Miss Vaughan

“ But I wish some of my fellows had only half your spirit. A little more experience, and nothing will escape you. Come, Miss Vaughan, though you are a lady, or rather because you are one, give me your left hand, in token that you forgive me. ”

“ But who made your dress, in the name of all woodland graces?"
"I always make my own dresses."
"Then you shall make mine. Say no more about it. You shall live with me, and make my dresses by day; and by night you shall go with me everywhere, and I won't be jealous. I will introduce you everywhere. 'This is my ward, Miss Vaughan, whose father--ah, I see, you know that romantic occurrence in Gloucestershire.' Do you think it will be a your--and the Great Exhibition season--before you are mistress of a property ten times the size of Vaughan Park? If you doubt it, look in the glass. Ah me! ”

“ Fletcher, I found, whom?--Conrad!
Very pale and ill he looked, so unlike himself that I was shocked, and instead of leaping to him, fell upon a chair. He mistook me, and approached very slowly, but with his dear old smile: how my heart beat, how I longed to be in his arms; but they looked too weak to hold me.
"Oh, Miss Vaughan, I know everything. Will you ever forgive me?"
"Never, my own darling, while you call me that. Forgive you indeed! Can I ever forgive myself, for the evil I have thought of you? How very ill you look! Come and let me kiss you well." ”

“ He turned indoors as he spoke, and Vaughan stood silent for perhaps five minutes, looking out into the glorious summer night, with his thoughts where they could scarcely have failed to be—on the wonderment of all the happiness that had come to him, on the difference that the love of a girl had made in him, his ambitions, his hopes, of all the great things that he longed to accomplish now for her sake, to show her that perhaps she had not chosen unworthily. ”

“ Shelfer, you basted my pound and a half of mutton with three pounds of coals. Now don't go off into a treatise. Answer me, where is Grove Street?"
"Bless my heart, Miss Vaughan. You never gives one a chance. And we thought a young lady from the country as had been brought up with tags, and lace, and bobbin, and pigs, and hay--"
"Could be cheated anyhow. No, I don't mean that: I beg your pardon, dear Patty. I often speak very hastily. ”

“ In the short interview which he had had with his cousin Kate, Herbert Vaughan had looked, for the first time in his life, on one whom to look at was to love. The blue-eyed belle of his native village, the pretty barmaid at the inn, the sweet-faced chorister in the church—with other boyish fancies, already half obliterated by two months of absence—were swept instantaneously into the dustbin of oblivion by that lovely apparition. He was face to face with a woman worthy of his love—one who deserved every aspiration of his soul. ”

“ His mistress now stopped her work, and made ready for a long speech, with the usual snap of her lips.
"Know London, Miss Vaughan! I was born in Red Cross Street, and I've never been further out of town than Chalk Farm fair, or Hampstead Waterworks, and, please God, I never will. Bless me, what an awful place the country is, awful! What with the trees, and the ditches, and the sting-nettles, and the black wainscot with skewers on the top--"
"Too bad of you, Mrs. Shelfer, to be frightened at palings--and your husband a gardener, too! But tell me whereabouts is Grove Street?" ”

“ He looked even humbly at me.
"Clara Vaughan--"
"Be kind enough to address me properly."
"Miss Vaughan, you must have some powerful reason for wishing to be rid of life." He tried to look piercingly at me.
"You are quite mistaken. It is nothing more than contempt of an abject coward and murderer." ”

“ She recognized him; it was Gustave, the favorite valet and confidential servant of Lord Chandon. She clasped her hands with a low moan, while he cried again, in a wondering, frightened voice—"Miss Vaughan!" He looked at her, a strange fear dilating his eyes.
"I am Hyacinth Vaughan," she said, in a low hoarse voice.
The next moment he had taken off his hat, and stood bareheaded before her. "Miss Vaughan," he stammered, "we—we thought you dead."
"So I am," she cried passionately—"I am dead in life! You must not betray me, Gustave. For Heaven's sake, promise not to tell that you have seen me!" ”

