Miss Middleton

“ It was so unusual that a young English girl should be wandering about the country entirely alone—so much less usual that she should speak to a stranger—that Middleton scarcely knew how to account for it, but meanwhile accepted the fact readily and willingly, for in truth he found this mysterious personage a very likely and entertaining companion. There was a strange quality of boldness in her remarks, almost of brusqueness, that he might have expected to find in a young countrywoman of his own, if bred up among the strong-minded, but was astonished to find in a young Englishwoman. ”

“ CHAPTER V CLARA MIDDLETON The great meeting of Sir Willoughby Patterne and Miss Middleton had taken place at Cherriton Grange, the seat of a county grandee, where this young lady of eighteen was first seen rising above the horizon. She had money and health and beauty, the triune of perfect starriness, which makes all men astronomers. ”

“ She feared it might be, strange though it seemed, jealousy, a shade of jealousy affecting Miss Middleton, as had been vaguely intimated by Sir Willoughby when they were waiting in the hall. "A little feminine ailment, a want of comprehension of a perfect friendship;" those were his words to her: and he suggested vaguely that care must be taken in the eulogy of her friend.
She resolved to be explicit.
"I have not said that I think him beyond criticism, Miss Middleton."
"Noble?"
"He has faults. When we have known a person for years the faults come out, but custom makes light of them ”

“ This induced him, without giving up his pretensions to her, to seek his fortune elsewhere.
Among the queen's maids of honour, there was one called Warmestre: she was a beauty very different from the other. Mrs. Middleton was well made, fair, and delicate; but had in her behaviour and discourse something precise and affected. The indolent languishing airs she gave herself did not please everybody: people grew weary of those sentiments of delicacy, which she endeavoured to explain without understanding them herself ”

“ Crewe flung another softly feathered dart.
“Miss Middleton will be there,” says she. “I met Lady Middleton this afternoon—a woman I swallow with difficulty. She detained me a whole ten minutes to hear the story of the latest heart Miss Middleton has strung with the other scalps at her girdle. ‘A most desirable prospect, my dear’—she mimicked the proud mother—‘wealth, devotion; everything but family. The father is Wade, the successful Irish merchant.’ Lord! says I, what signifies family nowadays? If money is not worth a little wading in the mud, what is?”
Greville laughed to hide discomfort. ”

“ To press the points of her fingers at her bosom, looking up to the sky as she did, and cry: "I am not my own; I am his!" was instigation sufficient to make her heart leap up with all her body's blush to urge it to recklessness. A despairing creature then may say she has addressed the heavens and has had no answer to restrain her.
Happily for Miss Middleton, she had walked some minutes in her chafing fit before the falcon eye of Colonel De Craye spied her away on one of the beech-knots. ”

“ Having thus punished both her admirers, Miss Cary declined to dance—whether to keep her word; to avoid pleasing too much the young Federal Captain, or to soothe the ruffled spirits of his unsuccessful competitors, who may tell? For no one can thread the mazes of a girl’s caprice.
But this made little difference to Middleton. They strolled outside and found a seat. The moonlight appeared to Middleton more charming than he ever remembered it, and he discovered something which he had never known before. ”

“ She paused, and her sisters, more than one of them, sobbed audibly. Miss Middleton, Miss Joanna, and Theodora herself alone were dry-eyed.
"Have you anything to say for yourself?" asked Miss Middleton, for the third time. ”

“ When opened, his gaze seemed fastened on the clouds which hung around the western horizon, reflecting the bright colors, and giving form and loveliness to the glorious tints of an American sunset. The hour, the calm beauty of the season, the occasion, all conspired to fill the spectators with solemn awe. Suddenly, while musing on the remarkable position in which he was placed, Middleton felt the hand which he held grasp his own with incredible power, and the old man, supported on either side by his friends, rose upright to his feet. ”

“ The sole drawback to our pleasures was the impossibility in such an exposed situation of enjoying the sight and the touch at once of the whole of each other's charms, and I anxiously watched for any opportunity when we might be able to accomplish this. One forenoon Lady Middleton had accompanied the rest of the party on a visit to some friends in the neighbourhood from which they were not to return till night, leaving at home only Sir Hugh, Miss Middleton, Laura, and myself. ”

“ What was there in Miss Middleton's face and air to ensnare a veteran handsome man of society numbering six-and-thirty years, nearly as many conquests? "Each bullet has got its commission." He was hit at last. That accident effected by Mr. Flitch had fired the shot. Clean through the heart, does not tell us of our misfortune, till the heart is asked to renew its natural beating. It fell into the condition of the porcelain vase over a thought of Miss Middleton standing above his prostrate form on the road, and walking beside him to the Hall. ”

“ She felt as if the sun were hitting her on the back between her shoulders, and her feet kept stumbling over the deep ruts in the road. "A Guide's motto is never say die till you are dead," she thought to herself. "There are times when I wish I were not a Guide, and this is one of them. 'Be Loyal.' Oh—bother Baden-Powell!" She held up three fingers to remind herself of the Guide Law, and tried her best to smile. "How do the others get on without it?" she wondered, watching Prue and Grizzel as they loitered along just before her, Grizzel dragging weary little feet in the dust. ”

“ Farnley to-day at dinner, in trying to avoid the chair next me."
"Oh, no; it was in trying to get the one next Miss Middleton," observed Rosa Moore, with an Innocent expression of countenance.
Mrs. Ernsley continued without noticing the interruption, otherwise than by a downward movement of the corners of her mouth—"I had a thousand times rather be hated by him, than be liked in the way in which he seems to like any one, qui lui tombe sous la main."
"No doubt," said Henry; "next to being loved there is nothing like being hated." ”

