Moths by Ouida — page 117: what you’re looking at

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

MOTHS. 418 word stood out before her asif it were on fire, and her cheek grew scarlet asif the blow were struck on it. ‘‘She is right! Oh, how right!” she thought, in a sort of agony. ‘‘And I cannot tell her the truth! I must never tellher the truth!” | Sin and shame, and all the horror of base passions, had been things as unintelligible to her, as unknown, as the vile, miserable, frail women that a few roods off her in this city were raving and yelling in the wards of Sainte-Pelagie. And now, allin a moment, they seemed to have entered her life, te swarm about her, to become part and parcel of her—and from no - fault of hers. ‘Oh, mother, spare me! Let me take back my word!” she cried, unconsciously, as she started to her feet with a stab of awful pain in her heart that frightened her; it felt like death. But in the rose-bright room all around her was silence. Her grandmother’s letter lay at her feet, and a ray of the sun shone on the words that compared her to the hapless creatures whose very shame she even yet did not comprehend. The door unclosed, and Lady Dolly came in; very voluble, in- different to suffering or humiliation, not believing, indeed, that she ever caused either. Living with her daughter, and finding thit no reproach or recrimination escaped Vere against her, Lady Dolly had begun to grow herself again. She was at times very nervous with | Vere, and never, if she could help it, met her eyes, but she was successful, she was contented, she was triumphant, and the sense of shame that haunted her was thrust far into the background. All the vulgar triumphs of the alliance were sweet to her, and she did her best to forget its heavy cost. Women of her caliber soon forget; the only effort they have ever to make is, on the contrary, to remember. Lady Dolly had earnestly tried to forget, and had almost thoroughly suc- ceeded. She came now into the room, a pretty pearl-gray figure, fresh from lengthened and close council with famous tailors. ‘‘Vera, my sweet Vera, your sables are come; such sables! Nobody’s except the grand-duchesses’ will equal them. And he has sent bags of turquoise with them, literally sacks, as if they | were oats or green peas! You will have all your toilette-things set with them, and your inkstands, and all that, won’t you? And they are very pretty, you know, set flat, very thick, in broad bands, very broad bands for the waist and the throat; but myself, I prefer Who’s been writing to you? Oh, the old woman from Bulmer: I suppose she is very angry, and writes a great deal of nonsense. She was always horrid. The only thing she gave me when I married poor Vere was a black Bible. 1 wonder what she will send to you? Another black Bible, perhaps., I believe she gets Bibles cheap because she subscribes to the men that go out to read Leviticus and Deuteronomy to the negro babies!” | Vere bent and raised the letter in silence. The burning color had gone from her cheeks; she tore the letter up into many uf \ J un comicbooks. — i) - » *> ==)