Agnes, or, Beauty and Pleasure — page 328: what you’re looking at

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

TS eee OO 320 AGNES; OB, BEAUTY AND PLEASULE. - anderstang the footing upon which you and I are countenance, rendering it hideous for the moment henceforth to regard each other, I am happy and {| she muttered to herself, “ I must work in secret! contented—I experience no jealousy—heaven for- bid !—and I am prepared to love your sweet Agnes as dearly as if she were my sister! But there is one thing, Charles,’’ added the Countess, hesitat- —in secret must I be avenged! Yes !—and who can tell if Lucia were once removed but that tho young Englishman might yet be mine ?” The Princess retreated from the garden, and ingly, and with some little confusion and agitation. | hastened up to her own suite of apartments. Seek- “It is not my purpose to mention to Bianca what has taken place—and therefore in her presence I shall be guarded in the mode in which I address you. And now, lest she should think it strange that I should be absent from her so long, I will hasten to retrace my steps.” Bestowing upon our hero a smile of the sweetest sisterly affection, Lucia glided away from him and returned into the mansion. We intimated that if Agnes Evelyn herself had been concealed amongst the evergreens she need not have experienced a pang of jealousy on behold- ing the chaste kiss which Charles bestowed upon the cheek of the charming Countess. But though Agnes was not present in that garden, yet there was another to be a witness of the scene;—and this was the Princess of Spartivento. She had ob- sérved from the window of her apartment that the young Count of Camerino was walking in the garden; and then she beheld her sister Lucia enter the grounds. A jealous rage was already in her soul; but now it boiled up into the fiercest frenzy. “ Ah, he loves another !”” she muttered to her- self; “and he had the audacity to tell me so! Yes—he loves Lucia! It is but too evident! He loathes and abhors me who did so much to save him !—his heart is devoted to Lucia who has done nothing on his behalf! And am I to be thus sacrificed by the ungrateful Charles to that soft- speaking hypocrite of .a sister of mine! No— never! Put let me hear what passes between them.” Bianca descended into the garden, and at once concealed herself amongst the evergreens. She soon found that if she attempted to get too near the spot where the interview between Charles and Lucia was taking place, she would betray her presence by the rustling of the evergreens: she was therefore compelled to remain at a certain distance. And thus, inasmuch as she beheld everything, but heard nothing, it was only too natural that she should form a most erroneous im- pression of what was passing. “Ah! she clings to him for support! sho is overcome by the feelings of joy and ecstacy with which the language of love flowiag from his lips, Inspires her! And bow she gazes up at him! and his looks are riveted upon her countenance! Oh, if I were near enough, I should doubtless per- ceive the transfusion of passion’s fervour in those mingling and blending regayds! And now she retreats a pace or two!_—~ Yes, she is overcome by the immensity of her own happiness! He rushes forward—he takes her hand! Ah! and now they speak earnestly together!—and, Oh $$$ ing the elegantly-furnished boudoir, she dismissed the handmaiden who was putting it in order; and locking the door, she threw herself upon a sofa to give way to her reflections. “ Yes—revenge, revenge!” she murmured be- tween her lips. “Revenge!” she ejaculated ina louder tone: “revenge first—and perhaps love afterwards! But the means for this vengeance ? Where? howP Ah! I feel in such an evil and desperate mood that I could almost kneel and pray that Satan himself would send one of his fiends in human shape to suecour me, even though the price were the loss of my own soul!” Searcely had the Princess given utterance to these words in a voice which swelled into a louder and louder tone with the growing vehemence of her excited feelings—scarcely, we say, had the last syllable leapt from her tongue, when a large mirror on the opposite side of the room, and which reached down to the floor, opened inward, and a hideous-looking female made her appear- ance, The reader has seen enough of the Princess to be aware that she was a woman of the most dauat- less courage, and indeed of an Amazonian hero- ism: but the strangeness and suddenness of this incident was suflicient to startle and even alarm the most intrepid of human beings. Bianca how. ever immediately recovered herself, on acquiring the certainty, at a second glance, that she was veritably a creature of flesh and blood. She was about fifty years of age—very short in stature— as shrivelled and dried asa mummy—but with a largely chiselled aquiline profile. Her well-pre- served teeth gleamed with a ghastly whiteness in contrast with the swarthiness of her complexion ; and her eyes shone with an extraordinary lustre. She was decently but plainly dressed; and instead of a cap she wore a parti-coloured silk kerchief bound about her head, the grisly locks forming a sort of fringe to this gaudy turban. The reador may perhaps have already recognised the woman ; and it now occurred to the Princess of Spartivento that she herself had seen her before. “Who are you?” was the question which Bianca nevertheless put as she advanced from the sofa, whence she had started up on the first appearance of this hideous-looking creature. “ Has your Highness forgotten me f” inquired the woman, closing the looking-glass door behind her. “Ah! you know me then? Yes! and we have mot before! But where?” “On the field of Novara,” was the woman’s rssponse, “True !”—and as the recognition was now come rage! fury! the wanton presents her face to re- | plete, it was with a sudden look of loathing, terror, ceive the amorous kiss! Revenge, revenge !” The Princess felt as if she could rush forth from her place of concealment and spring upon her sister like a tigress: but she controlled her | tidious?” sho said, with a mocking laugh. feelings ; and as an expression of demoniac vin- dictiveness passed over her naturally handsome and abhorrence that the Priucess recoiled from the presence of that woman. : “What ! your Highness is thus exquisitely fas- & Be- think yourself, proud lady, of the words to which your lips ere now gave audible utterance—and lNOOLK (©) 5}