“ Once, indeed, I rested at the ancient tower, near my Lily's grave, which I always visited twice in every year. I have some vague idea, now in my old age, that though we Vaughans detest any display of feeling--except indeed at times when the heart is too big for the skin--we are in substance, without knowing it, a most romantic race. Whether we are that, or not, is matter of small moment; one thing is quite certain, we are strutted well and stable. We are not quick of reception, but we are most retentive. Never was there man of us who ever loved a woman and cast her off through weariness ”

“ Then I kissed her sweet lips, and admired her, more than she admired herself.
"Clara, it does not matter how much trouble you take; you can't make me look a quarter so well as you do."
"Not quite so tall, my darling, nor anything like so naughty; but a thousand times more lovely."
"Well, I wish I could think so. I am always longing to change with you."
"Don't talk nonsense, my pretty; if I were a man I should die for you. Now I glory in you as a Vaughan. Come along." ”

“ Only the sham original glories in being thought queer.
"Well, Mrs. Shelfer, I want to hear the end of it."
"Just what I say, Miss. Yes, yes, no time to spare, and the pudding boiling. So I says, quite sharp, 'What name, my good sir, and will you leave a message? Miss Vaughan is out of town.' 'Wull,' says he, just as I tell you, Miss, 'ony plase you say, ma'am, as Jan Uxtable, and Beany Dawe, and the two beggest of the chillers has doed theirselves the honour of coming to lave their dooty.' Then the little girl look up and she flash her ribbons and say, 'Mr. ”

“ Miss Vaughan's literary methods are not exactly captivating, and the enormous parenthesis is hers, but the capitals which close it are mine. The English doctor mentioned is well known to transcendentalists, and he is actually a high-grade Mason; he is also personally well-known to myself. To the best of his recollection he has never at any time met any person terming herself Diana Vaughan. More especially, no such individual has ever called at his house, much less copied any rituals of which he may be in possession. ”

“ Now if you won't come down, Miss Valence, my dinner will all stick in my throat, and I am so hungry."
"So am I, Mrs. Shelfer, you have made me so."
In her excitement, she slipped from the edge of the chair, whereon she always balanced herself when I made her sit down. She thought it disrespectful to occupy too much room, and cuddled herself in the smallest compass possible.
Let no ill be thought of Giudice. Who thinks ill of me I care not, for I can defend myself, if it be worth while. So can Giudice with his teeth--the finest set in London--but he has no tongue, no merop tongue, I mean. ”

“ But before I went, your poor father, Clara, protested most strongly against the scheme, and even came to London in the vain hope of dissuading me. He had some deep presentiment that it would end darkly, and so indeed it did.
"Ned," said he once more, "there are only two of us, and my dear wife is very delicate. I have been at Genoa, where those islanders are well known, and even there they are rarely spoken of but with a cold shudder. They are a splendid race, I believe, great heroes and all that, but they shoot a man with no more compunction than they shoot a muffro. ”

“ Ah! sulky, I fear; young lady sulky with the poor Professor, who tries to develop her mind. Fie, fie, very small and ungrateful, and not half so grand a study as the attitude of contempt. What a pity poor Conrad was not present an hour ago! How he might have enriched his little book of schemata. Several most magnificent poses. But I fear the poor fellow has taken his last chip. A sad thing, was it not? Why, how you start, Miss Vaughan! ”

“ There was a look in his great gray-green eyes, a look of the accusing angel, that made her hang her head while the dark red burned upon her whole body.
"He'll be back Thursday or Friday," continued Vaughan, tossing the pad into the window seat, a dozen feet away.
"You sent him on business?" inquired she, to make conversation.
"He wanted to go to Pittsburg, so he told me. I guess it's some girl. I suspect our 'dressy' friend of being a ladies' man. He takes too much trouble about his clothes—and silk underclothes! ”

“ I will leave the decision to Miss Isola. Young as she is, and innocent and confiding, she cannot be wrong on a question of delicacy. As for prudence, she knows more of London than I do."
Hereon I sat down with a womanly air. But I could hardly help laughing when the senior sophist jumped up, proud to deliver judgment. To look taller, she shook her flounces down, threw back her plump white shoulders--her bonnet and cloak were off--drew her rich flowing hair down the pearly curve of her ears and, scarcely satisfied yet, thought of mounting a stool, then took her foot off the too convictive bema. ”

