The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 377: what you’re looking at

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

360 REYNOLDS’ WORKS afterward heard that door closed with an unusual degree of violence. Good Heaven! the outrage was consummated — if an outrage it were. Because if Deveril were really unfaith- ful and inconstant, and if Lady Saxondale’s story were strictly true, then was it no unmerited outrage, but a well- deserved punishment. The dinner-hour arrived, and Lady Maedonald, who was one of those persons that dwelt long upon a particular topie and reverted often to it, talked the whole time about ‘ the” overweening insolence and laughable coxcombry of that upstart Deveril.’”’ And poor Florina was compelled to sit and listen, and not merely to listen, but also to veil the feel- ings which this constant harping on the same sensitive chord tried so cruelly. Yes, she had to conceal her emotions from her aunt and from the domestics in attendance; but as she caught herself blushing and turning pale a dozen times in a minute, she trembled to the lowest confines of her being at, the fear of being detected. That dinner was one of the cruelest ordeals through which she had ever passed, and never was relief more gratefully welcomed than when Lady Macdonald retired to dress for the whist-party, and Florina thus found an opportunity of seeking the solitude of her own chamber. Unhke the Honourable Misses Farefield, Lady Florina Staunton had no confidential lady’s-maid. She had two lady’s-maids, but with neither of them was she accustomed to converse in a manner calculated to lessen her own dignity in their eyes, or diminish the respect which they experienced toward her. For, considering the sphere to which she be- longed, Lady Florina was assuredly one of the most art- less. unsophisticated, and ingenuous creatures in existence. Therefore, while she invariably treated her dependents with the utmost affability and kindness, never even making them feel their menial condition, she at the same time avoided anything that savoured of undue familiarity. Whatsoever secrets her heart might cherish were treasured up in the sanctity of that chaste tabernacle, and thus was it that Lady Florina had no confidante in the general acceptance of the term. The consequence was that she now felt herself involved in a perplexing and embarrassing position. She was anxious to go out for a couple of hours, and she did not choose the GEomicbooks.co