Lady Bellamy

“ But here Lady Bellamy intervened, and skilfully forced him into a conversation with her, in which Philip joined.
“What does Lady Bellamy remind you of?” Angela asked Arthur, as soon as the hum of talk made it improbable that they would be overheard.
“Of an Egyptian sorceress, I think. Look at the low, broad forehead, the curling hair, the full lips, and the inscrutable look of the face.”
“To my mind she is an ideal of the Spirit of Power. I am very much afraid of her, and, as for him”—nodding towards George—“I dislike him even more than I was prepared to,” and she gave a little shudder. ”

“ A pretty phaeton was slowly passing, containing an elderly gentleman and lady.
"Oh, that is only Lawyer Morgan and old Miss Rood," replied Lucy, just glancing up, and then down again. "They go out driving once a week regularly, and always at about this time in the afternoon."
"They look like afternoon sort of people," said Mabel. "But why does n't Lawyer Morgan take out his wife?"
"He has n't got any. Miss Rood comes nearest to that. Oh, no, you needn't open your eyes; there's not a properer old maid in town, or old bachelor either, for that matter." ”

“ It was hard for a talkative little lady like her to understand this reticence about a matter so deeply felt. She could not comprehend that there may be griefs so ghastly that we dare not lift from them the veil of silence. She wanted to "talk it over" a little. She felt that would do Silas good, because she knew it would be a relief to her. Nor was she insensible to the gratification it would afford her vanity to discuss so serious a matter with her husband, whose general tone with her was one of jest and pleasantry, to the disparagement of her intellectual powers, as she thought. ”

“ On the one hand, there is a young girl who, though I do not, from force of circumstances, see much of myself, is, I believe, as good as she is handsome——”
“And on the other,” broke in Lady Bellamy, ironically, “are the Isleworth estates.” ”

“ Bellamy, a steady young man, looking out for a wife "capable of friendship, love, and tenderness, with good sense enough to be easy, and good nature enough to like him." He found his beau-ideal in Jacintha, who had besides a fortune of £30,000.—Dr. Hoadly, The Suspicious Husband (1761) .
Bella'rio, the assumed name of Euphrasia, when she put on boy's apparel that she might enter the service of prince Philaster, whom she greatly loved.—Beaumont and Fletcher, Philaster, or Love Lies A-Bleeding (1622) .
Bellaston (Lady) , a profligate, from whom Tom Jones accepts support. ”

“ The children of the gardener, ever before banished to other parts of the grounds, played unrebuked in the sacred street of the silent village.
As for Paul, since the revelation had come to him that the lady of his love was no mere dream of a life for ever vanished, but was herself alive for evermore, and that he should one day meet her, his love had assumed a colour and a reality it had never possessed before. To him this meant all it would have meant to the lover of a material maiden, to be admitted to her immediate society. ”

“ Ida's dress, which had not seemed the night before, to casual examination, to differ from other cloth, had begun to crumble away in a very curious manner. The texture seemed strangely brittle and strengthless. It fell apart at a touch, and was reduced to a fine powder under the pressure of the fingers. She could not possibly have worn it even one day.
The dress of Miss Ludington's, for which she exchanged it, had been made for that lady when considerably stouter than at present, but was with difficulty enlarged sufficiently for the full figure of the girl. ”

“ This" (she flicked the card) "is the life for the Miss Gunnings, and not the stage. 'T would scarce become me to tell a lady like yourself what must be faced there, but--but--'t is much! Ask Peg Woffington--ask Kitty Clive--ask George Anne Bellamy!" She hung her head.
There was silence. Mrs G. stared at her, all aghast.
"Why, yesterday, all your talk was of pleasure and success. Sure, dear Mrs Bellamy, 't was not like your kindness to draw on the poor things till they can think of naught else, and now so far otherwise." ”

“ Entreat him civilly," expostulated Madam Dwight.
"He means not so, sir," she added, turning to Perez.
"The fellers wanter know why in time that ere 'greement ain't signed. We can't keep em back much longer," Abner cried, rushing to the door of the kitchen a moment, and hurrying back to his post.
"Where are writing materials?" asked Justice Goodrich, nervously, as a stone broke through one of the window panes and fell on the table.
"I will bring them," said the young lady, Dwight's daughter.
"Do make haste, Miss," urged Justice Barker. "The mob is even now forcing an entrance." ”

