the smooth turf. ”