Rosa Lambert — page 107: what you’re looking at

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

ee eee + eee ee 96 ROSA LAMBERT. ee ee in splendid equipages or mounted on beautiful | man, with weapons in his hands, endeavoured to steeds; and I was thinking to myself that my coerce me to his purpose? nor how I overwhelmed charms ought to have placed me in a position to him in a moment by the revelation of a secret occupy one of those vehicles, or to ride upon one | which he little thought had come to my know- of those steeds. But thero was one young lady ledge P” there, whose appearance struck me more than all| “No—he told me nothing of all this,” an- the rest. Eminently beautiful did she seem,— | swered Caroline, in amazement. “And that go- the graces of her figure set off by the tightly | cret K fitting riding-habit—tho plumes waving from her | “You shall learn it presently,” I said. “Con. hat—her countenance all radiant with smiles. She , clude your narrative first.”’ was mounted on a dark steed: her companion “Horace Rockingham abandoned me abruptly, bestrode a splendid gray horse—and he was one of | leaving me absolutely penniless. ‘The rent was the handsomest of men. The cavalcade swept | unpaid at the lodgings: the landlady seized my past: that lady and that gentleman, followed by | wardrobe, and thrust me forth into the street. an in a are a ae or on 10 | ny I bi ay said, three weeks have elapsed since e distance; and as I stood looking after them, | that day. was reduced to despair. I had no I was startled from my reverie by a light touch }one to whom I could apply for a single shilling. on the shoulder, ra a Pet core a a | Once my I thought of making an endeavour to ing in my ear, ‘She whom you admire is Rosa re-enter the paternal home. From a miserable Lambert !’—Yes: it was you, and your companion | lodging in which I found refuge, I addressed a was Captain Fortescue.” penitent letter to my father: I told him how I “And he who whispered my name,” I said, | had been beguiled and who was the beguiler, I “was doubtless Horace Rockingham ?” sent this letter by the woman of the house in * Yes—it was he,’ answered Caroline; “ and which I had taken a humble apartment: she came as I abruptly turned round, I caught the vanish- | back, with the intelligence that my father had re- ing expression of a sinister dazzling glare, which fused to open the letter. Oh! Miss Lambert, in moments of strong feeling often lights up his_ a a I todo? ‘To sink down into the very eyes 2 regs of society—to go forth into the public “Ah! and I have seen that ominous light also | streets and add another to the ranks of mifortune flaming there,’ I said, with a shudder. “It is | and crime which ply their hideous traflic there—— fe 7 ere remy vee 4 ont mee hae | no, I wo not ! : How ac? last Kan wc ures to its ruin the vessel that hails it as the | have passed away, I can scarcely tell. urne Pharos of a friendly port, while it is in reality | out of that humble lodging at the expiration of ceeng over the very destruction that is im-| “* a week, Ftocaeen I oor not pay the et minent !” ; and had no effects to offer as a guarantee,— “Alas, yes!” observed Caroline, with a pro- | managed to obtain an attic in another house; and found sigh. “ But as I was about to narrate, I there I sought needle-work. But all in vain, turned and beheld Horace Rockingham. ‘Do | Who would give work to a friendless, characterless you not think,’ he asked, ‘that she is very beau- | being who had no security to offer—no proofs of tiful P —‘ Very,’ was my curt response.—‘ So beau- | respectability to advance? Again turned out of tiful,’ he added, with another flashing up of the | even that wretched attic, I have for the last few fearful light a his ae ae a pa ae oe tae canon the most terrible ai 2 a in my estimation.’—‘ Yes,’ I ejaculated: ‘I hate icngth my miseries, my anguish, and my de- her! Show me how I can be avenged!’—‘ We spair yes, and my remorse, reached that point will see in a short time,’ rejoined Horace. ‘Think at which they became intolerable. I resolved to Bot for a moment that my vengeance sleeps. No, |; hasten to Broad Street—knock at my father’s door 1) 99 no: 1t merely watches its opportunity ! —and if refused admittance, lay myself down “The malignant fiend!”” I murmured to myself. | there, to die! It was between nine and ten “Some little time after I had thus seen you | o’clock last night that I determined upon this ‘in the Park,” continued Caroline, “and as near | course : but as I entered the street, I was seized as I can calculate, about a month ago, Horace | with so overwhelming a sense of shame, that I Rockingham instructed me to write anonymous could not proceed. A thousand terrible ideas letters to Sir Reginald, who was known to be’ swept like vultures through my mind. What if very particular in respect to his son’s conduct. | I were spurned by the very domestics who had A few days afterwards—and this was but three | once obeyed me? what if the police were to bear weeks ago—Horace dictated to me that letter| me away as a vagrant and a beggar, from the which you received, which was signed Your Un- | steps of the very house which was once my home? known Friend, and which was full of the vilest | A voice whispered in my soul that at my father’s misrepresentations with regard to your protector.' hands no mercy was to be expected: he had That very same evening Horace Rockingham told | closed the door against me a year back—and but a me, with unfeeling abruptness, that he required | few days had elapsed since he had returned my me no more—that he had had enough to do with | letter unopened. No: I could not encounter vengeance, for that you were more than a match | those tremendous humiliations which awaited me for him.” if I persevered in my intent! I turned and wan- “ But he did not tell you,” I observed, “how | dered slowly away from the neighbourhood of my that note which he prompted you to write, had an | father’s house. Oh, the anguish of my thoughts ! intent far beyond the mere laceration of my feel- | Good heavens! if those who hover upon the brink ing through the medium of my love and jealousy P | of frailty, could only for a single moment have a He did not tell you, perhaps, how I was beguiled to a den of infamy, where the fiend-like young | must ensue ry foretaste of the bitter, bitter conseyavcaces tbat | | : comicbooks.cor rey) ee ey . wae hye |.