Mlle. Blanche

“ A year had glided by since the death of the duke. Blanche enjoyed the happiness of youth, free from care, and Gottfried the peace of honest, high-souled self-denial. A guardian angel, he limped about modestly at the side of his niece, rejoicing to be able to remove every stone which threatened to mar the smoothness of her path, or to scare away the hawks lurking in ambush to surprise her innocence. ”

“ Marmaduke, do you think you could get Billy here for the ball?"
"I will try. I dare say I shall be able to manage it. And now run away and get Blanche Going to help you write out a list of people. She knows every one in the county, and is a capital hand at anything of that sort."
"She seems to be a capital hand at most things," I reply, pettishly, "except at making herself agreeable to me. It is always Blanche Going can do this, and Blanche Going can do that. She is a paragon of perfection in your eyes, I do believe. I won't ask her to help me. I hate her." ”

“ I know an old woman, and a little girl not much older than you, and they both love the Lord Jesus Christ so much, and speak to Him a great deal. And I do, too; but I've only begun a little while ago. But I'm quite sure He does hear us and help us too," said Blanche earnestly. Her faith in the Saviour seeming to grow stronger every moment 314as she gazed on this lost child whom He had come to seek and to save.
"He'd give a body somethink, you say," said the fairy presently, looking sharply at Blanche with her cunning eyes, after she had thought over her words for a little. ”

“ Lady Blanche seldom came to town, and, for the most part, he lived alone in the fine house in St. James's Square, of which she had heard her mother talk.
He liked her--had liked her from the first. How natural that she should tend and brighten his old age--how natural, and how impossible! He was not the man to brave the difficulties and discomforts inseparable from the sudden appearance of an illegitimate granddaughter in his household, and if he had been, Julie, in her fierce, new-born independence, would have shrunk from such a step. ”

“ Blanche has a trick of standing back more than a maiden needs. And, besides, we say that Mistress Alice is bound by pledge of word, and partly Blanche, too—for she stood by and said never a syllable against it—that we should have good cheer and dancing on that day at the Rose Croft. It is the feast of the blessed virgin, Terese, and we would fain persuade Blanche that the festival should be kept for the sake of her birth-day saint. ”

“ The piety of Blanche was sincere but never exaggerated; it is easy to see in such a legend the art of those who thought it fitting that a saint, even before birth, should allow nothing to interfere with the services of the church. In like manner Blanche's extreme jealousy in regard to her baby is a fiction that has been often repeated. Louis was given to a nurse, Marie la Picarde, and there is no truth in the story which represents Blanche as snatching him from the breast of one of her ladies and forcing the infant to disgorge the milk of the stranger. ”

“ During the ten or twelve years that now intervened before Blanche was again to take the regency during Saint Louis's crusade, her role in public life is of less importance; there will be a fact in history to note here and there, but most of that which we shall say concerns the woman, the mother, rather than the queen. Though eminently fitted in intellect and temperament for exercising the powers of an active ruler, Blanche never forgot that she was only the king's mother, and that she held the royal power in trust for him. ”

“ So we hold to that, good Blanche."
"Yes, good Blanche! gentle Blanche! sweetheart, we hold to that!" cried the whole party, in a clamorous onset.
"Truly, Grace Blackiston, you will have father Pierre checking us for noisy behaviour," said the maiden. "You see that he is now looking towards us. It is a pretty matter to make such a coil about! I marvel, has no one ever been eighteen before!"
"This day se'nnight," replied the arch girl to whom this reprimand was addressed, "will be the first day, Blanche Warden, the Rose of St. Mary's has ever seen eighteen ”

“ Blanche answered, composedly. "Besides, I'm not the other woman—I'm the one. The Duchess is the other!"
"But your husband—"
"Do you know, I should prefer not to discuss my husband—with you," Blanche said, calmly, taking up her book. "He is not the sort of man you would be at all likely to understand. If you want a rich wife why don't you propose to Clara Mannering? I suppose you knew that some unheard-of aunt had left her fifty thousand pounds?"
Sir Leslie rose to his feet. ”

