Beautiful Rienzi; or, The secret vendetta — page 246: what you’re looking at

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

BEAUTIFUL RIENZI. 241 long, but I had to take it to me at last. See how the struggle told on me. Ah, it was bitter!” | ‘It cannot be true!” I cried, with sudden exultation. “You have our mother’s eyes—you are her child!” “‘ Alicia Joselyn had blue eyes and golden hair,” replied Isolina, mournfully. ‘‘ Victor has described her to me; and his father and mine,” she added in a strong voice, as if forcing her mind to grasp the truth, “had blue eyes and fair complexion.” | ‘‘But your expression—your smile is the mother’s very own.” ‘‘ By sympathy and unconscious imitation. I have lived a life-time as a Rienzi, you know. Alas! there is no room for doubt. She showed me the ‘ Bloody Spear’ of the Lancinettos on her signet-ring. She says the same crest 1s in my flesh behind my right ear. You see it?” IT lifted the lustrous band of hair, and looked. J saw it. ‘She described most minutely the mode by which I had been substituted for the true child; I could not but believe her. After this she instantly fled from Washington for fear of detection, and soon found herself in North Carolina, as the principal singer of an opera troupe. She engaged the attention of a Virginia planter, Ringwood Beaumont, who, unaware that she was already a wife, proposed to her. Alas! she married him. “<She says that she was happy—that the craving for re- venge had been satisfied—that her high position, as the mistress of a thousand slaves, suited her. Mr. Beaumont was gay, unscrupulous, and proud of her beauty. She be- came the queen of fashion. Cecil was the only offspring, and she centered all her affections upon him. Sometimes she delighted herself by planning how she would reclaim the child which the Rienzis believed their own, and thus stab them through the heart; but she was too well satisfied with her lot as yet to disturb 1t by such revenge. ‘«'Twenty years passed away, and the war devastated the vast plantation, killed Colonel Beanmont, and*rendered her homeless. She and her son fled with others to the swamps, and strove to form a guerrilla party, but were speedily cap- tured, and taken North toa Washington prison. After a time they were liberated, and Cecil quietly settled himself as an author, and lived with his mother in lodgings. ‘‘ He was in a profound melancholy when he returned to COMICOOO S (©)