The String of Pearls; or, The Barber of Fleet Street — page 86: what you’re looking at

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

THE STRING OF PEARLS, was so feir, and had heard no voice that he had considered really so musical and charming to listen to, as Johanna Oakley’s. A man of more honourable and strict || | sense of honour than Coionel Jeffery could not have been found, and, therefore, it was that he allowed himself to admire the beautiful under any circumstances, because he knew that his admiration was of no dangerous quality, but that, on the || contrary, it was one of those feelings which might exist in a bosom such as his, quite undebased by a meaner influence. We think it necessary, however, before || | he has his second meeting with Johauna Oakley, to give such an explanation of his thoughts and feelings as it isin our power. When first he met her, the purity of | | her mind, and the genuine and beautiful candour of all she said, struck him most |, forcibly, as well as her great beauty, which could not fail to be exremely manifest. | After that he began to reason with himself as to what ought to be his feelings with || — | regard to her—namely, what portion of these ought to be suppressed, and what |, | ought to be encouraged. If Mark Ingestrie were dead, there was not a shadow of |, | interference or dishonour in him, Colonel Jeffery, loving the beautiful girl, who was || | surely not to be shut out of the pale of all affection because the first person to || | whom her heart had warmed with a pure and holy passion, was no more. | “Tt may be,” he thought, “that she is incapable of feeling a sentiment which || | can at all approach that which once she has felt ; but still she may be happy and | Serene, and may pass many joyous hours as the wife of another.”’ He did not positively make these reflections as applicable to himself, although || they hada tendency that way, and he was fast verging to a state of mind which || might induce him to give them a-more actual application. He did not tell him- || | self that he loved her—no, the word “admiration” took the piace of the more || | powerful term; but then, can we not doubt that, at this time, the germ ofa very || pure and holy affection was lighted up in the heart of Colonel Jeffery for the || | beautiful creature who suffered the pangs of so much disappointment, and who || loved one so well, who, we almost fear, if he were living, was scarcely the sort of | person fully to requite such an affection. But we know so little of Mark | Ingestrie, and there appears to be so much doubt as to whether he be alive or | dead, that we should not prejudge him upon such very insufficient evidence. Johanna Oakley did not think of taking Arabella Wilmot with her to this meeting with Colonel Jeffery, but she abandoned the idea, because it really looked as if | she was either afraid of him or afraid of herself, so she resolved to go alone; and | when the hour of appointment came, she was then walking upon that broad | gravelled path, which has been trodden by some of the bests and some of the | most eminent, as well as some of the worst of human beings. It was not likely that | with the feelings of Colonel Jeffery towards her, he would keep her waifing. In- deed, he was then a good hour before the time, and his only great dread was, that she might not come. He had some reason for this dread, because it will be readily recollected by the reader, that she had not positively promised to come; so that all he had was a hope that way tending and nothing further. As minute after minute had passed away, she came not, although the time had uot yet really arrived; his apprehension that she would not give him the meeting had grown in his mind almost to a certainty, when he saw her timidly advancing along the garden walk, erose to meet her at once, and for afew moments after he had ereeted her with kind civility she could do nothing but look inquiringly in his face, to | know if he had any news to tell her of the object of her anxious solicitude.?’ *T have heard nothing, Miss Oakley,” he said, * that can give you any satisfac- tion concerning the fate of Mr, Thornhill, but we have much suspicion—I say we, because I have taken a friend into my confidence-that something serious must = A a eg SR eon oo oo | have happened to him, and that the barber, Sweeney Todd, in Fleet-street, at whose || | door the dog so mysteriously took his post, knows something of that circumstance be if wnat if may.” He led her toa seat as she spoke, and when she had recovered sufficient! the agitation of her feelings to speak, she said in a timid, hesitating i oa “Had Mr. Thornhill fair hair, and large, clear, grey eyes 2? { Hl rsp enn ten iter aptamer tear ee ee ee et ee ee ee | someli "Tam Colo! +19 here Ky] mu cf artoge uni Deve bare des this po an tat comicbooks.com