“ In her exceeding beauty and blameless reputation; her love for her husband, and strong domestic affections; her pride of birth and rank; her feminine gentleness of deportment; her firmness of temper; her religious bigotry; her love of absolute power, and her upright and conscientious administration of it, Blanche greatly resembled Maria Theresa of Austria. She was, however, of a more cold and calculating nature; and in proportion as she was less amiable as a woman, did she rule more happily for herself and others. ”

“ Guy rarely passed a night without experiencing some extraordinary pain or other, Blanche listened absently.
"It is the heart, my dear; I am becoming sure of that," said the old lady. "Last year, if you remember, the physician put it down to spleen; but when I go to him tomorrow and tell him of this dreadful oppression, he will change his opinion."
"Don't you think you keep yourself too warm?" said Blanche, who looked so cool and fresh in her pretty morning dress. "That shawl is heavy, and the fire is warm; yet it is still quite summer weather." ”

“ The children were both clever, and anxious to imitate the queen, to whom they paid frequent visits, and as she could dance and play the lute, of course they must do so too. But it was more difficult for Blanche to do her lessons than her sister, as she was constantly sent for by her father to be 318 present at some banquet to his friends, and though she was no more than six, the child knew how to behave like a grown-up woman, and never showed when she was tired or bored. ”

“ He returned, but it was to watch over his beloved; and on his return, what was his horror to hear of the situation into which her wretched husband had precipitated her!
Blanche was embarrassed, yet delighted. From childhood she had known him, and loved him almost as a father; and to her old affection there was now added, the unconscious flattery of her knowledge of his love for her. No woman is ever insensible to such flattery; the man who loves her, though hopelessly, is always interesting in her eyes. Blanche was eminently a woman. ”

“ As I get old I shall grow wise."
Blanche threw her arms around her father's neck and imprinting a kiss upon his brow, said in a tone of affectionate playfulness, "for your sake, dear father, I will not chide: the Skipper shall not want due observance from me. I did but speak to give you a caution, by which you shall learn that the maidens of this province are so foolish as to stand to it, and I amongst the rest, that they are better able to choose their gallants than their fathers,—though their fathers be amongst his Lordship's most trusty advisers." ”

“ Nevertheless, Blanche, turning matters over in her mind, could only look at it and at that detestable East Wing with an increased sense of mystery. "But for knowing that someone was there who might not be disclosed to the honest light of day, why should he have forbidden the search?" ran the argument that she was for [46] ever holding with herself; and she steeled her heart yet more against her husband.
On this, the second afternoon after the commotion, she was sitting reading a newspaper in the garden, where the sun was shining hotly, when Mr. Hill, who had been up with Lord Level, appeared. ”

“ In the stillness of life, talent is formed; but in the storm and stress of adverse circumstances character is fashioned. Had Blanche returned to London she might have become a society lady; but here she was a consoler, binding up the broken heart. She would sit for hours by John's side talking with him about his wife and children in far-off Virginia, and she never went to sleep without praying Heaven by some means to take the father and husband back to his loved ones. ”

“ One touch of this magic wand.’”
Blanche looked up to thank the Queen; but no words came—only tears.
“I see a wish in thine eyes,” said Fontana.
“It is for Victor,” faltered Blanche, at last; “he wishes to be rich and great.”
The Queen looked grave.
“Shall I make him one of the great men of the earth, little Blanche? Then he may one day go to the ends of the world, and forget thee.”
Blanche only smiled, and Victor’s cheek flushed.
“I shall be a great man,” said he—“perhaps a prince; but where I go Blanche shall go: she will be my wife.”
“That is well,” said the Queen. ”

