Lina

“ Vandeleur, all that you have been saying is extremely interesting. But, to take your own admissions, Lina is young, exceptionally beautiful, and essentially womanly. That being the case, she must necessarily give and inspire love. Although she is exceedingly intelligent, she makes no claim to mental or spiritual gifts above the average. Although you and I may agree that she is made of 'spirit, fire, and dew,' and that the 'good stars stood in her horoscope,' to most people she would only appear a charmingly attractive girl, whom any man might fall in love with. ”

“ I have taken Ronald's quarrel on myself. It would not have been right for Ronald to fight him, because if he had killed Lina's husband it would have been wrong for him to marry Lina. So, without Ronald's knowledge, I have taken up Ronald's quarrel. I hope I shall kill the villain, and then Lina will be free to marry Valchester. I love Lina so dearly I cannot bear to see her unhappy. If I kill Huntington I shall fly to a foreign land. If he kills me I shall have done all I could to help my darling to happiness. In either case, Violet, you must tell her that I did it for her sake. ”

“ Alas! wealth was then the god which Lina Moore worshipped, and when Ralph Hastings, with his uncouth form and hundreds of thousands asked her to be his wife, she stifled the better feelings of her nature which prompted her to tell him No, and with a gleam of pride in her deep blue eyes, and a deeper glow upon her cheek, she one day passed from the bright sunshine of heaven into the sombre gloom of the gray old church, whence she came forth Lina Hastings, shuddering even as she heard that name, and shrinking involuntarily from the caresses which the newly made husband bestowed upon her. ”

“ And Lina pointed to a liana of the _"cipos"_ kind, twisted round a gigantic sensitive mimosa, whose leaves, light as feathers, shut up at the least disturbance.
"Well?" said Benito.
"I proposed," replied Minha, "that we try to follow that liana to its very end."
"It is an idea, and it is an object!" observed Benito, "to follow this liana, no matter what may be the obstacles, thickets, underwood, rocks, brooks, torrents, to let nothing stop us, not even----"
"Certainly, you are right, brother!" said Minha; "Lina is a trifle absurd." ”

“ Again the summer shadows fall aslant the bright green lawn, and the soft breeze laden with the perfume of a thousand flowers, kiss the faded brow of Lina Hastings, but they bring no gladness to her aching heart, for her thoughts are afar on the deep with the wayward boy who, spurning alike her words of love and censure, has gone from her ‘to return no more forever,’ he said, for she felt in her bitter anger. ”

“ I will not release you; and wherever you go, Lina, I will follow you!"
He had sprung after her and caught her in his arms, holding her so closely that his grasp hurt her. Laline trembled and cried; but, with all her heart and soul yearning for his caress, she felt powerless to resist him. So they stood a moment, she with her pale cheek pillowed on his breast, while, bending his head, he spoke rapidly and passionately in her ear.
"Does nature count for nothing?" ”

“ Lina has a quieter judgment and is less wilful and self-centered. I am not criticizing you; you possess other fine traits of character that Lina has not. You are one of the most straight-forward persons in the world, Jeanette, and one of the most honest. You have great physical courage too, dear, and I hope moral courage. A man, you see, can sometimes understand physical courage better than moral. ”

“ Then they fell upon each other's necks and cried again, and the color returned to their cheeks as if a sunbeam had kissed them, and they clung to each other as if they were once more growing on the same stalk. "Mina, I will let you have him. You must be happy," said Lina. "No, Lina," said Mina, "he likes you most, and you are much better than I am." "No, Mina. I've quite made up my mind. Uncle Kurz is coming this afternoon, and I'll ask father and mother to let me go home with him, for I couldn't remain here and see it all just yet." ”

“ This will be one in Violet's, and Gerald Huntington's near kinship to you, will be one in yours. I did not even tell Walter her story. I gave her the privilege of saying she had jilted me. You will not mind taking a man who has been jilted, will you, Lina?"
She looked at the handsome, happy face, with the eager light of hope shining in the blue-gray eyes, and her lips quivered. Years had passed since she had seen the light of happiness shining on Ronald Valchester's face.
"Ronald, I must not take you now," she said, "I am not the Lina you loved years ago. I have lost my beauty." ”