“ Middleton’s women is that, while the reader is permitted to observe and study them, he is also allowed to realize with hearty thankfulness that he will never have to live with any of them. The world in which his women move is a world of discontent. ”

“ Her happiness shall be the very first object in my life, sir; nothing in this world over which I have the slightest control shall be suffered to come into competition with it."
"I am—I am sure of that, my boy!" replied Mr. Middleton, in a broken voice.
"And I do not presume to wish to hurry either you or her, sir; I am willing to wait your leisure and hers; all I want now is to have an understanding with Bee, and to be admitted to the privileges of an accepted lover. You could trust me so far, sir?"
"Trust you so far! Why, Ishmael, there is no limit to my trust in you!" ”

“ Middleton's features, in the tone of her voice, in the expression of her face, Alice found a resemblance to the husband of her youth, which gave her an interest in her eyes which no other human being could have had; and in the tender and earnest affection which united them, both found their highest earthly comfort. They had learnt—one, after striving for it long and vainly,—the other, on the threshold of life,—that happiness is not the portion of earth ”

“ I should put the matter to the test and had it out with Mildred, Miss Mildred, I should say.”
The emir looked steadily at Mr. Middleton. There was surprise, annoyance, perhaps even vexation in his gaze. With incisive tones, he said:
“How could you so mistake me? Ours is a line whose lineage goes back twelve hundred years, a noble and unsullied line. Could I, sir, think of making my wife, making a princess of my race, a woman who could entertain the thought of stooping to marry a Dago cheap circus man? ”

“ She is eternally discussing who are in love with her—though she is such a very good sort of a woman—and who would be in love with her if she was not? Above all, she is by no means partial to other women, whether they have stepped over the line, or kept within it. She will hate you, Ellen, depend upon it, with an innocent kind of hatred: she will do you no harm, for she is kind-hearted in reality; only it will be nuts to her if anybody says that Miss Middleton is not near so pretty as they had expected ”

“ False! Heartless! Was I really so? Resentment had hardened my heart against Edward Middleton, and every kind feeling I had ever entertained towards him was turned to bitterness. Painful associations, and fearful remembrances, had thrown a dark shade over the pure and holy love of my childhood—the enthusiastic affection I had felt for my aunt;—and as to Henry Lovell, whose society I eagerly sought, and whose attachment I appeared to return, I was forced at times to confess to myself that there was not a grain of tenderness in the feverish predilection I entertained for him. ”

“ Her charm is more compelling than her actual beauty. Upon her face rests a vague suspense. She is in deep mourning.
There is a long pause: suddenly her face lights up; she rises, watches anxiously a moment, then relaxes—disappointed. In her hand she holds a crumpled telegram, which she smooths out and rereads. The clock slowly strikes five, and she crosses to it, indicating her expected visitor is late. She stands before the fire a second, kisses the telegram, puts it in her dress—recrosses to the window again slowly. In a few seconds her sharp intake of breath shows some one is coming. ”

“ Frank, revelling in the blissful conjunction of every part of their naked bodies, clasped Laura round the neck and imprinted burning kisses upon her lovely lips, while his rampant steed plunged violently backwards and forwards in the abyss of pleasure and his charming buttocks bounded and quivered with the excess of wanton delight. Greatly interested in watching the delightful encounter, I endeavoured to promote their enjoyment by tickling and playing with them in the most sensitive places, till their excitement reached its height and they both sunk down in the swoon of pleasure. ”

“ Middleton could not look upon feminine unhappiness with composure and here where he was himself responsible, he was indeed smitten with keen remorse and hastening to comfort her, gathered her into his arms and there he was abasing and condemning himself and telling her what a dear, nice girl she was—and kissing away her tears.
“Let me give you a piece of advice,” he said, fifteen minutes later, as he was about to release her and depart. “It is not best ever to let a man hug you. ”

“ I only hope, my darling Miss Ellen, that you will always be as happy as you ought to be, so good as you are, and always trying to do good to people, and to be of use. God bless your Sweet face!"
My heart smote me at the praises of this excellent woman; and I answered with a deep sigh, "My fate is a far happier one than I deserve, or ever can deserve, dear Mrs. Hatton; for I am engaged to Edward Middleton, and am to be married to him in a fortnight." ”

“ But, above all, you have the music of her great silence; above all, you have her tears. When I played to you on my pipe you recognised the voice of your mother. When I showed you my pictures you recalled the tales with which she hushed you to sleep. And so I knew that you were her son and my little brother."
"The moon has always been my friend," said the boy; "but I did not know that she was my mother."
"Perhaps your sister knows it; the happy dead are glad to seek her for a mother; that is why they are so fond of white flowers."
"We have a mother at home. She works very hard for us." ”

“ She sat by the drawing room fire after tea, till the moment of Lady Middleton’s arrival, without once stirring from her seat, or altering her attitude, lost in her own thoughts and insensible of her sister’s presence; and when at last they were told that Lady Middleton waited for them at the door, she started as if she had forgotten that any one was expected. ”

“ But they did, and immediately they turned upon her in a body.
"Thomasine, I am astonished! In the first place, you cannot possibly tell whether she looks happy or not, and in the second place—" But no one ever heard what came in the second place, for Miss Middleton's sentence was broken short by an exclamation of added horror from her four sisters. ”

“ At length, in spite of our endeavours, we could no longer restrain the tide of passion, a few furious heaves of my maddened and thrusting pleasure-giver completed our bliss, and the genial shower sprinkled the field of pleasure and calmed our overexcited senses.
One other soul-stirring enjoyment was all we had time to accomplish before the approach of the hour at which Laura was usually called warned us that we must separate, and with the most poignant regret that we might not have another opportunity of again enjoying ourselves in such a delightful manner, we parted. ”