“ Captain Heath was her companion in almost every walk and drive; reading to her the books she wished; daily becoming a greater favourite with little Rose Blanche, who would leave even her nurse to come to him; and daily feeling serener, as his love grew not deeper, but less unquiet: less, as he imagined, like a lover's love, and more like that of an elder brother. ”

“ I dare say you'll go flying off to Marshdale this afternoon in that gossamer dress you have on, or one as thin and flowing."
"No, I shan't," laughed Blanche; "it [228] would be tumbled and spoilt by the time I got there. I shall go in that pretty new gray cashmere, trimmed with silk brocade."
"That's a lovely dress, child; too good to travel in. And you tell me you will be back to-morrow. I don't think that very likely, my dear——"
"But I intend to be," interrupted Blanche.
"You will see," nodded the old lady. "When your husband gets you there, he will keep you there. ”

“ If Blanche broke her heart—why, she must break it. But she need not have mixed taunts and jeers with her refusal to believe; she need not have triumphed openly over Blanche. Was it well done? Was it the work of an affectionate sister! As we sow, so shall we reap. She married Sir Francis Levison, leaving Blanche to her broken heart, or to any other calamity that might grow out of the injustice. And there sat Lady Levison now, her three years of marriage having served to turn her love for Sir Francis into contempt and hate. ”

“ When some men did bring wives and children, it was noticed that the girl Blanche was seldom seen in the streets. And, however it was, there grew among the men a faint respect for her. They did not talk of it to each other, but it existed. It was known that Blanche resented even the most casual notice from those men who had wives and homes. She gave the impression that she had a remnant of conscience.
"Go home," she said to Harry Delong, who asked her to drink with him on New Year's Day. "Go home, and thank God that you've got a home—and a wife." ”

“ He had despised her once to Lady Isabel—as Lord Thomas says in the old ballad; but that was done to suit his own purpose, for he had never, at any period, cared for Lady Isabel as he had cared for Blanche. He gained her affection in secret—they engaged themselves to each other. Blanche's sister, Lydia Challoner, two years older than herself suspected it, and taxed Blanche with it. Blanche, true to her compact of keeping it a secret, denied it with many protestations. ”

“ I should not like to have a wing at all," said Blanche, clasping her hands in a beseeching attitude.
32 "Why, pussy, what is the matter? Am I not to be forgiven for starting before you were up this morning? Never mind; we shall beg Miss Prosser for a holiday to-morrow, and you shall go to the moors, mounted on a little Shetlander."
"It is not that, papa. I'm afraid I shan't want to go to the moors any more now. I think it must be very dreadful. These poor killed birds! how can you stand and see them all die, papa?" ”

“ She would accept no one's help—not even her husband's, though it distressed him greatly that she refused it—but walked out of the room of her own accord, and toiled wearily up the staircase which led her to the higher stories; whilst more than one pair of eyes watched her ascent, and more than one appetite was spoilt for the coming meal.
"Don't you think that Blanche is looking very ill?" demanded Bella Clayton of Colonel Damer, at the dinner-table. ”

“ Blanche regarded without any feelings of jealousy the fairy's gift to her sister. Her only thoughts were concerning the pleasures she anticipated in being a queen. All at once she heard a huntsman's horn, and going to the door to see the party pass, she appeared so beautiful to the King that he resolved to marry her, and did so accordingly. Blanche, when she was become a queen, said to her sister Vermilion: "I do not wish that you should marry a farmer; come to court with me, sister; I will procure you a great lord for your husband." ”

“ Blanche said. "I like to ask myself what it is they want, and to study their way of attaining it. You generally find that every one is fairly transparent when once you have found the key—and everybody is trying for something which they don't care for other people to know about."
The Duchess looked at Blanche steadily. There was a certain insolence, the insolence of her aristocratic birth and assured position in the level stare of her clear brown eyes. But Blanche did not flinch.
"I had no idea, Mrs. Mannering, that you had tastes of that sort," Berenice said, languidly. ”