“ Are you quite certain that Conny and I are not--not--"
"Not base-born," I said--why be mawkish in Oscan-English, when Saxon is to be had?--"No, my darling, you are as lawful as I, your cousin Clara. We Vaughans are a passionate race, but we never make wrecks of women, and scoundrels of ourselves. That we leave for Corsicans, and people brought up to lies."
The sneer was most unjust, and dreadfully unkind, but far too natural for me, so long pent in, to resist it. I saw that I had grieved my pet, so I begged her pardon, and reviled myself, till all was right again. ”

“ The farmer's face I shall never forget; as he slowly gathered the truth, it became majestic with honest indignation. A strong man's wrath at deceit and foul play sat upon it, like a king on his throne.
"For the chillers--" he stammered at last--"ony for the poor chiller's sake--else I'd never stand it, danged if I wud, Miss Clara; it make a man feel like a rogue and a cheat himself."
Then, with all the power of his mighty voice he shouted, so that every fold of the canvass shook, and every heart thrilled fearfully:
"Men of Lunnon, if men you be, no chap can have fair play with you. ”

“ In those days of mutes and crape-coloured staves, mourning cloaks and trailing palls, it was not the custom for women to bury their dead. And Vaughan, when he had made up his mind to come, knew that he ran no risk of seeing Mary.
That he might escape with greater case, he had left his post-chaise at a side-gate of the park. The moment the ceremony was over, he made his way to it, now traversing beds of fallen chestnut and sycamore leaves, now striding across the sodden turf. ”

“ The position of authority and influence occupied by Miss Vaughan in what she terms high Masonry is to be explained, as she modestly informs us, not by her personal qualities, but by a traditional secret concerning her family, which is known only to the Elect Magi. Miss Vaughan and her paternal uncle are the last descendants of the alchemist Thomas Vaughan, whom she terms a Rosicrucian, and identifies with Eirenæus Philalethes, author of “The Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the King.” ”

“ If the present culprit desired to be set free from his grotesque position, he must humbly have recourse to her. Miss Vaughan was in America at the moment, but she generously came to his rescue as soon as steam could carry her, and restored him his lost front view by a jocose imposition of hands. I should add that on the very day when this misadventure took place at Paris, Miss Vaughan was defending her standpoint in person before the Triangle of Louisville ”

“ Miss Vaughan. Was Thomas Vaughan a Rosicrucian? And was he, admittedly the author of a series of tracts under the name of Eugenius Philalethes, also the author of those which bear the name of Eirenaeus Philalethes? The first question is, I am afraid, insoluble, until it has been decided whether the Fraternity of R. C. ever had an actual existence. Anthony à Wood states that Thomas Vaughan was a zealous Rosicrucian, but probably Anthony à Wood took the term in the general sense of mystic and alchemist. ”

“ But in his present mood Vaughan liked his plan the better for this. Henceforth he would be iron, he would be adamant! And only by a little thing did he betray that under the iron and under the adamant he carried an aching heart. When he came to book his place, deliberately, wilfully, he chose to travel by the Bath road and the White Lion coach, though he could have gone at least as conveniently by another coach and another route. Thus have men ever, since they first felt the pangs of love, rejoiced to press the dart more deeply in the wound. ”

“ Miss, now hadn't she ought?--"with all they young pigs, and the brown cow expecting every day, and Suke no head at all, and all the chillers and little Clara"--she call her "Clara" now, Miss,--"why farmer what be thinking of?" Then father rub the nose of him, you know the way he do it, Miss, and he say, "I must have some one. London be such a wicked place." Mother look up very sharp at that, and say quite peart, "take your daughter, farmer Huxtable, if you wants to be kept respectable." ”

“ But her father, said my Lily, with her sweet head on my breast and her soft eyes full of fire, her father did not seem to care even to shoot the cousin of the man who had shot her brothers.
Darling Lily, my blood runs cold, even with your beauty in my arms, to hear you talk of murder so. Own pet, I shall change you. You heaven meant for love, and softness, and delight: human devilry has tainted even you. It was not an easy task to change her. Of all human passions revenge is far the strongest. Clara, how your eyes flash. You ought to have been a Corsican. ”