Agnes, or, Beauty and Pleasure — page 252: what you’re looking at

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

244 AGNES; OR, BEAUTY AND PLEASURE. “that very same day Mr. Timperley called upon | compelled us to leave our rural home in Leicester- me!” shire and settle in the Sritish metropolis. Acci- “And then he called upon Sir John Dalham,” | dent led us to fix our abode at Belmont Cottage, acded Ormsby; “and there can be no doubt that , which chanced to be in the immediate vicinity of after leaving Sir John Dalham’s villa, he must | Sidney Villa. The instant I heard the name of have met Mrs, Chicklade in the lane and he killed | Evelyn, and learnt that she was your daughter, I her.” became deeply, deeply interested in her. I re- “ And that unfortunate Winifred Barrington,” | solved to keep my eye upon her, and to watch over interjected Mrs. De Vere, “ was therefore innocent | her welfare, for your sake. Yet I did not choose after all. Ob, how great a criminal is the man/| to court her acquaintance: I was diffident in Timperley! But we were ere now speaking, my forming an intimacy with the daughter of the lord, of my own circumstances. I owe you all| very man who had rescued me from the streets! possible explanations:—pray permit me to give | I remembered from what a pitch of degradation them. Iam going back twenty years. At that / you had lifted me up; and I thought to myself, time I was seduced from the paternal home ina ‘If by any possibility Morton Evelyn should not distant county by Lord Mendlesham. He brought | be really dead, and if he should ever come back, me up to London and he abandoned me. I was) he might look with indignation upon me if he in a way to become a mother. It was you who| thought that I had obtruded myself upon the saved me—yes—you, my benefactor, who savec me | notice of his pure-minded, chaste, and virtuous from becoming a degraded and lost wanderer in| daughter!’—But as I have already told you, I the streets of London! You saved me that night | conceived the utmost interest on behalf of Agnes —you subsequently called upon me at the house | Evelyn; and when I learnt that the Hon. Hector where I dwelt—and I told you that if I had money | Hardress had accidentally become acquainted with sufficient to enable me to get back to my native | her and purposed to call at Sydney Villa place, I would throw myself at my parents’ feet,| “Ah!” ejaculated Ormsby, “I know what you and I believed and boped they would receive their | are about to state. You wrote Agnes a letter of erring daughter back to theirarms. You gave me| warning, and you signed it An Unknown Friend.” that money. I travelled to my native place: but,| ‘Yes: such was the step that I took,” replied alas! my hopes were destined to experience the | Mrs. De Vere. bitterest disappeintment. My mother had died of| “ Agnes, when telling me all the incidents of grief on account of my flight from home: my/| her life,” said Ormsby, “failed not to mention father spurned me from the door. Yes—he was|this one. It was very kind on your part, Mrs, implacable! No intervention on the part of | De Vere; and this day has shown you that Mor- friends could move him: the letters I sent re-| ton Evelyn does live to thank you for the interest mained unnoticed. He never forgave me! Al-/| you took in his daughter!” most broken-hearted, I dragged myself away from| “Ob, but consider the illimitable obligations my native village, to hide my shame elsewhere. | under which I lie towards you!” exclaimed Mrs. In another place where I was a complete stranger | De Vere; “and then speak not of thanks to me. I earned a precarious and scanty subsistence with | But, Ah! what was that which poor Charles told my needle. At length I became a mother: my | me just now?” Charles was born. I then wrote to his father, “Tt is with the profoundest sorrow, Mrs. De Lord Mendlesham, imploring that he would not| Vere,” replied Ormsby, “that I have to repeat to leave his babe to perish for want along with its | you the same declaration which I ere now made to wretched mother. It was then that either through | your son. Everything is at an end between him compunctious feelings, or else for the purpose of | and Agnes; and, Ob! it is indeed fortunate that bushing up the affair so that it might never come | you should have come to Florence to look after to the ears of his wife, his lordship agreed to allow| him, for I fear that he has formed a con- me the income of two hundred a-year, as I ere | nexion 4 now informed you. And then I took the name of| ‘What, my lord!” ejaculated Mrs. De Vere, De Vere—a name which had once been in my/| becoming pale as death; “Charles has formed an family; and I sought another place of abode. I] improper connexion? Ob, no! it is impossible! _ settled myself in Leicestershire. There I reared | You must be labouring under some tremendous my son in virtue and in goodness; and God grant |error! What! Charles do aught that is wrong? that the tenour of my life for twenty years past|Ob, no! no! I will believe almost anything may have atoned for my ome fault !” rather than that! Depend upon it, you are mis- “ Ob, yes—it must have done so!” exclaimed | taken!” Ormsby, much moved: “it must have done so! “Tt is asad thing for me, Mrs. De Vere,” said Mrs. De Vere, I bear none but the most friendly } Ormsby, “to become the means of creating any feelings towards you, and you will therefore give | unpleasant feeling between yourself and your son me credit for sincerity when 1 declare that I am|—still more unpleasant to me to stretch forth my rejoiced to hear the account you have rendered me | hand and tear away from your eyes the bandage of yourself—for it proves that the one fault has in- | which has hitherto covered it in reference to the deed been atoned for !” conduct of Charles. But if you press me on the “ And, Ob, my lord!” resumed Mrs. De Vere, | point = “in return for all the friendship which you have} “Ob, for heaven’s sake, explain yourself!” cried displayed towards me, my heart has ever cherished | Mrs. De Vere. “If after our meeting to-day you the sincerest gratitude! I have a few more ob- | had bidden Charles consider that everything was servations to make. A little time ago Lord] at an end betwixt him and Agnes, I shoule have Mendlesham procured for Charles an appointment] naturally considered that it was because you in a Government office; and this circumstance! would not consent to bestow the hand of your Comicbooks S|