The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 96: what you’re looking at

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

THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT. most diminutive sise, but in every variety of beau- tiful plumage. The Princess Indora was reclining upon « sofa at about the same hour on which, eight days pre- viously, we first introduced her to the reader. She was apperelled in a similarly fanciful style—only that she wore another dress; but the colours of the separate garments were chosen with a most tasteful regard to the delicate duskiness of the complexion, and the nature of the charms they had to set off. Supremely beautiful—eminently handsome indeed—was the Princess Indora, as she reposed, in her oriental garb, upon the velvet sofa in that sumptuoualy fi room. And as be- fore too, there were intervals when she was deeply peosive—other intervals when she experienced a nervous excitement: for, as the reader is awaro, it was on this evening that she was to receive the final decision of the object of her love. silver salver on which was the cut glass containing sherbet, and which she presented on bended knee to the Princess. The Hindoo woman was clad in the same style as that which we have before de- ecribed, and which was so admirably calculated to set off the lithe bayadere symmetry of her shape, and to leave her form and limbs completely free for movement and gesture. “ Within the hour that is passing, my faithful ” gsid the Princess, when she had quaffed a portion of the sherbet, “my fate will be sealed. The alternatives between which I am belancing, are happiness and misery. Both are in extremes—and there is no medium in which I may take refuge. You, who have been my confidante— you who have served me 60 faithfully—you who shrank aot from accompanying me on my long, long ,ourney to a strange clime,—you, I say, must feel some anxiety as to the result of this evening’s interview P” “T do, lady,” responded Sagoonah; and as she stood somewhat aside, her eyes suddenly flashed | den fires. “You know, ” continued the Princess, “how fondly—how devotedly I have for years loved that man! You know bow god-like was his beauty when first he became my father’s pri- soner———"” “I know it, Princess,” responded “I was then a girl of about ten years of age.” “And I was fifteen,” observed the Princess, in a low musing tone. “ Yee—fifteen years have elapsed since the first day that I beheld Clement Redcliffe! He was the first Englishman that I eee The fevt Highness, that I “The too, your ever saw ;” and though her words were Se ee come habitual to her, it was nevertheless with s slight air of abstraction that she thus spoke. “ Fifteen the most precious omes of my life,” continued Indora, “have been passed in s love that has been all but hopeless. No—not for if so, I could not have existed: but it is at least a love that has experienced no reciprocity. Yes—handsome as some being of a higher world, was that Englishman when first we met! He tells me that he is now—and that the marks of age are coming thickly and rapidly upon ou 85 him. If so, I behold them not—or scarcely. What to me is it if his form should change, when his mind still shines with the never dimning, im- perishable light of one of these gems ?’’—and her looks settled upon « bracelet studded with dis- monds of the largest sise and of the most dassling brilliancy. “ Methought,” continued the Princess, “that so long as he was a prisoner in my father’s capital, his proud soul would disdain to bend itself towards her who was the daughter of him who held him captive. Aye—and more than that—he learnt by some means, I know not how, that when my father would have given him his liberty, i¢ was in eompliance with my secret. promptings that he still retained him a prisoner. Yes—I did so prompt my father: for much as I loved Clement Redcliffe—deeply, deeply as I took his welfare to heart—I could not possibly bring myself to say the word which should make him free, and thus inour the risk of losing him for ever. He —you are aware how: you know too how wild was my anguish—how bitter my grief, when I received the tidings of his flight. But then I thought to myself that perhaps now that he was free, he might no longer look upon me as one who was wronging him: he might forget the past—or at least pardon it, on account of all the love I bore him. I fiattered myself too, that this love eo deep, so devoted, so imperishable, could scarcely fail to beget « kindred feeling. The eagle requires ample space for the play of his huge wings and the soar- ing of his ambitious flight : and so I thought that the proud soul of Clement Redcliffe, when enjoying the freedom of the whole world’s range, might look upon me with a different regard from that with which it was wont to survey me in the nar- row circuit of my father’s capital. think you thet this hope will be disappointed ?” the Hindoo dependant, “y am but little accustomed to read the human heart: and the heart of an Englishman appears to me as inscrutable as the myeierne of some forbid- “True!—you cannot judge it,” observed the Princess, in a low musing tone. “And more- over, you have never loved, Sagoonah., No— you have never loved: you know not what love is. You have been attached to me from your child- hood; and if you had experienced the slightest . | scintillation of that passion which I feel, you would have told me—or I should have discovered it. Is it not so, Segoonah ?”—and the Princess raised her large lustrous eyes, dark as those of the gaszelle, towards the countenance of her dependant. “ It is so, lady,” responded Sagoonab, in a low but firm voice. “I marvel that you never loved,” proceeded Indora, still in that same musing manner as before. “It appears to me that a heart susceptible of love must be invariably associated with beauty of the person :—it seems as if beauty, being formed to create love, ought to prove susceptible of the fire which it kindles. And you, my faithful Sagoonah, possess charms superior to any of your sex or caste, in your own native land. Yes, you are handsome—very handsome!”—and now the eyes of the Princess wandered slowly, and with a cer- tain degree of listless abstraction, over the bayadere- | like form of her attendant. Sagoonah stood perfectly motionless—ber Sgure rea (COL (C DOO CS (COL