The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 79: what you’re looking at

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62 teeth. ‘ But pray whom did you expect to meet here on the present occasion ?” “To tell you the truth, it was tke Signora Vivaldi,” answered Saxondale. “ Oh, the prude!” instantaneously cried the fair one, with an indignant toss of the head. “ But I begin to understand how this mistake originated. It is doubtless because I also belonging to the Opera ‘3 ‘ Just so!” exclaimed Lord Saxondale. ‘ And now tell me at whose feet [ have the honour of kneeling ?” he added, suiting the action to the word, and dropping down upon his knees before the lady whose hand he took and pressed to his lips. “You may know me as Emily Archer, if you like,” was the response, accompanied by a sweet seductive smile: “but at the Opera and to the world I am known as Mademoiselle D’Alembert.” ‘Oh! then, if I have lost one beautiful danseuse, I have obtained another!” exclaimed Hdmund, as he again pressed her hand to his lips: then rising from his knees and seating himself by her side, he said, “* How foolish in me not to have recognized you at once! I have often admired you—and be- tween ourselves considered you a much finer ar. tiste than the Signora Vivaldi ” “ Ah! my dear Lord Saxondale,” exclaimed Miss Archer, ‘‘it is only jealousy, and bad taste, and envy, and want of discernment, and all kinds of nasty feelings, that have put me second instead of first. But come, let us‘take some supper—and a glass of champagne will enliven our discourse.” Lord Saxondale and the meretricious beauty of the Opera-ballet accordingly placed themselves at table; and by the time the young nobleman had imbibed his third glass of champagne he had not merely forgotten the beautiful Angela altogether, but found himself breathing the most extravagant proposals in the ears of the seductive Emily Archer. CHAPTER XV. THE GRAND ENTERTAINMENT, TuRN we now to the residence of Lady Macdonald in Cavendish Square. It was six o'clock in the evening of the day that followed the night of Lord Saxondale’s many ad- ventures ; and Lady Florina Staunton was seated in her own private apartment adjoining her bed- chamber. Theroom wassplendidly furnished ; and the ornaments were of a character which displayed the refined taste of its presiding divinity. Several exquisite alabaster statues were dispersed about— there were vases filled with flowers which exhaled a delicious perfume—and on a side table were scat- tered drawing-materials, with a few exquisite spe— cimens of the art in water-colour. Florina was dressed for a party. Her be autiful hair was arranged in ringlets, andornamented with pearls and a single camelia that seemed typical of her own virgin purity. She was seated at a table, whereon lay a book and a letter, both of which she had been reading. The former was a volume of Scott’s Poems, of which she was a great admirer: the lotter was one that had been received by her auntthat same afternoon from Mr. Gunthorpe, and which had been given to our fair heroine to read. THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT, But at the moment when we thus afford the reader a glimpse into that splendidly furnished apartment, Lady Florina was neither reading book nor letter, but was plunged into a deep reverie. Exquisitely beautiful did she seem as she sat, statue-like, in her rich dress and with her looks bent pensively downwards,—so exquisitely beau- tiful indeed, that it appeared a sin to allow the heart of so fair a creature to experience the slight- est. source of vexation or sorrow! And yet sorrow did lurk in that gentle bosom of hers: for the young lady could not blind herself to the cireum- stance that in being regarded as the fiture wife of Lord Saxondale, she was to be sacrificed to the wretched conventionalisms of high life, and that her hand was to be bestowed upon one whom she could not possibly love and who even inspired her with aversion and disgust. But there was another circumstance to which Floriua could not close her convictions : and this was, that if she did not love Lord Saxondale she nevertheless loved another! “Yes,” she thought to herself in the depth of that reverie in which we find her plunged, “ he is one of nature’s true aristocracy and needs no fac- titious ornament of rank noreaccidental advantage of fortune to render him truly estimable. I feel that I love him! I can no longer shut out this truth from my mind. Butin thus admitting it unto myself, is it not the same as acknowledging my own uuhappiness? Alas, yes! for itis in vain that I love him I never can be his. Oh! that he loves me inereturn, 1 know—lI am con- vinced! Yes, William Deveril loves me!”— and as she thus spoke his name even to herself, she suddenly started as if with the conscious- ness of some guilty thought or deed. ‘And now,” she continued, in her silent reverie, “1am ee a een nnn UU ceEEI USSU SUSE SEES decked to go forth into the brilliant saluons of © fashion—to smile with my lips while my heart is weeping—to look happy in my face while my my soul is dark with sorrow !” At this momeut a door opened at the extremity of Lady Florina’s apartment; and galvanized as it were from her deep absorbing reverie, she started aud looked round, as if fearful lest the person now entering, whoever it were, might read in her features the thoughts that had been agi- tating in her mind. “ Ah, my dearaunt!” she exclaimed, rising from herchair: “is the carriage at the door ?” ‘‘- Yes, Flo dear,” responded Lady Macdonald— an elderly woman, superbly dressed, but theartifices of whose toilet could not concealand searcely even mitigate the ravages of time upon a beauty that in her younger days had been of no common order. “Tt is half-past six—Lady Saxondale dines at seven—and you know that she is so particular, she is always punctual.” “ Tam ready, aunt,” replied Florina, ‘* But surely it will not take half-an-hour,” she added, smiling. “to reach Park Lane ?—and I know that you do not like to be there much before the time.” “True,” observed Lady Macdonald: * we will wait five minutes. Have you read Mr. Gunthorpe’s letter which I sent into you just now 2” ‘‘T have read it with some degree of astonish- ment,” answered Florina. ‘ The other night, when he first introduced himself to me and Harold at the Opera, he said that he should be delighted to pay you a visit ; andI assured him that you would be well pleased to show him every attention, And ——— A TT ee oe eee ee es = ~—— - -- —~ CORMICLO® <S (E(@)