“ Lina, you don't know what it is to live with a wholly uncongenial nature. You and your husband were born under opposing stars; he is wholly animal, you are as wholly spiritual. My poor dear child, my heart bleeds for you, and I feel as though I had brought all this upon you!"
The little lady had indeed bitterly reproached herself for having permitted her treacherous niece to be present on the occasion when Laline, under the influence of hypnotism, had confessed her marriage. ”

“ In the morning, after Linnet had gulped down the coffee and roll that seemed to half choke her, she would stroll up the hill behind the village inn, and sit on the boulders, just above the belt of pine wood, where she had sat long ago hand in hand with Will Deverill. The village children sometimes came and gazed at her, and whispered to one another in an awestruck undertone how this was Lina Telser, who once minded cows in a châlet on the Alps, and who was now the Casalmonte, a great, rich singer in England, with diamonds in her box, and grand rings on her fingers. ”

“ She had moved a little way from him, and stood with her hand resting easily on the back of a chair, while her long lashes drooped and a crimson flush tinted her face.
"Tell me what it is," he said again. "Is it that the pretty wedding-dress is ruined. Lina? Never mind that. The one you are wearing will do perfectly well."
"It is a greater obstacle than that," she faltered; "but it may be overcome after awhile. Uncle says so, and Walter Earle—I have told him, too—says that it will all come right."
"Lina, come here to my side and put both your hands in mine," said Ronald Valchester. ”

“ Lina understands me perfectly. She too has loved and has suffered unspeakably, poor girl! He was an officer of the Dragoons, I believe, and came to their house a great deal; at last he came nearly every day. Lina expected his declaration from hour to hour, but he went and proposed to her elder sister. Lina thought her heart was broken. I should never have survived such perfidy. Men are very wicked and false. Lina has read Faust. He reminds her of Faust a little, she says. I must try to get the book. Lina raves over it, although she says it is very immoral. ”

“ Do you know what that wonderful little old lady of yours told me when she first saw me? She said—I remember her actual words—'You are capable of going to the greatest lengths of what people would call folly for the sake of one you love. You like many people, you love very few. But where you love it is a passion, a religion!'"
"Did she tell you anything else?" asked Laline, deeply interested.
"Yes. She predicted that I was on the eve of a new experience which would alter the whole course of my life. Why, Lina, that was loving you!" ”

“ But Michael was silent.
XII
Lina's sisters had seen her talking to the little garden boy, and jeered at her for it.
'What prevents your marrying him?' asked the eldest, 'you would become a gardener too; it is a charming profession. You could live in a cottage at the end of the park, and help your husband to draw up water from the well, and when we get up you could bring us our bouquets.'
The Princess Lina was very angry, and when the Star Gazer presented her bouquet, she received it in a disdainful manner. ”

“ A cry of rage burst from his lips, and before Lina remarked his presence, his powerful hands were upon the shoulders of her antagonist, who lay, the next instant, upon the grass at his feet.
"Lina!" cried Franz, seizing the fallen man and dragging him in the direction of the scaffold, "hide Gerard in the bushes; if he still lives, he is rescued from all he most dreads. ”

“ Those marks on her little wrists⁠—⁠they were surely the impress of Herr Andreas’s big fingers; those red eyes, that pale face⁠—⁠they were surely the result of Herr Andreas’s infidelities. Money, after all, isn’t everything in this world: Lina Telser had diamonds and pearls at command, and she drank fine red wine, specially brought from Innsbruck; but she would have been happier, people thought at St Valentin in the Zillerthal, if she’d married Cousin Fridolin, or even Franz Lindner! ”

“ The young woman was evidently a favorite with my Aunt Lina; and should she not prove a very useful or agreeable maid to me, I would receive but little sympathy from my immediate family. My father is as ignorant as a child of what we poor housekeepers require in a domestic; and my Aunt Lina, though kind-hearted and well-wishing, is in equally as blissful a state. A very indifferent servant, who happened to please her fancy, she would magnify into a very excellent one ”

