The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 84: what you’re looking at

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

THE PRECIPICE 65 had just been telling me, but that inasmuch as I must of necessity, under circumstances, remain silent even to my own father, it would be the height of impropriety on my part to converse with Monsieur Claude Masson again. Such were the terms in which I spoke, and then, with a saluta- tion which I afterward fancied to have been too coldly dis- tant toward one who had saved my life, I hastened away. Some days passed, and I purposely avoided going out for fear of meeting Monsieur Masson. And yet, dear Zoe, — but you will blame me for my weakness, — and yet, I say, in my heart, did I long to behold him again. Can you under- stand these contradictory sentiments? I feared, yet I longed — I dreaded, yet I wished — I trembled, yet I hoped.”’ ‘““ Yes, my sweet friend,’ said Zoe, in a soft, murmuring voice, ‘“‘ I can understand you, oh, I can understand you. You loved, and love is asentiment compounded of a thousand contradictions; it is the eccentricity of the soul, as other strange, fantastic ways are the eccentricities of the disposi- tion or the manner. How often, when one loves, is the duty opposed to the inclination! how often does a sense of delicacy and propriety urge in one direction and the heart’s tendency in another! But pray proceed, my sweet Clarine, and tell me how progressed this love-afiair, for a love-affair it assuredly 1s.” | ‘“‘ Several days passed, as I just now said,’’ continued Mademoiselle Volney, ‘‘ and my rambles had been confined to the garden belonging to the chateau. At length one morning immediately after breakfast, my father gave me a bank-note for a thousand frances — which, as you know, is forty pounds sterling of your English money — and he asked me to proceed to the village and pay one or two little bills which had just beensentin. I accordingly set out; I reached the village, and I subsequently remembered that on the outskirts I took a few pence from my reticule to give to a poor woman who implored alms. Then I hastened on, and reached the first shop to which my errand led me, but on thrusting my hand into the reticule, I found that the bank-note was lost. I sped back to the spot where I had encountered the poor woman, but she was no longer there, nor was the bank-note anywhere to be seen. I was sorely distressed, for at that time I believed that my father had really lost his property, and that his means were very limited; I therefore fancied that CORNICLOOKS (CO)