“ He was a tall, broad-shouldered, finely-proportioned man of about forty, with a refined face, frank and open, but rather haughty in expression, with piercing black eyes; a man in whose every gesture lay conscious power and obvious superiority. As he rode by the silent crowd, he acknowledged the salutations of the people with a courteous wave of the hand, but drew rein only when he reached the group of dignitaries about the store. There he dismounted and shook hands with the parson, who has rejoined the party, with Dr. Partridge, Squire Edwards and Squire Woodbridge. ”

“ Mrs. Slater laughed again. "How sharp you are getting, my dear!" she said. "Since you are so close after me, I shall have to admit that I have changed slightly in appearance in the forty odd years since we went to school at Hilton, and I'll admit that my heart is even less like a girl's than my face; but, though I have changed so much, I am still the same person, I suppose."
"Which do you mean?" inquired Miss Ludington. "You say in one breath that you are a changed person, and that you are the same person. ”

“ As for you, Paul, mother had no scruples. She said that I was a good girl, and any man was lucky to get me. I was not sure of that, but I knew that any girl would be fortunate whom you loved. She had a dress cut for me in the exact pattern of that in the picture--a very old-fashioned pattern, but very becoming to me--and all was ready. ”

“ Being a provident young man, he paused a minute to let the pretty, peaceful scene impress itself upon his mind, to be remembered afterward for the cheer of bleak boarding-house Sunday afternoons. Then there was a sudden glancing up, a cry of joyful consternation, and the pan of currants rolled from Amy's lap like a broken necklace of rubies across the uncarpeted floor, while Arthur held mother and sister in a double embrace. ”

“ He's a terrible fellow. I doubt if he does not some outrage to us for this."
"Dear! Dear! What shall I do?" cried Desire, wringing her hands. "I must go. I can't stay here, shut up like a prisoner, I shall be sick and die."
"Who knows," said Mrs. Edwards, "what this ruffian may do next? He will stop at nothing. He will not much longer respect our house. He may force himself in any day. She is not safe here. I dare not have her stay another day."
"I don't know what can be done, she can't get away without a pass," replied Edwards. ”

“ The next evening when, dressed for the husking, she took a last look in her mirror she was fairly scared to see how pretty she was. And yet despite the dismay and sinking of heart with which she apprehended Perez' attentions, she did not brush down the dark ringlets that shadowed her temples so bewitchingly, or choose a less becoming ribbon for her neck. That is not a woman's way. It was about seven o'clock when she and Jonathan, who went as her escort, reached Israel Goodrich's great barn, guided thither by the light which streamed from the open door. ”

“ Perhaps the girl herself might coax a pass out of him. It's the only chance."
"I coax him! I see him again! Oh I can't, I can't do that," cried Desire with an air of overwhelming repugnance.
"I could leave the door ajar you know, Desire, and be ready to come into the room if he were unmannerly," said her mother. "I think he's rather afraid of me. I'm afraid it's the only chance, as your father says, if you could but bring yourself to it." ”

“ One by one the lights went out in the houses, till the only ones left were in the windows of the Seminary, visible over the tree-tops a quarter of a mile away.
“The girls keep late hours,” thought Arthur. And from that he fell to thinking of Lina Maynard and the careless, almost insolent, grace of her manner, and that indifferent yet penetrating glance of hers. Where did she come from? Probably from California, or the far West; he had heard that the girls out there were of a bolder, more unconventional type than at the East. What a pity she did not fancy Amy! ”

“ But I don' see him nowhar roun', an mebbe we mout's well go right along, an not wait no longer.”
And so the two women went on toward the jail, and Prudence dismounted before the door of the tavern end, and tied the horse.
“I callate they muss keep the folks in that ere ell part, with the row o' leetle winders,” said Mrs. Poor. She spoke in a hushed voice, as one speaks near a tomb. The girl was quite pale, and she stared with a scared fascination at the wall behind which her father was shut up. Timidly the women entered the open door. Both Bement and his wife were in the barroom. ”

