The Mysteries of the Court of London, Vol. 7 — page 65: what you’re looking at

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

=; | sensed. 64 THE MYSTERIRGS OF THE COURT. Ce ad eyes 8 an a= Sas = own. However plebeian her parentage might | the sources of no inconsiderable part of his m.- have been, thete were nevertheless all the best | mense fortune. She was aware that he had seon unbought graves of a natural aristocracy about | poverty in palaces as well as in prisons—and bad thia beautiful and Gharming creature. ¢ penetrated into both with no sympathuaing object, Such was Zoe Armyrage. But how was it that | but for the mere purpose of availing himself of the such a man as he who was introduced to the | proud Jord’s wants or the poor trddesman’s neves- reader in the preceding chapter, could possess such | sities, as the means of aggtandizing his own a daughter? Mr. Armytage hed risen from next} wealth. All this did Zoe know: and therefore she to notiting. Ho did not mind sometimes boasting | had a complete reading of her father’s heart. She. amongst ne City acyuaihtances-—never amongst | know that it was not morely hard, becavse hardness his fashionable ones--that he had been the archi- ; melts—and his heart nover melted; that it was tent of hie own fortune: yet he never was known | not merely cold —berduse colduosé may definitely to state what he was in the beginning. He went no farther back than the period when he acted as stoward or intondant over the vast oatntes of the present Duke of Marchment. Howevor, at the time when Zoe was old cnough to begin to re- ceive impressions from the circumstances in which she was placed, ber father was already a well-to-do man. Thus, whatevor his ocarlicst position micht have becn, Zoo's recollections went no farther back than to aseociato themselves with a comfortable well-furnished home, with servants, and the usual appendages of rapidly increasing prosperity. Her mother had died early; and as she grew up, she perceived, with an understanding beyond her years, that though her father supervised the governess and the preceptors who managed the various de- partments of her educution, he was by ho means capable of judicionsly exercising such authority. Sho loved her father, not merely because sho was naturally of an affectionate diaposition—but like- wise because she beheld, or fancied she belicld, in his xealous core on her behalf, a fond paternal endeavour to indemnify her as much as possible oy the loss of her maternal parent. Thus os she green, she delicately avoided hurting her fathor’s feelings beufforing him to perceive that her own in- tuitive guod taste and naturally delicate appreciation were as pure gold ie to dross in €omparison with his vulgar, upstart, purvenu notions. While seeming to follow his advice in all ber studies, sho nevorthe- less in reality yielded implicit contidenco to the dounder judgment and better tastes of the first- rate governess and masters who were engajred in her tuition. The result was that ker mind cx- panded beneath the best possible infhuencos, totally unaffected by that crroncous one which her father sought to shed upon every phaae of its develop- ment. For if she had listened to him, she would have devoted herself to the fashionable frivolities inslead of tu the substantialitics of education: she would have become fitted only for a mere drawing- room doll-- whereas sho had turned out an intel- leotual and truly accomplished young Indy. It may easily be supposed that with & wind so gifted and with au understanding do capacious as Zoe's, the could not have failed to observe the ways in which her father hd obtaizied wealth. She know him to be one who had apeduluted—if speculation it could be called— with all that. worldly-minded shrewdness which invariably left him a gainer, though the enterprise itself should aail and involve ali His confiding associates in ruin. She know likew}so thet he lent money to the pro: fligate and thé sveudteitous at @ usurious rate, and hever Without segurity tore or less tangible: she knew that the oxixay of tho patrician spencithrift and the deniebraveanente of the stiag- gling, hard-working, industrious trader, had beet mw > -allters. sb eaeiens se hie innate relax, aud hie never relaxed: but she knew its utter nothingness in respect to all kindly sentiments whén desling with the world—its complete impas- sability in the pursuance of @ careet, which had simply one aim: namely, money-making. All this Zoe knew; and yet she loved her father. She would not suffer herself to despise him: she could not possibly hate Lim. She loved him be- cause she fancied—and in this instance only was her judgment at fault —that all he did for her was the result of a doting fondness on his part. Of this fondness she bebeld the evidences in the sums he had spent upon her education—the constant cato which he made her take of het hoalth— the visible pride with which he surveyed her in his own sumptuous saloons —the separate eyuipages he kept for her—the lavish «profusion with which he furnished her purso---the rich presents he was con tinuously making her —the exultation with which he would sometimes hint that she’ought to form a brillinmt atliance—and the assurance he was con- atantly giving her that Ins only object in heaping up wealth was to endow her with those riches. Fine as Zoc’s intellect was, and shrewd her under- staniling, it ia nevertheless not to be wondered at if, in her inexperience of the world, and the nitural generosity of her heart, she should put the wost fivourable interpretation upon her father’s conduct towards her. But Mr. Artmytage did really love his daughter, though it waa a love after the fashion of his own sordid soul—a love that was made up of vulgar pride a8 much as of any other element. Ho saw that she was beautiful, and he was proud of her: he heard her accomplishments spoken of, and he flattered himself that for these she was indebted much mote to his own supervis- ing judgment than to the fine qualifications of her own intcllect or to the proticiency of her governess and preceptors. To her only did ho &er speak in accents of fndness: her mfludtice alone could induce him to perform a charitable action ~though this he would emblazon with,all the flaming hues of his Own ostentation. But still Zoe saw how different hé was to her than to the rest of the world: she attributed it to a pure patern fondness ; and therefore was it that, with all his faults, she loved her father so tenderly afd ao wall. Little did she think that this father of her's would drag her to the altar and inimolate her a the sacrifice to a patticiad alliance, rither than suffer hor to proceed of her own that altar, to bestow her hand @n sonie pidbeian of her choice, if sudli ohdite she Jiould happen to mike. Zoe however hdd yade no . Net she loved: and who it wis that had thus become the object of hut affeetiond, will be presently seth. He Whom s&6-thii# loved, Wad a6 yet totally ignorant (C NOG 7 SS