Agnes, or, Beauty and Pleasure — page 27: what you’re looking at

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

AGNES; OB, BEAUTY AND PLEASUBE, poverty: she had no strength of mind for such an | alternative as this:—she had tasted the sweets of aristocratic rank; and she would soomer put a period to her existence than have to look the world in the face and confess that she was not Lady Ormsby after all, but plain Mrs, Evelyn stall. “Rest assured, father,” she said, after a long conversation with Mr. Waldron, “that I will talk Morton over. I can do anything with bim!—he will not dare refuse to act according to my wishes. But why does he not come? You have already been here two hours Ab, that is his knock !” Morton had been wandering about, deliberating with himself—if indeed thoughts that were full of a wildering anguish can be said to constitute deli- beration at all. Still he had ultimately made up his mind what course to adopt; and the reader will speedily learn his decision. He ascended to the drawing-room; and on en- tering it, he ejaculated, “ Ab!” upon beholding his father-in-law with his wife. “ Morton—dear Morton!” exclaimed Honoria, hastening forward; “where have you been P—why have you remained absent so long ?” “ Honoria,” said Evelyn, with a tone and look which left both her father and herself in utter un- certainty relative to any decision to which he might have come,—“I suppose that you know everything P” * Yes—everything, dear Morton,” hastily replied his wife, with the most winning and cajoling air. “But do not look so strange at me! Tell me what you mean to do?” * What would you have me do?” asked Evelyn, fixing his gaze with anxious searchfulness upon his wife’s splendid countenance, “Oh, dearest Morton!” she answered, with re- doubled cajoleries; “for your sake, and for our beloved child’s you see I put myself entirely out of the question I think that you must make a little sacrifice of feeling———” “Ah! I comprehend!” interrupted Morton, with so strange a voice and look that Honoria shrank bagk from him. ‘“ You call it a little sacrifice of feeling? O Honoria, Honoria!” he added, now with bitterness in his accents and anguish in ois countenance, “that you could wish me to become a villain !” “This is absurd!” said Honoria, turning dis- dainfully away from him: for since her cajoleries had failed, she now meant to try the effect of an imperious mood. “Wretched man!” cried Morton, addressing himself to Waldron; “is it thus that you have tutored your own child ?—is it thus that with your own iniquity you have infected the mind of your daughter? Is it possible that human villany eould have reached such an extent?” There was something so dignified in Morton's look and manner at the instant—not the false dignity of aristocratic assumption, but the nobility of conscious innocence reproaching consummate guilt—that Waldron became for a moment cowed and abashed; and he forgot the power which he wielded over Morton Evelyn. At that crisis the door opened; and Timperley, looking in, said, “ I beg pardon for intruding—but the appointments hold good for to-morrow.” “ Ah! — to-morrow !” ejaculated Hyelyn in Lo strange accents: and he rushed from the room, nearly knocking down the head clerk, who was lingering upon the threshold to draw some infer- ence from the scene before him. “Stop him! he is mad!” exclaimed Waldron, rushing towards the door. * Morton, Morton !—dear Morton! come back !” cried Honoria, also speeding forth upon the land- ing. But at that instant the front door was closed violently; and the three persons upon the landing — Waldron, Honoria, and Timperley—contemplated one another with dismayed iooks. *“ What can he mean to do?” at length asked Waldron, with frightened accents, “Depend upon it he will never come back!” re- plied Timperley, with one of his most sinister looks. * Hasten to the office,’ exclaimed Waldron, “and hide the papers! In his madness he may go and destroy them! JI shail be there pre- sently.” Timperley hurried down the staircase; and Waldron, retreating into the drawing-room, flung himself upon the sofa, exclaiming, “‘ Good heaven! what does he mean to do?” Honoria remained standing at the head of the stairs, with her looks fixed’ upon vacancy. A strong revulsion of feeling was taking place within her. At length she paced slowiy into the drawing- room; and closing the door, she advanced up tu Waldron. There she placed herself in front of him, and gazed upon him for a few moments with- out speaking a word. “ Father,” she said, at last breaking that omi- nous silence, “ you have done all this. See how hieh-minded and how well-principled my husband is! Oh, a change has taken place within me— and I loathe myself for having given way to the temptation of riches and titles, and for having en- deavoured to seduce Morton into crime. My noble-hearted Morton, where have you gone P Will you not come back to the wife who loves you now more in your poverty than ever she did when you had all your brilliant prospects before you ?” Honoria’s voice had risen into wildly passionate and vehement accents ; and she stretched forth her arms as if to woo her husband back to them. “Honoria, you should not reproach me!” said Waldron, starting up from the sofa. “~ Morton will come back!—Oh, he must come back! My God! if he does not, I am ruined!” “And your ruin, father, is a punishment fur your guilt!” exclaimed Honoria. “Give me back my husband—that high-minded, generous- hearted husband of whom I never felt really proud till now! Ob, he bas fled before your frightful menaces! It isyow that have driven him from me | No—he will never come back ! never |” It was in a voice of rending anguish that she spoke ; and it seemed as if there were another voice which echoed in her heart the desolating word, “Never !” Waldron remained with his daughter until a late hour in the night. A servant was despatched to the office to learn if Morton had been theres but the man returned with a negative answer. Waldron was driven to despair: Honoria wept over her babe, which she had never nursed nor fondled so much as she did now, Sometimes cho Ccomiclooks TT — ewe Co