“ In her face, pity contended in a sort of divine spite against the obstacles which reduced it to impotence. Womanly compassion surely never wore a guise more lovely.
Such beauty and such goodness quite melted me, and it seemed that the only fitting response I could make was to tell her just the truth. Of course I had not a spark of hope, but on the other hand I had no fear that she would be angry. She was too pitiful for that. So I said presently, "It is very ungrateful in me not to be satisfied with such kindness as you have shown me, and are showing me now. ”

“ Hull was in the act of lifting her head from the floor to which it had fallen. Her eyes were half open, and the black rings around them showed with ghastly plainness against the awful pallor which the rest of her face had taken on. One hand was clenched. The other was clutching her bodice, as if in the act of tearing it open. A little foam flecked the blue lips.
Alta threw herself upon her mother's body, sobbing, "Oh, mamma, wake up! do! do!"
"Is she dead?" asked Miss Ludington, in horrified accents. ”

“ There's not a man among you has less cause to love the silk stockings, as you call them, than I have, and you Meshech ought to know it. Nine years ago, my brother Reub and I marched with the minute men. Parson and Squire Woodbridge, and Squire Edwards and all of em, came round us and said, 'We'll take care of your father and mother. We'll never forget what you are doing to-day.' Yesterday I came home to find my father and mother waiting to be sold out by the sheriff, and go to the poor house; and Reub, I found my brother Reub, rotting to death in Barrington jail. ”

“ You're crazy, Jonathan, you didn't hear right. They'd never dare! It can't be! Run and find out," cried Desire, wildly.
"There ain't any use. I heard the Hamlin fellow say so himself. They're going to do it. They said it's no worse than whipping one of them, as if they were gentlemen," blubbered Jonathan.
"Oh no! no! They can't, they won't," cried the girl in an anguished voice, her eyes glazed with tears as she looked appealingly from Jonathan to her mother, in whose faces there was little enough to reassure her. ”

“ I am not so good as you think," and, throwing the door open she sprang out into the snow.
When she reentered the parlor at home, the silver-dialed clock, high upon the wall, accused her of only an hour's absence, and since nobody but herself knew that her feet were quite wet through, there were no explanations to make. But for the first time she wearied a little of her courtiers. She found their compliments insipid and her repartees were slow. Her thoughts were wandering to that poor home where all undeservedly she had been received as an angel of light ”

“ It was about ten o'clock by the silver dialed clock in the living room of the doctor's house, when Prudence Fennell knocked at the open kitchen door.
"What do you want, child?" said Mrs. Partridge, who was in the kitchen trying to instruct a negro girl how to use her broom of twigs so as to distribute the silver sand upon the floor in the complex wavy figures, which were the pride of the housewife of that day.
"Please, marm, father's sick, and Mis Hamlin thinks he ought to have the doctor."
"Your father and Mrs. Hamlin? Who is your father, pray?" ”

“ The miserable fittings of the great kitchen denote extreme poverty, but the great fire of logs in the chimney is such as the richest, in these days of wasted forests, cannot afford, and the ruddy light illumines the room as all the candles in Stockbridge scarcely could do. Before it sit Elnathan and his wife and Reuben. The shawl which Desire wears is thickly flecked with the snow, through which she has stumbled, and instinctively her first motion on entering the room is to open and shake it, thereby revealing to the eyes of the astonished family the toilet of a fashionable beauty. ”

“ And proud in her tears, to-day, is the girl who has a sweetheart among the soldiers. Shy girls, who for fear of being laughed at, have kept a secret of their inclinations, now grown suddenly bold, cry, as they talk with their lovers, and refuse not the parting kiss. Desire Edwards, the Squire's daughter, as she moves among the groups, and sees these things, is stirred with envy and thinks she would give anything if she, too, had a sweetheart to bid good-bye to. ”

“ Squire Edwards cried "Yes," and hastily went out to assist, but Dr. Partridge, with more presence of mind than the others seemed to possess at that moment, laid his hand on the storekeeper's arm, saying:
"Better not shut the door. They will tear the house down if you do. Resistance is out of the question."
In another moment a boisterous crowd of men, their faces flushed with drink, all wearing sprigs of hemlock in their hats, came pouring up the steps and filled the store, those who could not enter thronging the piazza and grinning in at the windows. ”