Moths by Ouida — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

18 MOTHS. ‘No; not a relation exactly; only a friend.” ‘¢ And has he no name but Jack?” ‘‘Of course. Don’t say silly things. He is Lord Jura, Lord Shetland’s son. Heisin the Guards. A very old acquaintance, dear—recollects you as a baby.” ‘¢A friend of my father’s, then?” } | ‘Well, no, dear, not quite. Not quite so far back as that. Certainly he may have fagged for poor Vere at Eton perhaps, but I doubt it. Good-bye, darling. I will send you Adrienne, You may put yourself in her hands blindly. ‘She has perfect taste.” Then Lady Dolly opened the door, and escaped. Vere Herbert was left to herself. She was not tired; she was strong and healthful, for all the white-rose paleness of her fair skin; and a twelve hours tossing on the sea, and a day or two’s rumbling on the rail, had no power to fatigue her. Her grand- mother, though a humdrum and a cat, according to Lady Dolly, had sundry old-fashioned notions from which the girl had benefited both in body and mind, and the fresh strong air of Bulmer Chase—a breezy old forest place on the Northumberland sea-shore, where the morose old duchess found a dower-house to her taste—had braced her physically, as study and theabsence of any sort of excitement had done mentally, and made her as un- like her mother as anything female could have been. The Duchess of Mull was miserly, cross-tempered, and old-fashioned. in her ways and in her prejudices, but she was an upright wom- an, a gentlewoman, and no fool, as she would say herself. She had been harsh with the girl, .but she had loved her and been just to her, and Vere had spent her life at Bulmer Chase not un- happily, varied only by an occasional visit to Lady Dolly, who had always seemed to the child something too bright and fair to be mortal, and to have an enchanted existence, where caramels and cosaques rained, and music was always heard, and the sun shone all day long. She was all alone. The Fraulein was asleep in the next room, The maid did not come. The girl kneeled down by the window- seat and looked out through one of the chinks of the blinds. It was late afternoon by the sun; the human butterflies were be- ginning to come out again. Looking up and down, she saw the whole sunshiny coast, and the dancing water that was boisterous | enough to be pretty and to swell the canvas of the yachts stand- ing off the shore. ‘* How bright it all looks!” she thought, with a little sigh; the salt, fresh smell did her good, and Bulmer, amidst its slowly-budding woods and dreary moors and long, dark winters, had been anything but bright. Yet she felt very unhappy and lonely.. Her mother seemed a great deal farther away than she had done when Vere had sat dreaming about her on the side of _ the rough heathered hills, with the herons calling across from one marshy pool to another. She leaned against the green blind, and ceased to see the sea and the sky, the beach and the butterflies, for a little while, her tears were so full under the lashes, and she did her best to keep Gomme 900 Spero)