Agnes, or, Beauty and Pleasure — page 107: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

2 Sa =. = * j - #GNES ; ‘OR, BEAUTY AND PLEASURE. 99 seeher quite in a friendly way, without formality ; She was a well-meaning woman | or ceremony. enough: her weaknesses did not amount to vices; and she would not for a moment have become an aceomplice in the meditated elopement. Her in- vitation had therefore been made a convenience of, as the reader has seen, to forward the plans settled between Floribel Lister and Theodore Clifford. There were about a dozen guests at Mrs. Sheridan’s house: four old people sat down to whist : the more juvenile portion of the company recreated themselves with music. FPloribel seemed more than usually gay: her spirits were partially foreed, and partially borne up with the bright hopes in which she was cradling herself. When- ever for a moment a sensation of remorse on ac- count of her duplicity to Agnes, or of regretful emotion at having separated herself from that much-loved cousin, erept into Floribel’s heart, she took refuge in merry-soundine laughter; she flew to the piano to play a cheerful air; or she started some gay and joyous topic of discourse. Hvery one present thought that Miss Lister had never before proved herself so amiable, and had never seemed in better spirits. There was an or-molu timepiece upon the mantel in Mrs. Sheridan’s drawing-room; and as the hands drew nearer and nearer towards the indica- | tion of the hour of eleven, Floribel’s heart flut- | tered more and more—she had all the greater dif- ficulty in concealing her real agitation beneath a t feelings which took possession of her soul, all re- morse and all regret were forgotten ! Rapid and varied however were the transitions of feeling which Floribel was doomed to experience ; —and this indeed is ever the case with those who are taking a step that hovers in doubt betwixt the approval or disapproval of their own consciences. A moment before, while she stood upon the steps leading down from that garden-gate, she would have consented to be saved if any one had been there to save her:—another moment, and she ex- perienced feelings of soft ecstatic rapture when clasped in the arms of her lover :—then, yet an- other moment, and a strong revulsion of feeling took place within her. Her soul received a sud- den shock as the thought flashed to her mind that she was alone in that chaise with Theodore Clif- ford. — “ Where is the maid whom you promised to have in attendance for me?” she softly and tremu- lously inquired, with scarcely courage to put a question which might seem to imply distrust of her lover—and yet on the other hand impelled by delicacy of feeling to put it. “You know not, dearest Floribel,” answered Theodore, “ how distressed I am at this disappoint- ment. But believe me, it is not my fault! An elderly lady-friend of mine faithfully promised to supply the requirement: but at the last moment the girl whom I expected made not her appear- ance. L was bewildered how to act But semblanes of outward natural gaiety. The time- heavens, Floribel! you are weeping !” And so it was. piece struck the hour ;—and then Floribel, watch- | Again had the sense of her im- ing an opportunity when the whist players were | prudent conduct returned to Floribel’s mind: the deep in their game, and the rest of the company tears were trickling down her cheeks—they were were gathered about a young lady at the piano— | glistening in the light which was shed by moon glided unperceived from the room. The domestics | and stars into the vebicle. were employed in laying the supper-table:—of | “Ob, Theodore!” she murmured, her voice this Floribel assured herself—she caught up her broken by sobs; “what must you think of me veil and scarf in the breakfast-parlour, where she that I consent thus to travel with you—alone P” had left those articles—and unperceived by a soul, | “If you had refused, Floribel,”’ he at once an- she passed out into the garden at the back of the swered, with some little degree of vehemence, “I house. Thisshethreaded ; and in a few moments) | should have fancied that you had no trust nor con- reached a gate opening into a lane, where a post- ! fidence in me; and I should have considered there- chaise was waiting, and where Theodore Clifford fore that for some reason I was held unworthy to was in readiness to receive her. At that instant become your husband.” a severe pang shot through the heart of Floribel : “Ob, I indeed feel that there ought to be every it was almost a sense of consternation which seized | confidence between us!” exclaimed Floribel, wiping upon her brain ; and if the hand of any guardian | away her tears—for an instant smiling softly and genius had been stretched forth to hold her back, she would have yielded to the friendly interven- tion. And if, too, there had been a saving voice to whisper a single syllable of warning in her ear, | she would not have remained deaf to it. It re-| quired at that moment but the weight of a straw thrown into the balance, to induce that young gitl—hitherto rash, self-willed, and willfully self- tenderly upon her lover—and then casting down her looks beneath the luminous earnestness of his own. He passed his arm round her waist—drew her towards him—and covered her cheeks with kisses, until those cheeks glowed with burning blushes, and she felt that there was a fervour of passion in his embraces which made her tremble and shrink bliading also—to retract all that she had been re-' away from them. For be it remembered that solved to accomplish! 'Floribel was strictly chaste in her virgin thoughts: But no guardian hand was there—no saving no gross ideas had ever entered her imagination ; voice mingled with the breeze which was whisper- and though naturally of a warm temperament, yet ing along the lane and ruffling the autumn-tinted the unimpaired purity of her soul would have been foliage of the trees. One last look did Floribel proof against the wiles of deliberate seduction, fling behind towards the house which she had thus | while it would also have shielded her from any so stealthily quitted—a look in which there was attempt to surprise her virtue in a moment of & momentary expression of anguished entreaty, as seeming weakness. Giddy and thoughtless sho if imploring that some one would even yetcome was—self-willed and rash, asthe reader has seen— forth thenee to save her. But the next moment too much prone to regard superficial or ephemeral she was inside the chaise, clasped in the arms of circumstances as the elements of happiness— too her handsome lover; and then in the rapturous conf/ing in her disposition—too indolent toreason Conn ES Sa Cclooolkks C@