Miss Bentley

“ Mann, the good lady of the house, was unexpectedly startled by the apparition of Mr. Bumble the beadle, striving to undo the wicket of the garden-gate.
"Goodness gracious! is that you, Mr. Bumble, sir?" said Mrs. Mann, thrusting her head out of the window in well-affected ecstasies of joy. " (Susan, take Oliver and them two brats up stairs, and wash 'em directly.) —My heart alive! Mr. Bumble, how glad I am to see you, sure-ly!" ”

“ Bentley was a plump, rosy-cheeked woman with a motherly smile. Agnes was a fair, slim schoolgirl, as tall as her mother, with a sweet face and a promise of peach blossom prettiness in the years to come. The arrival of a summer boarder was a great event in her quiet life.
"Ain't she pretty?" whispered Mrs. Bentley admiringly, as the girl came slowly up the green slope before the house. "I do hope she's nice. You can generally calculate on men boarders, but girls are doubtful. ”

“ But Bentley's true heart was in Apeman's human body, so there must be some other explanation for the feeling which grew and grew within Bentley for Ellen.
He leaned forward with the intention of touching his lips to the tired thin lips of Ellen Estabrook, then drew back in horror.
How could he kiss this woman whom he loved with the gross lips of Manape, the great ape?
He could, of course, but suppose she wakened at his caress and saw the great figure of the jungle brute, with all man's emotions and desires, yet with none of man's restraint—bending over her? Women had gone insane over less. ”

“ His high-boned Quixotic face wore a pleasant smile, his rough tweed clothes, his hair and short mustache were tolerably untidy.
"Cupples, by all that's miraculous!" cried the man, pouncing upon Mr. Cupples before he could rise, and seizing his outstretched hand in a hard grip. "My luck is serving me to-day," the newcomer went on spasmodically. "This is the second slice within an hour. How are you, my best of friends? And why are you here? Why sit'st thou by that ruined breakfast? ”

“ Affection, and modesty, and honour, were blended in the gaze which they bent upon him! The soul of Niall felt subdued. His arms, gradually relaxing their pressure, fell from the lovely form which they could have held prisoner for ever. He dropped on his knee at her feet; he caught her hand, and pressed it to his lips with the fervour and deference of duteous, idolizing love.
"Niall," said Glorvina, "I am thy bride; I have plighted my troth to thee! Whatever be my worth,—in person, feature, heart, and mind,—I am thine!—all thine!—thine, as the hand that now is locked in thy own is a part of me! ”

“ And then—god of jealousy!—he kissed her.
"For shame, sir!" said Sarah. "You mustn't. I never permit it; never!"
And he kissed her again; on which she, having, I suppose, exhausted her stock of indignation in the speech already made, offered no observation. He skipped down stairs, and I heard her say, with a sigh, "What a nice man!"
The amorous thought rose softly over my mind. "Avaunt!" said I, "thou green-eyed monster; make way for Cupid, little god of love. Is my rump and my dozen yet lost? No. As the song says,
"When should lovers breathe their vows? ”

“ Now the two became silent, and Ellen held the bruised and broken hands of Bentley in both her own, and their eyes said things, one to the other, which eyes say so much better than lips do. They kissed each other softly, and Ellen crooned with ecstasy, her cheek against Bentley's.
hen Caleb Barter entered.
"Well, well," he said, "when a man is in condition to make love to a woman, he is well on the road to recovery. It won't hurt you to talk now, Bentley, and before I begin asking questions, let me assure you that you will suffer no ill effects from your experience." ”

“ But, look at this here craft that now rolls us so sweetly over the ocean: arn't she as lovely now as when she first buttered her bottom on the slips, and made a bed for herself in the water? and won't she be the same beauty when she's put out of commission, and mayhap be moored in Rotten-row? Well, she's stood under us in many a heavy gale, and never yet showed her starn to an enemy,—that's why I love her; not for what she may do, but for what she has done."
"But, I say, Jack! it's just the time for a yarn," said the captain of the forecastle. "Tell us how Suke saved you from the gangway." ”

