Agnes, or, Beauty and Pleasure — page 170: what you’re looking at

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

162 rington with a slight gesture of impatience. “Do you think I can be happy and contented with my present lot?” “Tf that fortune had never been placed in your hands, Gustavus,” answered Emily, in a mild de- precating manner, “would you not have been happy and contented with your lot? You were happy when you were first here of “Ah! because I had never even formed so wild a hope as that I should become the possessor of a fortune!” exclaimed Gustavus: “I could not possibly foresee that heaven would place in my hands the means of bearing happiness across the wide Atlantic to those who are dear to me in my own native clime! Buf all of a sudden I was enriched—and then as suddenly my riches were snatched away from me. It is this that maddens me !” “Perhaps, Gustavus, your treasure will yet be recovered,” said the quadroon falteringly, as her eyes were bent down upon the contents of her basket, while her beautifully formed fingers played nervously with the fruits and flowers. “What chance is there of it?” ejaculated Gus- tavus, again speaking with impatience. “That hideous negro on whom our suspicions settled, resolutely denied the robbery; and candidly must I confess that there was an air of honest sincerity about him when he was taxed with the burglarious theft.” “You do not know these blacks so well as I, Gustavus,” observed Emily: “ they are full of de- ception and hypocrisy, as my unele himself has likewise told you. Remember that Nelson couid not prove that he was in his hut upon Mr. Thur. low’s estate throughout that entire night ** How could he prove it, since he lives alone P” demanded Gustavus. “On the other hand, be it borne in mind that for the same reason no one could prove he was absent. In short, Emily, it is useless to discuss the matter—my treasure is gone, irrecoyerably and mysteriously — and you are wrong to attempt to buoy me up with the hope that I shall ever get it back.” “Oh, Gustavus! how harshly you are speaking to me!” murmured the quadroon, the tears trick- ling from her eyes and falling like diamond-drops of rain upon the fruits and flowers in her basket. “You seem in your accents to reproach me for the calamity which has overtaken you.” There was indeed something more than harsh- ness—there was even a species of brutality in the abrupt, impatient, cutting manner in which the youth spoke. Yet hedearly loved Emily. But it is one of the idiosyncracies of human nature—one of the worst and most morbid peculiarities of the human mind—to visit first of all the bitterness of the heart’s affliction upon the object of that heart’s love. Yet let us not be mistaken; for we do not include the gentler sex in what may seem to be a wholesale accusation. For woman sever displays this evil feeling: it is only man who does it. And at times the best of men will thus act. Gus- tavus Barrington possessed a disposition as good, a heart as generous, a soul as magnanimous as any being of his sex ;—but still he was not exempt from that weakness to which we have alluded | Yes—he had spoken harshly and even brutally to the quadroon girl: bué the gentle reproach which she had nbeciied, suddenly made him aware] Oh! the possession of that treasure had inspired AGNES; OR, BEAUTY AND PLEASURE. of the unkindness of his conduct. His heart was | touched—his thoughts were called back from their | painful abstraction—and he gazed upon her with attention and with deepening interest. He saw that she was weeping: he beheld how beautiful she looked: his eyes wandered over her ‘entire form; and now, for the first time during the pre- sent interview he observed that her feet wero naked. Her stippers and her hose upon the bank of the streamlet showed what she had been doing: his presence had evidently startled her from the midst of bathing her limbs ; and there he had kept her standing with her naked feet upon the hot varched ground. This circumstance, though really so trivial in itself, appeared to the youth to en- hance the unkindness of his treatment of the beautiful quadroon girl ; and suddenly folding her in his arms, he passionately exclaimed, “ Forgive me, Emily! My conduct has been most cruel to- wards you.” Down fell the basket of fruit and flowers, as with a cry of joy the quadroon felt herself strained to her lover's breast. There she nestled, weeping and sobbing in the very plenitude of her ecstatic feelings ; for sae found that she was loved once more. “Oh, my sweet Emily!” continued Gustayus, as he now proceeded to restore to the basket the fruits and flowers which had fallen from it, “I have been half mad—I have scarcely known what I was doing! I have been uncourteous towards your excellent uncle and unkind towards yourself ! But now it is all over. Perish the recollection of the fortune which I have lost! Insensate that I have been to suffer the incident thus to prey upon my mind, when the possession of your love ought to have sufficed for my happiness!” “Ob, now you speak like yourself again, dear- est, dearest Gustavus!” eried the quadroon, with a gushing exultation of feeling, as her luminous black eyes bent a fond adoring glance upon her lover; then selecting the most beauteous flowér from the basket which he had restored to her, she said in a lower tone, and with a timid bashfulness of manner, “ Accept this from my hand, Gustavus, as a proof that you harbour ne sentiment but that of love for me.’ “Oh, none, none, Emily " cried the youth en- thusiastically, as he took the flower; and having kissed it, he placed it beneath his vesture next to his heart. “JT will join you ina miaute, Gustavus,” said the beauteous quadroon: “and we will return to the villa together.” She glided towards the bank; and Gustavus walked aside for a few moments while she resumed her hose and slippers. Concealed amidst the trees throughout the scene which we have been describ- ing, was Mr. Hargrave the misanthrope. He had heard everything—he had beheid everything; but he himself was unseen by the lovers—bis pre- sence there was unsuspected by them. He now slowly and cautiously retreated; and almost im- mediately afterwards Emily Pinnock rejoined Gustavus. “TI feel, my beloved,” said the youth, passing his arm round her waist as they walked slowly along together, “that my conduct has been most ungenerous and most unkind towards you. But COMmcooolx<s