The Young Duchess; or, Memoirs of a Lady of Quality — page 154: what you’re looking at

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

— 140 “Tt is not every lady,” he continued, ‘ who looks well in masculine attire, or who can adapt herself, so to speak, to the costume which she may thus put on for her own purposes. But I can easily conceive that your Grace must have looked the perfect gentleman, and that your appearance was calculated to have made the female heart sigh. For no doubt the disguise was so excellent that it was impossible to believe you otherwise than the gay handsome young gallant for which you chose to be taken.” It would be impossible to depict the varied feelings with which the Duchess of Ardleigh list- ened to these speeches which Count de Mandeville addressed to her. It is true that he seemed to be speaking without any special aim or purpose; but she nevertheless felt convinced that there was a significancy as well as an object, and indeed that he was playing some deep game which she could not at the moment fathom. Terror, amazement, rage, consternation, blending with the cruellest perplexity, constituted the phases of feeling through which her mind passed. She suffered him to go on speaking: she did not interrupt him ; she knew not what to say. How on earth did he know all these particulars ? who’ could have informed him? who could have betrayed her ? “‘T hope,” said Mandeville, after a moment’s pause, “ that your Grace is not offended with me for having enumerated those qualities on your part which have so-much excited my admiration? These are not topics whereon I should speak in- discriminately or generally. Ah! the music is striking up, and your Grace has promised me your hand for the next quadrille.” The promise had not in reality been given; but how could the Duchess refuse anything to this man in whose power she so completely found her- self, and who with a breath could blast her repu- tation in a minute? ‘There was but an instant’s hesitation; and then the next moment her hand was laid in his. All the coldness—all the frigid dignity—all the haughty indignation which the Duchess of Ard- leigh had previously been displaying towards Count de Mandeville, were now succeeded by the utmost affability of demeanour. Indeed, every look which the Duchess bent upon him, and every accent of her voice, seemed to imply that she was as anxious to render herself agreeable, to con- ciliate, and to gain his esteem, as she had previ- ously studied to repel and insult him. “Well, I declare,” exclaimed Lady Todmorden, as she rushed up to some old lady of title who was immensely fond of a gossip as well as of a piece of scandal, ‘‘the Count has led out the Duchess to dance! You heard how she went on against him —how she almost reviled him? And now look! —there she is, smiling, and listening with evident satisfaction to the words he is addressing to her! Well, after this we must never be told that the Duchess of Ardleigh is a stranger to caprice !” Several other persons who heard the manner in which the Duchess had in the first instance spoken of Count Mandeville, were now amazed to find that she was accompanying him in the dance; - and this triumph on his part was attributed to an exquisite polish of manners and to a power of conversation which were in reality much greater than Mandeville actually possessed. If anything fascinating mental qualities. THE YOUNG DUCHESS; OR, MEMOIRS OF A LADY OF QUALITY. therefore had been wanting to establish the repu- tation of the new-comer as the very phoenix of perfection, and to give him a repute high above that of all the other gentlemen of the fashionable world, this triumph at Lady Todmorden’s house was the very incident best calculated for that purpose. CHAPTER XXX, THE USURER’S DAUGHTER. Tue usurer’s daughter, Selina, has been already introduced in some slight manner to the reader : but it is now time that we should make them better acquainted with a young lady who is des- tined to play no inconsiderable part upon the stage of our story. Selina was about nineteen ‘years of age: she was exceedingly pretty, even if she did not altogether deserve the appellation of beautiful. She had dark brown hair, which was luxuriant and naturally wavy, so that when seen in particular lights it seemed to be darker in some parts than in others, — darker, we mean, in what may be termed the hollows of those soft and silky undulations. Her eyes were not large: they were of a clear blue, with a peculiar softness and sweetness of expression, and were unmistak- ably indicative of an amiable disposition. She had a good mouth and a fine set of teeth: her nose was straight—her chin softly rounded. A ‘little above the middle height, her figure was per- fectly modelled ; and we may add that her hands and:feet were of a faultless symmetry. But not only was Selina thus attractive in per- son— she was likewise endowed with the most Nothing could ex- ceed the sweetness of her disposition nor the ex- cellence of her moral principles. She possessed many accomplishments, for she was gifted with a rare intelligence; and at a time when her father was higgard to a degree in supplying her with the means of a good education (before his am- bition soared to the establishment of his family upon a high place in the world) she eagerly caught at all the means of self-instruction and speedily became proficient in whatsoever she undertook. In no possible respect did she resemble her pa- rents or her brother: she seemed a complete alien to the stock—as different from the common vul- gar level of the rest as a beautiful white dove might appear if thrown amidst a troop of un- couth ducks waddling in the mire. She herself could not fail to perceive that her parents and her brother possessed many faults: nor indeed, with all her amiability and her sweetness of temper, could she help sometimes blushing for the gross solecisms in respect to good manners perpetrated by her mother, or the vulgar pretensions and self- sufficiencies of her brother. And what is more, her gentle bosom had often been wrung by a sigh when she heard how her father mercilessly pur- sued some unhappy debtor with all the rancour that he might bestow upon a mortal enemy— plunging him into gaol—driving him through the Insolvents’ Court—and hunting him down into the vortex of irreclaimable ruin. Nevertheless, Selina was loving and dutiful towards her pa- rents; or at least she strove to perform her filial COMO YN Wn) Colin