Moths by Ouida — page 155: what you’re looking at

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

MOTHS. mer | 181 deigned to be present at the ceremony of his sacrifice except his aunt,’ Lady Dorothy Vanderdecken, wo said to her friends: ~ “*T hate the thing quite as much as they all do, but I can’t be ili-natured, and poor Frank feels it so; and, after all, you know, he might have married out of a music-hall or a circus. So many of them do.” People said what a dear, little, amiable woman she was, so dif- ferent from her daughter; and, on the whole, the marriage, with choral service at the abbey, and breakfast at a monster hotel, where Mrs. Leach had a whole half of the first floor, wasa very magnificent affair, and was adorned with great names despite © the ominous absence of tlhe Herberts of Mull. “Tm glad that girl put my monkey up about the coal, and made me whistle him back,” thought the brilliant Fuschia to herself as the choir sang herepithalamium. ‘‘ It’s a whole suit and all the buttons on. After all, a duchess is always a four: horse concern when she’s an English one; and they do think it some pumpkins at home. T’mafraid the money’s whittled away a good deal; but we'll dig for that coal before the year’s out. Duchess of Mull and Cantire! After all, it’s a big thing, and sounds smart.” And the bells, as they rang, seemed to her fancy to ring that, and that only, all over London. ‘‘ Duchess of Mull! Duchesg of Mull!” | It was a raw, dark, rainy day in the middle of March, as un- pleasant as London weather could possibly be; but the shining eyes of the lovely Fuschia, and her jewels, and her smiles, seemed to change the sooty, murky mists to tropic sunshine. ‘‘How will you quarter the arms, Frank?’ whispered Lady Dolly, as she bade her nephew adieu. ‘‘A pig gules with a knife in its throat, and a bottle argent of pick-me-up?—how nice the new blazonries will look!” But the young duke had no ears for her. shat Very uselessly, but very feverishly, the obligation to call Fuschia Leach cousin irritated the Princess Zouroff into an uns ceasing pain and anger. To her own cousin on the marriage she sent a malachite cabinet and some grand jade vases, and there ended her acknowledgment of it, She was offended, and did not conceal it. ‘ When the world, who had adored Pick-me-up as a maiden, found Pick-me-up as Duchess of Mull and Cantire as adorabl- as anothet generation had found Georgina Duchess of Devonshire, Vere’s proud mouth smiled with ineffable contempt. ‘¢ What will you,my love?” sighed Madame Nelaguine. ‘* She is frightfully vulgar, but it isa piquant vulgarity. It takes.” Vere frowned and her lips set close. i ‘¢She has made him sink coal-shafts in the forest already—our forest!” : Madame Nelaguine shrugged her shoulders. _ 1a Mt “Tt is a pity, for the forests. But we dig for salt; it 1 eleaner, prettier, but Iam not sure that it is more princely, salt than coal.” | Shan ‘¢ No Herbert of Muli has ever done it,” said Vere, with dark © TAL of ’ ; i “e ? * NP re aie