The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 168: what you’re looking at

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| THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT. 18, guilt beneath the mask of hypocrisy. Even the eompératively pure mind of Constance eaught the poisonous infection arising from the same source; and im the space of a brief half-hour those two the imagmation. Oh, wretched wretched Lady Saxondale! if eould only have known how much of the evil seed which is naturally implanted in frail human nature had been all on a sudden made to shoot forth and with fearful rapidity, even almost to the bearing of its kindred fruits, in the bosoms of your daaghters, you would have shrank from the ing fact that it was your doing. For, Oh! the Moedusa-head of a mother’s bad example will para- lyse and turn to rigid stone all the lively virtues and Emily Archer. Juliana therefore was alone in the drawing-roor between five and six o’elock on that day of which we are writing; and what with the inspirations of the novel she was reading, the ing character of her own thoughts, and the influence of those reve- lations which had come to her ears in respect to her raother, it was no wonder if she should at length fall into the following train of reflections :— “ Assuredly I should become the laughing-stock of | the whole world,” she said to herself, as she laid aside her book, “if I were to run away with Frank Paton end marry him. Yes, for no matter what the secret of his birth may really be, he is but a page after all; and if I wait. till that mystery is cleared up with the hope that he may eventually healthy qualities of her children. Woe unite thee. Lady Saxondals! prove to be the son of distinguished persons, I may wait long enough. Besides, how is it possible to wait? I feel that this passion is devouring me o——= Those, by the bye, are the very words which I have just now read in the novel! How truly some authors do depict our feelings! It was all very well for me to declare to Constance yesterday that Asnoor two hours later in the day, Juliana Fare- I gloried in this love of mine, and that I should Geld, dressed for dimmer in « costame that set off her | feel proud in becoming the wife of Francis Paton. finely developed charms to the utmost advantage, | Yee—but then I did not choose to acknowledge was half reclining upon a sofs in one of the drawing- | even to myself that there was any shame attached rooms, and whiling away the time with a volume of | to this love—any reason to blush for it! It was an the last new novel. Little however of its contents | attempt to blazon forth eomething that nevertheless did the lady’s retain: for though she was| sat upon the heart like a remores. Wherefore reading of love there, she was thinking of love at| should I not imitate my mother’s example? She the same time apart from the topic of the book. | would not marry William Deveril—but she——” Hier ideas seemed to flow in two distinct channels, | And then Juliana, not yet thoroughly depraved, one following the course of the glowing descriptions | checked the thought to which she was almost un- of love as dressed up by the novelist—the ether pur- | consciously giving expression in her musings; and eung the raptures and blandishments of love as she | returning to her book, she endeavoured to evade af herself felt and understood them. least that portion of the ideas which had stolen upon There was a heightened colour upon her checke— | her. But it was in vain: the idea was there—the a dewy moisture upon her rich red lips—-a melting | seed had dropped upon a soil by no means unpre-~ languor in her fine dark syes—e languor the sen- | pared to receive it—and although it might be covered suousness of whieh was deepened by the half-closing | up for a moment, it was nevertheless certain to take of the lide, as if those eyes, faithfully the | root-—indeed all the more certain on that very ac- eondition of the mind, were weighed down by the | count. delicious ta thet rested on her soul within.| Presently the door opened, and Lady Saxondale Vor the soul iteelf feels a kind of pleasurable op- | entered the apartment. Juliana just lifted her oyes pressivences and the weight of « softly sensuous lan- | above her book to see who it was, and then went on guor when the imagination gives way to the rapt | reading without saying a word. In the same map dreamings of love—even as the bee, which sips|ner her ladyship glanced towards the sofa to see sweets frum every flower, is oppressed by the burden | who was half reclining there; and likewise without of the delicious food wherewith it is laden,—or as| speaking a word, she turned to the further ex- the breezes of an oriental clime become heavy with | tremity of the spaciousroom. There was a mutual the rich perfumes and odours which they have accu- | feeling of embarrassment and mistrust on the part mulated while they wandered kissingly over the | of the mother and the elder daughter. Lady Saxon- brightest and fairest flowers of the earth. dale knew that her tale concerning Deveril had not Julana was glone at the time in that roum. Con- been believed by Juliana; and her guilty vonscience stance was in her own chamber, penning a response ' therefore made her think that the real truth of the to a billet which she had received from the Marquis |‘ transaction was suspected—for she was very far do Villebelle, through the agency of the faithful from entertaining an idea how coipletoly 16 was Mary-Anne. Lady Saxondale was likewise in her known. On the other hand Juliana, boing as yet own room, pondering upon her unpleasant interview ‘ young in the ways of duplicity and deceit, was with Mr. Gunthorpe, and revolving a thousand wild always feartul lest. her mother’s eagle glance should and desperate plans in her mind for the purpose of detect her ,assion fur tne page; and now that arresting the hostile proceedings menaced by that somewhat unholy thoughts had arisen in the young gentleman on the part of William Deveril. As for lady's mind, her conscience suggested still more Lord Saxzondale, after having returned home for an troubling fears than before. Thus was it that mis- hour or two just to seeif there were any letters for trust and suspicion subsisted between the patricias him, hehad gone back to the villa in the Seven Sisters’ lady and her daughter. Read, laden with new presents and a fresh supply: Lady Sazondale retired, we said, to the farther CHAPTER XXXTYV. THE MIRROR. a ate ammo eee — le ree Ley COMM ElOOO (C