Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 222: what you’re looking at

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

THE MYSTERIOUS MISSIVE 200 Elizabeth, that if you had lived with him, as your husband, if the circumstances of that marriage had not at the time inspired you with an aversion for an alliance that ought only to have been connected with a heart’s best and purest affections, — do you not think, I say, that you would have learned to love that handsome and elegant nobleman? ”’ “T do not think so, Frank,’’ responded his sister, smiling. “No. My belief is that when a woman first meets the man whom she is destined to love, she experiences some unknown and intuitive feeling which at once points him out as the being who is to exercise a paramount influence over the future vears of her life. Such was not the case when | first set eyes upon the Marquis of Villebelle.”’ ‘No, because the circumstances were so peculiar,” ex- claimed Frank. ‘‘ He appeared before you to the utmost disadvantage, and in a position but little calculated to command either respect or esteem. Had it been otherwise, — were you introduced to him in the ordinary manner, meeting him in society and gradually becoming the object of his attentions, — you know not, my dear sister, what would have been the result. And then, there was Count Christoval. You have told me that he was one of the hand- somest men you ever beheld in all your life, and that he possessed every intellectual embellishment to aid the ad- vantages of personal beauty — ”’ “You seem very anxious, my dear Frank,”’ interrupted Elizabeth, laughing gaily, ‘‘ that I should confess to having been at some time of my life smitten with the sentiment of love.’’ ‘‘ Ah, my dear sister,’’ responded the youth, ‘‘ if you had been, 1t would now prove so sweet to me to converse with you thereon.”’ “ The heart that loves, then,”’ said Elizabeth, now speak- ing seriously, “ longs to pour forth its thoughts and feelings to another heart beating with kindred emotions? Yes, I am convinced, Frank, from all you have been saying, that you do love Juliana Farefield. Your words convey all the evidences of that affection. But with regard to myself, I can only repeat what I have already. told you, that if my soul be ever destined to receive the impression of love, I have not as yet encountered in the world the object who is to inspire the feeling. We were talking of Don Diegu , ECORVICLOOO® <S (C()