Moths by Ouida — page 43: what you’re looking at

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

MOTHS. 38 him; and she felt ill-used, furious, wretched, and hated the cook ; for making the lobster salad, and Vere for having been born. ‘A boy wouldn’t have been half so bad,” she thought. ‘‘He’d have been always away, and they’d have put him in the army. But a girl! It’s all very easy tosay marry her, but she hasn’t any money, and the Mull people won’t give her any, and my own people can’t, and as for Mr. Vanderdecken, one might as well try to get blood out of a flint; and they may say what they like, but all men want money when they marry nowadays, even when they’ve got heaps more than they know what to do with them- selves. Whata horrid woman the grand duchess is! She’s drunk already, and it isn’t three o’clock!” ‘<She’s going splendidly now,” said Jura, meaning the ‘‘ Ephem- eris,” that plunged and reared as if she were amare instead of a schooner; and the fresh sou’easter that had risen sent her further and further westward toward the haze of distant seas. ‘‘T believe we’re going straight to America! What beastly idiocy is yachting!” said Lady Dolly, savagely, as the wind tore at her tiny multitudinous curls. | CHAPTER IV. MEANWHILE, Vere, in religious obedience, had gone to the little chamber that was called by courtesy at the Chalet Ludoff a study. and, submitting to be locked in, remained happy in the morning’s golden dream of sunshine, of song, of the sea, of the summer, She had found her lost Northumbrian safe, but in agonies of terror and self-reproach, and the amiable German for once was seriously angry. But Vere was not to be ruffled or troubled; she smiled at all reproof, scarcely hearing it, and put her cabbage-rose and her sprigs of lavender in water. Then she fell fast asleep on a couch, from fatigue and the warmth of the Norman sun, and dreamed of the blue gentian of the Alps. that she had never seen, and of the music of the voice of Correze. When she awoke, some hours had passed; the clock told her it was two. The rickety white-and-gold door would have given way at a push, but to her it was inviolate. She had been reared to give obedience in the spirit as well as the letter. : She thought no one had ever had so beautiful a day as this morning of hers. She would have believed it adream, only there were her rose and the homely heads of the lavender. The German brought Euclid and Sophocles into the prison- chamber, but Vere put them gently away. ‘‘T cannot study to-day,” she said. It was the first time in her life that she had ever said so. The Fraulein went away weeping, and believing that the — heavens would fall. Vere, with her hands clasped behind her head, leaned back and watched the white clouds come and ga above the sea, and fancied the air was still full of that marvel ous and matchless voice which had told her at last ail that musie could be. ‘‘ He is the angel Raphael!” she said to herself. It seemed to ber that he could not be mere morta! man. ? GEomicbooks (Ge)