The Seamstress; or, The White Slave of England — page 10: what you’re looking at

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

them like lightning. The clock strikes again: ’tis two—two in the morning!—and a faint smile of satisfaction appears upon the countenance of the maiden, as she perceives that another half-hour will behold the end of her task. And now it is with nerves and fibres straining to the extremest faculty of tension that Virginia pur- sues her toil. Her eyes grow dim: she closes the lids with a sort of violence for a few moments—and the blue orbs appear to recover all their power. A dizziness seizes upon her: she presses her hands for an instant to her throbbing brows—and the reeling of. her brain seems to be stopped. But so unna- turally over-wrought are her physical energies that her mental faculties are becoming bewildered: she loses sight of her own identity—she forgets where she is—a hurry, a confusion, and a droning hum take possession of her brain,—and yet she con- tinues to ply the needle with a sort of automaton accuracy. The candle requires snufing—but she heeds it not: dimly and more dimly does it burn— and still she plies, and plies, and plies the needle with an unvarying precision. ’*Tis now a mere mechanical process with her: she is like one ina dream ! But suddenly she starts from that waking trance: the toilis over—the work is done. From her hand falls the superb velvet dress; and fora few moments sue lies back in her chair to collect her scattered thoughts. The re-action now commences: the ebb of the tide of energies so unnaturally forced in the same channel for so many hours, begins in terrible earnest. The sensation is as if the warm blood were receding from the heart and flowing out of the veins, bearing away all the vital powers on its crim- son current. A feeling of languor, painfully deepen- ing into exhaustion, comes over the maiden; and she is compelled to arouse herself to another effort in order to escape from sinking into utter lethargic prostration. Rising from her seat, she carefully hangs the dress over the back of the chair which she has just quitted: then, hastily throwing off her ap- parel, the wearied, toil-crushed Virginia seeks her humble pallet spread upon the floor. In a few moments she is sleeping profoundly. Then gradually do her thoughts take the roseate hue which adapts them, when no longer under the regulating power of the intelligence, to form the phantasmagorian train constituting a dream of fairy happiness ;—and she beholds herself wandering in a delicious garden—threading her way beneath fes- tooning verdure and amidst parterres of flowers. The atmosphere is warm and perfumed: the silver murmurs of a neighbouring streamlet, mingling with the songs of birds, are wafted to her ears. Delicious sensations come upon her—all the har- mony of nature is stealing in unto her soul—she imbibes the fragrance of the flowers—she moistens her lips with fruits of exquisite flavour. It seems to her that this is her ewn garden—that she is the genius of that terrestrial paradise. Then the re- membrance of her recent sorrows gradually mingles with the felicitous train of her reflections; and she rejoices to think that some heavenly intervention has removed her from her cheerless attic to this scene of floral charms and fruitful plenty, where summer ever reigns! But suddenly a chill seizes upon the young maiden and strikes with the effect of an ice-shaft to her very THE SEAMSTRESS. 3 eee x;&——————_—_—_—_—————————— heart’s core. She shivers all over—a sombre shade falls upon the delicious garden—deeper and deeper grows the gloom—the gem-like glories of the fruits and flowers are absorbed in the darkening cloud— the harmonies of nature sink into a dead and omin- ous silence—and the last vestiges of the enchant- ing vision fade rapidly from her view, until they disappear altogether. Virginia awakes with a subdued cry upon her lip —and she starts up in a species of consternation. The effect of the dream is still upon her;—and sha cannot immediately comprehend where she is. But in a very few moments her ideas settle down into their proper departments ;—and she becomes pain- fully and poignantly alive to the fact that in pro- portion as the garden of her dream was warm, glowing, and delicious, so is the garret of her reality chill, wretched, and cheerless. CHAPTER II. THE VELVET DRESS. Tue clock of St. Paul’s, Covent Garden, is now striking seven, as Virginia rises from her humble pallet. Thesnow has piled itself up on the window- ledge, veiling the lower row of the small panes with a natural curtain of dense gauze. The atmosphere of the chamber is fraught with an intense chill; and from the badly fastened door and window the searching draughts penetrate like keen and cutting shafts of inyisible ice. The water is frozen in the ewer; and the maiden’s breath freezes into a vapour-wreath as if emanates from the ivory doors and the rosy portals of her charming mouth. No wonder, then, that ere Virginia Mordaunt had even awakened from her slumber, the barbed chill of the winter-morning should have pierced through the thin blanket even unto the very mar- row of her bones. Shivering from head to foot, she abandons that couch whereon she would fain repose her weary limbs a short time longer, cold though it be: for, after twenty-one hours and a half of con- tinuous, unwearied toil, four hours and a half of slumber were but the veriest shade and mockery of rest! But not another minute might the maiden linger on that pallet: the clock had struck seven—~ and it was at seven that she had calculated upon rising when she had lain herself down so short a time before. And now she was compelled to break the ice in her pitcher before she could perform her ablu- tions ;—and while thus employed, her delicate hands turned blue with the cold—and her teeth chattered —and she felt so very, very wretched and dispirited altogether, that the poor girl burst into tears. For she thought that it was hard—oh! it was hard to have toiled so much and have rested so litlle,—to be compelled to sit up so many hours, and to be enabled to sleep for so short a time,—to plunge herself by sheer labour into such utter exhaustion, and to rise again with the stiffness still in every joint and the aching in every limb! But wiping away the pearly tears from her sweet plaintive countenance, Virginia addressed herself with reviving courage to her simple toilette. The intense chill of the water brought a colour back to her cheeks; and a copious bathing of the eyes miti- ECORNICLOOOKS.E@