Rosa Lambert — page 386: what you’re looking at

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

_—except—that dreadful scene, Rose A a Ne ROSA LAMBERT. 375 ——- ew not help experiencing a corte tg ce of sorrow | sentiments continued the same towards me. Ina at the premature and melaue 0. % d of one! word, we were married six months back. For the whom I had known in all the pride and glory of | last two months we have been staying at Rams- her beauty. | | gate: but this very afternoon we are to leave for I was destined at Ramsgate on this particular | Dover—as to-morrow we are bound for France. occasion to encounter more than one old acquaint- | It is so unfortunate, now that I have met you!” ance: for a few days after my meeting with Lady; “No, my dear Caroline,” I said, “it is not Lucia Calthorpe, I was again rambling by myself, | unfortunate—for I am not a married woman, and when I heard my name mentioned in feminine | you could not introduce me to your husband. And tones of enthusiastic delight ; and the next instant | now I must leave you,” I hastily added, fearing my hand was warmly clasped in that of the grateful | that Mr. Napier might suddenly come up. “ Fare- Caroline. | well, dear Caroline !—you know not how rejoiced “My dearest Rose,’ she exclaimed, delight ' I am at your happiness !”” dancing in her eyes: “ I am so rejoiced to see you!| I pressed her hand, and hurried away,—though You remember the last time we met—it must | the affectionate and generous-hearted young woman have been four years back—and you faithfully | sought to detain me. And now, as on former promised to come and see me: but you did not! | occasions, I could not help contrasting her conduct You ought to have kept your word; for you know | towards me with that of Lady Lucia Calthorpe ; how rejoiced I skould have been *, {and if I had experienced a certain limited degree “ My dear Caroline,” I answered, “ you are well | of compassion for the premature end of the patrician | lady, my heart swelled with an illimitable grat ifi. awate of my motives for keeping away from you. But your father P” cation at the prosperity and bliss enjoyed by the “He is dead,” she answered mournfully. “Two | deceased miser’s daughter. | years and a half have elapsed since he was con-/ Lord Ilderton hired the yacht of which I have signed to the tomb. He leit me a large fortune, | above spoken: it was only a little cutter, having Rose—and often and often have I thought how I | one man and a boy as the complement of its crew, should like to see you:”—then with a blush upon if such a term may be applied to so small a num- her cheeks, she added, “I am married.” | ber. Henry himself was well skilled in minor “And if you be married happily—as I think | nautical matters; and he took a delight in com- you must be,” I observed, “for when we met you | manding on board his vessel. When I first went were all siniles,—most sincerely do I congratulate out with him, I was somewhat timid, and accom- you!” | | panied him more because he wished it than bee “ Yes—I am happy,” she responded: then in a| cause I myself experienced any real pleasure in somewhat serious tone, and with downcast looks| the excursions. But at length that timidity wore she added, “I did not deceive him who offered me | off; and I began to like the recreation. We would his hand: I frankly told him all the past—except | sométires proceed to a considerable distance, and ey remain out for several hours,—always taking care “Enough, my dear Caroline!” I interrupted to have refreshments on board with us. Ilderton’s her: “I know what you mean :’—for full easily | spirits, naturally so gay, rose into a perfect en- did I comprehend that she alluded to the event at | thusiasm of exhilaration when on board the yacht ; Waterloo Bridge which had first rendered us| and if the breezé blew freshly and the swelling sail acquainted. | made the mast bend towards the waters, his coun- * After my father’s death,” continued Caroline, | tenance would glow and such joy would dance wiping the tears from her eyes, “I left the old | in his eyes that he looked admirably handsome. house in Broad Street, and went to live at Bristol One day, when we had been about two months with a distant female relation whom I had not | at Ramsgate, we arranged to go out for a sail, seen for many years, and who knew nothing of the | but the man had been suddenly taken ill: for calamities which had befallen me. There I met | that terrible disease, the cholera, had just shown my present husband, Mr. Napier. He is a few | itself in Ramsgate—as the reader will bear in years older than myself, and was a widower—but | mind that I am now writing of the month of Au- childless. He had accumulated a good fortune in | gust, 1849. I endeavoured to persuade Heary not a comparatively short period of prosperous commere | to go—or at least to endeavour to procure another cial enterprise; and after a somewhat lengthy | sailor as a substitute for the absent one. But j courtship, he offered me his hand. If you ask me| none was to be had at the moment; and as the - whether I loved him, I cannot precisely respond in | sea was beautifully calm, with only a gentle breeze the affirmative: but I esteemed him—TI respected |—and that blowing steadily—he was resolved to female relative—I possessed wealth—and, in a | vague presentiment of evil floating in my mind; word, L wanted a settled position. But I did not | and it was perhaps for this very reason that I no give Mr. Napier an immediate answer: I said that | longer hesitated to accompany him; as I was { would write to him. Then I sate down and‘ ashamed to betray my apprehension, and I could penned a faithful narrative of my past life—no, | not possibly infect him with it to the extent of in- not exactly faithful—for I omitted the one incident | ducing him to abandon the excursion. his upright character—I was not happy with my | put out. I know not how it was, but I hada which was too terrible to relate !” | We accordingly put out of the harbour,—Ilder- “I do not blame you for that omission,” I said: | ton and the boy managed very well with the sails; “to have acted otherwise, was unnecessary.” and as the wind blew from the south, we pros “My. Napier sent me a written answer,” con- | ceeded in the direction of the North Foreland. tinued Caroline, “expressing his admiration of my | That vague apprehension which [I at first experi- frankness—declaring that he regarded it as a proot | enced, gradually went away; and we were laugh- of complete contrition on my part—and that his | ing and talking in our usual blithe manner, when ~~ i + . — - * eS Bae at ~———— Ieee LD DO CLS LAOS 4kea Re : x at ri “4 : BAY (0) | JOO) KCSeCG (0)