“ The company at the wedding dance was indistinguishable in the crowd of to-day.
There were many operatives and all the foremen—of the new vein, the nutt, and bolt factory, etc. These last had their clerks in attendance. Miss Bentley came among the first arrivals, bringing Emma sweet crackers and a hymn-book.
And Emma cursed her—a great, [Pg 46] ignorant, insolent, heartfelt curse—because she thought these things could console her; things the Misses Bentley would never offer each other if their men had the blast. ”

“ I am nearly twice your age, my dear boy, though you always so kindly try to make me feel as if we were contemporaries—I am getting to be an old man, and a great many people have been good enough to confide their matrimonial troubles to me; but I never knew another case like my niece's and her husband's. I have known her since she was a baby, Trent, and I know—you understand, I think, that I do not employ that word lightly—I know that she is as amiable and honorable a woman, to say nothing of her other good gifts, as any man could wish. But Manderson, for some time past, had made her miserable. ”

“ Beauty would conquer despite everything. What completed the unbearable grandeur of the scene was that Bentley had cancer of the tongue, and was sentenced to death. Bentley's friends knew it; the world of architecture knew it; Bentley knew it.... "Shall I tell her?" George thought. He looked at her; he looked at the vessel which he had filled with emotion. He could not speak. A highly sensitive decency, an abhorrence of crudity, restrained him. "No," he decided, "I can't tell her now. I'll tell her some other time."
III
With no clear plan as to his dinner he took her back to Alexandra Grove. ”

“ And with this, the old lady applied herself to warming up in a little saucepan a basin full of broth strong enough to furnish an ample dinner, when reduced to the regulation strength, for three hundred and fifty paupers, at the very lowest computation.
"Are you fond of pictures, dear?" inquired the old lady, seeing that Oliver had fixed his eyes most intently on a portrait which hung against the wall just opposite his chair.
"I don't quite know, ma'am," said Oliver, without taking his eyes from the canvass; "I have seen so few that I hardly know. What a beautiful mild face that lady's is!" ”

“ He fancied it had been a woman's voice, but no woman could have lived so long in those raging seas, in which any moment Bentley himself expected to be overwhelmed. For himself he regarded death more or less philosophically, but a woman out there, crying for help, was a different matter entirely. ”

“ At its termination, Mistress Marsh and Master Erasmus Buckthorne quitted the boudoir together. But the cabinet!—ay, that was left unfastened; the folding-doors still remained invitingly expanded, the bunch of keys dangling from the lock. In an instant the spoiled child was in a chair; the drawer so recently closed yielded at once to her hand, and her hurried researches were rewarded by the prettiest little waxen doll imaginable. It was a first-rate prize, and Miss lost no time in appropriating it to herself. ”

“ She advanced three or four paces into the apartment, right in the direction of Niall, and then stood still; still fixing her eyes steadily upon her bridegroom with an expression in which neither defiance nor deprecation, neither reproach nor fear, neither recklessness nor shame, but love—all love—was apparent. Niall scarcely breathed! An awe came over his chafed spirit as he surveyed his bride. The more he looked, the more the clouds of wrath rolled away from his soul, until not a vestige of tempest remained. He uttered tenderly the name of Glorvina. ”

“ Long before Madam Marsh had returned to her Sanctum, Marian was seated under a laurestinus in the garden, nursing her new baby with the most affectionate solicitude.
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"Susan, look here; see what a nasty scratch I have got upon my hand," said the young lady, when routed out at length from her hiding-place to her noontide meal.
"Yes, Miss, this is always the way with you! mend, mend, mend,—nothing but mend! Scrambling about among the bushes, and tearing your clothes to rags. What with you, and with madam's farthingales and kirtles, a poor bower-maiden has a fine time of it!" ”

“ Or had he, as Trent thought more likely, still played his part with her then, and stolen off while she slept? He did not think she had known of the masquerade when she gave evidence at the inquest; it read like honest evidence. Or—the question would never be silenced, though he scorned it—had she lain expecting the footstep in the room and the whisper that should tell her it was done? Among the foul possibilities of human nature, was it possible that black ruthlessness and black deceit as well were hidden behind that good and straight and gentle seeming? ”

