The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 40: what you’re looking at

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

THE DUKE OF MARCHMONT 21 of language, thanking her for having accepted her ducal suitor, congratulating himself on living to behold his daughter on the verge of so brilliant an alliance, declaring that his mind was relieved from a myriad anxieties, and ending by assuring her that his gray hairs would now go down in con- tented resignation to the grave. Eliza was shocked, as- tounded, and bewildered. She saw that her father’s mind was bent upon this match, and that it would literally break his heart if she rejected the ducal overture. Yet her brain whirled; it was almost maddened at the idea of becoming another’s, — she who in her own soul had vowed a life of celibacy to the memory of her lost lover! Her father renewed his thanks, renewed his own self-congratulations, wept, laughed, danced, and behaved like the veriest child. Mrs. Bailey entered in the midst of this scene, and embracing Eliza, proffered her own congratulations. The poor young lady was overwhelmed with all these demonstrations of exuberant joy; she strove to speak — her tongue refused utterance to what she would have said, — her emotions choked her; and when she burst into tears, she was again embraced by her father and Mrs. Bailey in their turns. In the course of that day, however, she found an oppor- tunity to speak with her sire alone, and she also spoke with ealmness. She assured him that she did not love the duke, that the love she had borne for Bertram was the first and the last of which her soul was susceptible, and that her heart was entombed in the watery depths which had engulfed the adored lost one. Captain Lacey was at first half-frantic at the idea of his daughter rejecting this brilliant alliance; he wept, he knelt, he prayed, he beat his breast, he tore his hair, he threw himself, grovelling in wretchedness, upon the carpet. Oh, could the affectionate daughter resist that spectacle? She who had ever entertained so illimitable a sense of the many, many sacrifices her father had made for her, — she who had always held herself ready to make any sacrifice for him. We will not dwell upon this distressing scene; suffice it to say that at the expiration of an hour — in which all the acutest feelings through which the human soul can pass were essentialized and concentrated — Eliza yielded. With the resignation of martyrdom, with the calm, pale, statue-like despair of a victim consenting to self-immo- EONMIC NOOO KS (E(O)