The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 196: what you’re looking at

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SHE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT. - 187 and is toaking ites way as fast as steam-ingins and eleetric tilligrafs.” “JT dare say Mr. Ashton is to have an opportunity of seeing the school,” said Mrs. Chubb: “but he didn’t come for that all the same. He’s took our lodgings: so you'll just write him out a receipt for the fust week, which he has paid in adwance.” “ Amen!” said Mr. Chubb: and reseatifig him:+ self at the desk, he nibbed a pen—held it tip to the light to assure himself that it was properly mended—and in 4 tras svhoolmaster fushiori wrete the receipt in round hand, covering all the spare part of the slip of paper with the miost extraordi- maty flourishes, and winding up the achievement with some curious illustration under his own naine, —which said illustration might either be taken for the feather end of a quill, or elze as an ingeniots representation of that very cat’s tail along which the electricity had been described as passing. Having leant back in his seat for a few moments, to admire the general effect of the receipt; Mr. Chubb gravely dried it on his blotting-paper, and handed it to Christian. “That’s the way,” ho said, pointing with his pen to the writing, “that I teach the boys to make their up-strokes and their down-strokes: But you shall see :"”—then raising his voice, he exclaimed, “¢ Now then, first class, with your copy-books !” This command was followed by a bustling dbout om the patt of some dozen of the scholars; and then ensued a rush of the same interesting youths in corduroys atid pinafores, up to the desk. Mr. Chubb examined the copy-books one after another, passing them as Ke did so to Christian, and looking very hard in his face to observe the effect pro- duced by these elegant specimens of juvenile call- graphy. Of course Christian admired everything thus submitted to him, and himself so well pleasédd with Mr. Chubb’s acholars that he begged to be allowed td place five shillings in the schoolinaster’s hands, to be expended on whatsoever refreshments the juveniles might fancy and which the nearest ptstrycook coulil supply. It must be again confessed that there was a little artifice in all this—thotgh venial and natural enough: for, as we lave before said, the youth was desirous to obtain Mis. Chubb’s good opinion, in the hope that it would facilitate the realization of his desire to see Miss Vincent. Nor was he disappointed: for Mrs. Chubb requested the pleasure of his com- pany to tea in the eveititig. He was speedily installed in his lodgings; and having drawn up an advertisement for the situation of private secretary to a noblemati, member of par- liament, or uny other person requiring such a fanctionary, he sallied forth to take it to the office of the Times. Returning home again, he dined ; and with some books whiled away the hours until aix in the evening,—wWhen, having studied toilet with an unusual degree of nicety, he re- ired to Mrs. Chubb’s parlour. As Christian opened the door, he could scarcely conceal the joy which thrilled through him, on beholding the lovely creature who had inspired him with so deep an interest. Ysabella Vincent was, as we have previously said, arxteen yeare of age; and it was no wonder that her exquisité beauty should have made an impres. sion upon the heart of Christian Ashton. She was ee tall and slender, with a sylphid symmetry of shape that was at once gracile and elegant: for her’s was that sweet age, when, with perhaps a slight precoeity, the delicate outlines of girlhood’s form were softly rounding and gently developing into the more flowing ones of approaching womanhood. All these outlines indicated a justness of propor. tions which, while constituting her form the rarest model of ing beauty, seemed to fulfil the idea which the sculptors of old sought to expresd ahd work out in their Parian effigies. Its wil- lowy elasticity and youthful grace—its slenderness of waist and softly budding contours of bust—its sloping shoulders and gently arching neck—its founded arms and ite straightness of limbs— ‘its exqnistely modelled hands and sculptured per- feetion of ankles and of feet,—all combined to render Isabella’s form the very incarnation of those rules of art which swayed the chisel or the pencil of the greatest masters when seeking to pourtray woman, in her loveliest form, through the medium of the marble or of the canvass. | As for her countenance,—to gaze thereon, it was not so much the perfect oval of that sweet face-—~ nor the faultless regularity of the features—nor the deep blue eyes, so large and cleat, with their thickly fringed lids—not the elassically pencilled brows, set upon the opals of the stainless forehead —nof the well-cut lips of coral redness—nor the teeth of orient pearls whith shone between—nor the tran cy of the complexion, with the softest tint of the rose upon the checks—nor the rich abundance of glossy dark brown hair, shower. ing in ringlets upon her shoulders,—it was not all this assemblage of eharms which would most ravish and enchant the mind of the observer. But there was something in the sweet pensiveness and the holy melancholy, so to speak, of Isabella's counte- nance which constituted the pure virginal charm that appealed to the sentiment and not to the sense, and which had to do with the soul as much as with the heart of the beholder,—a charm which no eye could fail to perceive, the influence of which no mitid could help acknowledging, and yet which oily the imagination could comprehend inasmuch as no pen can describe it. Indeed, it was what the perfume is to the rose,—an essence apart from the beauty which attracts the eye: it was what the halo is to the angel,—a light distinct from the heavenly beauty of the form itself. It was the in- expressible charm which makes one think, while gazing on such a face, that the soul itself is un- veiling its own loveliness and looking out in a soft sweet pensiveness. Christian Ashton—with his refined intelligence, and with his feelings of unwarped delicacy—was the very one to appreciate the beauty of such a being as Isabella Vincent. To mere physical charms he would perhaps have remained long in- his | sensible: but here was mental and moral beauty— the beauty of the soul—mingling with loveliness of form and features in a manner which he had never seen before, save in respect to his own sweet sister Christina. The love with which Isabella had al- ready inapired him—though heaven knows how unconsciously on her’ part and how as yet incom- pletely comprehended on hts own—was not the mere every-day passion to which the name 18 80° erroneously applied, or which of its own accord usurps the denomination: but it was that love- (COL (C DOO CS (COL