“ The man that invented the machine for taking likenesses might have known that would never succeed; it's a deal too honest,—a deal," said the old lady, laughing very heartily at her own acuteness.
"Is—is that a likeness, ma'am?" said Oliver.
"Yes," said the old lady, looking up for a moment from the broth; "that's a portrait."
"Whose, ma'am?" asked Oliver eagerly.
"Why, really, my dear, I don't know," answered the old lady in a good-humoured manner. "It's not a likeness of anybody that you or I know, I expect. It seems to strike your fancy, dear." ”

“ When, however, the shoes grew thinner and thinner, without being replaced, his aid was more rarely accepted, and at length positively declined; and little Guguste, who was more a man of the world than the corpulent footman, justly concluded that Mademoiselle Claire did not like to expose her attempts at repairing the inevitable fissures to the comments of Monsieur Georges's lad of all work. Still, though tacitly dismissed from her service, the grey-eyed beauty never passed him on the stairs without a word or smile of recognition, even when her heart was sorest and countenance saddest ”

“ But Ma'mselle Berthe (the chissie!) condescends to hold just about as much communication with me as one of the chayney mandarins on the top of master's cabinet,—shakes her head by way of salutation, and not a word!"
"But, Guguste (Monsieur Georges's little lad of all work and no play) assured me he saw Ma'mselle Courson ring at Monsieur Boncoeur's bell the other day, and deliver a letter to the footman."
"Oho! that dirty little gamin plays the spy upon those who rings at Monsieur Boncoeur's bell, do he?" cried the housekeeper, reddening. "Very dirty behaviour, I must confess!" ”

“ He was so unlike everybody with whom she had been accustomed to associate, that she had sense enough to suppose she must be equally unlike his former companions, and she was always afraid of exciting his wonder and ridicule by some awkward breach of the usages of good society. But then to walk about with a lord, was a thing not to be resisted; and though she would have been much happier with the Captain Mills of whom her father made honourable mention in his letter to Lord John, still she never could bring herself to reject the proffered arm of his lordship. ”

“ The sound seemed to be approaching and for a minute or so they listened. Then the sound was repeated off to the right, a trifle further away.
"Can you climb, Ellen?" asked Bentley simply. "This section is filled with anthropoid apes, according to the second officer of the Bengal Queen. We may have to take to the trees."
"I can climb," she said, "but from what I've studied of the habits of these brutes they do a great deal of bluffing before they actually charge, and may not molest us at all if we pay no attention." ”

“ There is a tradition in Bentley’s family, that Bishop Stillingfleet said, “We must send Bentley to rule the turbulent Fellows of Trinity College: if any one can do it, he is the person; for he has ruled my family ever since he entered it.”
Having thus attained to affluence and honour, he married a lady to whom he had been long attached. The union was eminently happy. Mrs. Bentley’s mind was highly cultivated; she was amiable and pious; and the benevolence of her disposition availed to soften the animosity of opponents at several critical periods of her husband’s life. ”

“ What was his amazement to discover the form of a female! His heart stopped for a second or two at the thought that flashed across him! Another moment decided a question almost as momentous to him as that of life or death, when, removing a hat that was slouched over the face of the stranger, the bridegroom beheld his bride! Niall gazed upon his Glorvina half-swooning in his arms!
"Revive!—revive, my loved one! My own!—my bride!—my wife!—my Glorvina!—revive!" rapidly ejaculated Niall. "Not so bright breaks the sun out of the storm, as thou, sweetest, my vision now! ”

“ Bentley, who sat on a green bench under a tree, his hat and stick on the grass beside him. She was unaware that he had been looking at her.
"Aren't they having a good time!" she said, and the genuine thrill in her voice betrayed a rare and unmistakable pleasure.
"Ah," replied Mr. Bentley, smiling back at her, "you like to see them, too. Most persons do. Children are not meant for the city, my dear young lady, their natural home is in the woods and fields, and these little fellows are a proof of it. When they come out here, they run wild. ”