Alfred de Rosann — page 88: what you’re looking at

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

ALFRED DE ROSANN. 19 forehead, with a species of “ premeditated negli- gence’’—if the reader will excuse and condescend to appreciate the meaning of the antithesis—which gave a peculiar expression to. his countenance; his dark eyes were brilliant amidst that glare of even super- fluous light; his slender figure was set off to advan- tage by the clothes which the prince of London tailors had fabricated. Selina was nearly as tall as himself; her years were evidently but two or three less than his own, and there appeared altogether a certain har- ‘mony and fitness in the mere fact of these two beings dancing together, that many a spectator inquired of his neighbour if they were not lovers. That which was doubted at first became magnified to certainty, when passed on with various amplifications from one to another. At length the report reached the ears of Belle-Rose, through the medium of his friend the Englishman; and the self-styled Count, with his natural inclination to lying, instantly de- elared that “his banker and intimate acquaintance, Robson, had confided the secret of De Rosann and Selina’s engagement to him only the day before, when he went to draw for a few hundreds; that the happy couple were to be united on the first of the following month, and that Robson had settled ten thousand pounds upon his daughter.”’? ‘This news was speedily disseminated amongst the various acquaintances of the young Englishman on whose arm Belle-Rose was lounging; and in half an hour there was scarcely a single soul in the room that had not heard, and did not believe the report, save our hero, Mrs. Robson, and her two daughters. Issuing from so respectable 9 source as the Count d’Elsigny, and emanating from an authority so good as a fellow-countryman of De Rosann—who for a moment would have thought of doubting the assertion? When both the Misses Robson were engaged in the second guadrille, the gentlemen of the spectacles and the seals approached the spouse of their friend the banker, and entered into conversation. EOPMICLOO cS (E©)