The Argosy — page 315: what you’re looking at

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

298 LADY ARABELLA. HE Lady Arabella Grahame was two-and-twenty. The cold- blooded manner in which Debrett gives dates, where the ages. of unfortunate peeresses are concerned, makes any reticence on this point useless. There is no possibility of giving a personal description of any significance except by comparisons ; so I will tell you that since the famous Duchess of Marlborough no Englishwoman ever possessed such beautiful hair or so firm a determination to have her own way. Lady Hester Stanhope was not more eccentric ; and as the young lady’s income was immense, she was able to gratify her whims to any extent. She was the despair of guardians, of governesses, and of the whole troop of relations who wished to mould her into a decorous demoiselle of society; yet those whom she chose to conciliate could not help idolizing her. ‘Towards her nobody could hold half feelings. She was extreme, and made others so where she was concerned. I want you to understand how womanly and fascinating Arabella Grahame could be, how kind and generous she was at heart; or else you will condemn her as utterly unfeminine in the caprices which had made her celebrated from London to St. Petersburg. She actually kept a betting-book ; and she drove both lovers and relatives to despair by the summary way in which she rejected the most eligible offers. The wilful young lady had thought it hard enough to be worried by her kinsmen’s interference, while still under tutelage ; but she resented bitterly the advice and animadversions wherewith they pursued her after her majority ; especially on each occasion that she threw away some great match. This spring, and she was now twenty-two, the whole clan, from the noble Earl who headed the family down to the poorest hanger-on, was shocked and outraged by her disdaining a ducal coronet laid at her feet. The troop teazed her to such an extent that she deserted London. Accompanied by her ancient governess, her pet vassals, and her Irish mare, ‘ Spitfire,” the handsomest and worst-tempered brute outside Pluto’s stables, she set sail for France, and descended like a golden- haired Aurora upon Paris. Now, the Lady Arabella detested the “ city of all delights,” and had an old-fashioned British scorn for everything Gallic ; but as she said to her old instructress : ‘4 Purgatory in peace is better than Paradise made a howling wilder- ness by one’s relations.” Mrs. Mocourt looked depressed by these irreverent comparisons, _ said something about “‘ the family.” ‘My family !” retorted her ladyship; “ why, I'd rather have iets Gomicbooks.co m ———e