Moths by Ouida — page 73: what you’re looking at

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

MOTHS. 66 2 na ag he would come to her sign, she knew,'as a hawk to e lure. That day Prince Zouroff rode by Vere’s side, and paid her many compliments on her riding and other things; but she scarcely heard them. She knew she could ride anything, as she told him; and she thought every one could who loved horses; and then she barely heard the rest of his pretty speeches. She was thinking, with a bewildered disgust, of the woman whom Fran- cis Herbert, Duke of Mull and Cantire, was willing to make her cousin. She had not comprehended one tithe of Pick-me-up’s jargon, but she had understood the menace to the grand, old, somber border forests about Castle Herbert, which she loved with a lov? only second to that she felt for the moors and woods of Bulmer, ‘7 would sooner see Francis dead than see him touch thoes trees!” she thought, with what her mother called her terridi# earnestness. And she was so absorbed in thinking of the shameof sucha wife for a Herbert of Mull, that she never noticed the glances _Zouroff gave her, or dreamed that the ladies who rode with her were saying to one another: ‘*Is it possible? Can he be serious?” | Vere had been accustomed to rise at six and go to bed at ten, to spend her time in serious studies or open-air exercise. She was bewildered by a day which began at one or two o’clock in the afternoon and ended at cockcrow or later. She was harassed by the sense of being perpetually exhibited and unceasingly criti- cised. Speaking little herself, she listened, and observed, and began to understand all that Correze had vaguely warned her against; to see the rancor underlying the honeyed words, the enmity concealed by the cordial smile, the hate expressed in ' praise, the effort masked in ease, the endless strife and calumny and cruelty and small conspiracies which make vp the daily life of men and women in society. Most of it was still a mystery to her; but much she saw, and grew heartsick at it. Light and vain temperaments find their congenial atmosphere in the world of fashion, but hers was neither light nor vain; and the falseness of it oppressed her. ae ‘*You are a little Puritan, my dear!” said Lady Stoat, smiling at her. ‘Pray be anything else rather than that!” said Lady Dolly, pettishly. ‘‘ Everybody hates it. it makes you look priggish and conceited, and nobody believes in iteven. That ever a child of mine should have such ideas !” G ‘‘ Yes, it 7s very funny!” said her dear Adine, quietly. ‘* You neglected her education, pussy. She is certainly a little Puritan. _ But we should not laugh at her. In these days itis really very interesting to see a girl who can blush, and who does not under- stand the French of the Petits Journauax, though she knows the French of Marmontel and of Massillon.” ‘¢ Who cares for Marmontel and Masillon?”’ said Lady Dolly, in ‘ She was flattered by the success of Vere as a beauty, and uTks ‘cComicboo cS o ke ~ me as ms ~~ Shs"