Agnes, or, Beauty and Pleasure — page 258: what you’re looking at

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

CN en enn e UE EEE fal guished appearance. She is quite young—lI should not think that she is above eighteen or nineteen * * About nineteen, I should conceive,” rasponded the other; “but assuredly no more. Ah! who are those that are now entering her box,—that gentleman with the moustache, with the pretty light haired girl leaning on his arm ?” “They also are strangers: I never saw them before.” The lady whose entrance into the box had pro- duced such an immense sensation and elicited so many encomiums upon her beauty—some of which by the bye, reached her own ears—was none other than Floribel Lister. She had resolved to create @ sensation at Turin—and she succeeded. She had taken a box at the theatre, and she had pur- posely entered late, so that her trinmph—if such we may call it—would be all the more complete by attracting all eyes from the proceedings on the stage and riveting them upon herself. And truly she was wondrously beautiful!—never had she appeared to greater advantage! She was entering as it were from a new starting-point in her career; and assuredly the lustre of ‘her own charms en- veloped her as it were with a perfect halo of rap- turous dazzling light on this occasion, As she slowly looked round upon the company, she was suddenly struck on beholding the counte- mance of Sir Alexander Holcroft ; and then still more astonished was she on perceiving the pretty face of Carlotta, the daughter of the governor of the Apennine fortress. “Ah!” she thought to berself; “ Bagno was not strong enough nor sufficiently well barred to prevent young Cupid from helping his yotary to effect an escape! But what will Carlotta say to me after the trick that I played her when I accompiished my own escape P” Sir Alexander bowed with a friendly familiarity to Floribel ; and then Carlotta, having exchanged a hasty whisper with her companion, nodded with @0 expression of countenance which was as much as to imply that she harboured no ill-will towards her former friend and confidante of the fortress. - Floribel made them a slight but perceptible sign to join ber in her own box ; and as they had merely engaged two seats in the front part of the am- phitheatre, and were somewhat crowded, they lost not a moment in accepting Floribel’s invitation, To her box they accordingly repaired; and it was with a sly smile, but also with a blush upon the cheeks, that the pretty Carlotta gave her hand to Floribel, at the same time saying, “ You be- haved very wickedly to me—but I forgive you. Alexander desires it—and besides, I conceived a liking for you from the very first.” “My dear Carlotta,” answered Floribel, “I should indeed be very sorry to lose your friend- ship: Iam therefore glad that you have not with- drawn it. Pray be seated.” “By what name are we to know you?” whiis- pered Sir Alexander Holcroft. ‘ Perchance you are no longer the Signora Ciprina P” “No,” responded Floribel. ‘The name hag ac- quired too great a notoriety in its unfortunate association with the infamous Lucrezia di Mirano.” | “Then perhaps you are ecain Floribel Lister?” said the Baronet, with a emile, |. AGNES; OR, BEAUTY AND PLEASURE, de-ceausyp; “and she herself has a most distin. ce “No. I think you are aware of some reasons which make me wish to lose my identity. I have obtained @ new passport, having no farther use for (he one you favoured me with in the Apennines 5 and I am now Flora Lovel.” “ And a sweet pretty name it is,” said Holcroft. “The initials are still the same—F. L. Then Flora is as sweetly melodious as Floribel; and Loyel is certainly more euphonious than Lister. I will therefore lose no time in whispering to my pretty Carlotta that she is not to know you as the Signora Ciprina, but as an English lady bearing the name of Flora Loyel. Ah! by the bye, is it to be Mrs. Lovel?” “ Assuredly,” responded Fioribel : and then she added with an arch smile, “I am a widow, of course !—and mind therefore that you thus repre- sent me,’ “T shall not fail,” answered the Baronet. “ You saw what a sensation your presence created, and it will be your own fault if in the course of a very few days you do not have all the noblesse of Turin sighing at your feet.” Sir Alexander Holcroft now whispered a few — words to Carlotta; and she said with an amiable smile to Floribel, “I transfer to Madame Flora Lovel tbe friendship which I experienced for the Signora Ciprina.” “Thanks, my dear friend,” was the response, ‘And so at last you contrived to outwit your father and mother, and the savage Gudulla, and all those lynx- eyed sentinels P” * Yes—I outwitted them,” replied Carlotta: and then she added with a sigh, “But sometimes I think that my poor father and mother must be very unhappy on account of my flight—and—and —I wish I could write and tell them that I am married but every day something occurs to prevent Alexander from fulfilling the necessary formulas - “What is it that you are saying P” asked the Baronet, with a glance of uneasiness at Carlotta and then of significancy at Floribel. ‘“ You know, my dear girl, that everything will soon be all right. I have faithfully promised you “ And after all,” said Floribel, “a theatre is not precisely the place to discuss the subject :” but still she could not help experiencing a sentiment of deep compassion for the artless, mgenuous young creature whom she knew to have been be- guiled by the unprincipled man of the world who had never fora moment intended to make her his wife. “Where are you staying, my dear Mrs. Lovel ?” inquired the Baronet. ‘© At the Hotel de France,” was the reply. “The Hotel de France?” ejaculated Holeroft: “we also are staying there! But when did you arrive P” “Only the day before yesterday,” answered Floribel. “ Aud you ?” “This evening. And do you purpose to make a lorg sojourn in Turin?” asked the Baronet. * But ‘perhaps i ought not to put such a question P It may all depend upon circumstances? Is it not so P” “Yes,” rejoined -Floribel; and she darted a sig nificant look at Holeroft, “But I am dying,” she | continued, “to hear how you contriyed to effect | the escape of my friend Carlotta.” Comichboo | g