“ There was a great deal of dainty, untutored grace in the slim figure, and Violet, who was inclined to patronize the shy orphan girl, decided to herself that Lina Meredith would be rather a pretty girl if only she were not so tanned, and if only her uncle and aunt would dress her decently. ”

“ We were quite amazed one Sunday afternoon to see four stalwart blond men wending their way kitchen-wards, and inquiring in broken English for "Swedish girl;" for of all places our quiet little Chappaqua is the last one where we would have thought of seeing any of Lina's compatriots. These men, it seems, are employed in repairing the railroad track; and learning that they had a countrywoman in the village, called to make her acquaintance; so Lina can now triumph over Minna. ”

“ You were supposed to be Clare's admirer at first, and had you continued to be so I should have nothing to complain of. Between my niece and me there is nothing in common. She is too mundane, too full-blooded for me. She is like too much sunlight coming glaringly in one's eyes between Venetian blinds—the shock all the cruder because of the pretence of concealment and shade. But Lina—she is far too good to be wasted on a man! Love and marriage take all life and individuality out of ninety-nine of every hundred Englishwomen ”

“ Besides the Montague family, there is a numerous colony of other dolls; but they, poor things, live in any corner where Lina chooses to put them; and all day Sunday are shut up in a dark closet, with nothing to do but count their fingers and toes, if they can contrive to see them; though they have nearly as fine a wardrobe—for Lina's great amusement, next to playing with the whole colony, is to make new dresses for them.
One Saturday afternoon, Lina was playing with her dolls in the baby house, with two of her little neighbors, Minnie and Maggie Elliott, to keep her company. ”

“ Lina, of course, hasn't the faintest idea where it is. When I dared to suggest in the gentlest tone in the world that she ought to know, she became impertinent. She is going to leave to-morrow. I prefer to let her have her wages until her time is up, including a Christmas gift, as I do not want to live under the same roof with such a good-for-nothing, impudent person.
Well then—please be good enough to let me know where the receipt is. I caught a good cold for lack of my fur coat. I hope you are well and found your family all right. Max. ”

“ For Liana—into whose veiled eye only a strong light could trickle through—was looking for the moon, which was a little overhung by its own aurora, and she turned her head around gropingly, because she thought a linden-top concealed it;—and this uncertain inclination so suddenly pictured to him her misfortune in a thousand colors! A quick pang pressed his eyes, so that tears and sparks darted from them, and pity cried within him: "O thou innocent eye! why art thou veiled? Why from this grateful, good soul is May and the whole creation taken away? ”

“ Lindor turned pale. "So thou hast already taken the vows, art no longer novice? Art irrevocably chained to the convent?" he cried in horror, for even love started back from the gulf that such an oath had made between them, opposing their union. "Then I am lost, my life-happiness is annihilated!"
"And mine too!" sobbed Lina in his arms.
"Or wilt thou flee with me? We will hide ourselves far from our native land, where no searcher can find us, and undisturbed we will be happy." ”

“ To manage the first, it had been found necessary to include Aunt Lina in the plot, and that good lady thought it better that the meetings, which certainly would have taken place under any circumstances, should be held with her sanction and in her presence. She had long ago been won over to the young people's side, and the lovers themselves took matters very easily. It was not in the nature of either Hedwig or Edmund to take a sentimental or tragic view of their temporary separation. ”

“ Swiftly he swung himself up into the dungeon. Lina had done her part. The place was swarming with creatures—animal forms wilder and more grotesque than ever ramped in nightmare dream. Close by the hole, waiting his coming, her green eyes piercing the gulf below, Lina had but just laid herself down when he appeared. All about the vault and up the slope of the rubbish heap lay and stood and squatted the forty-nine whose friendship Lina had conquered in the wood. They all came crowding about Curdie.
He must get them into the cellar as quickly as ever he could. ”