Dynevor Terrace; Or, The Clue of Life — Volume 1Yonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
General
Dynevor Terrace; Or, The Clue of Life — Volume 1
Yonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
Cousins -- Fiction; Domestic fiction; English fiction -- 19th century; Upper class -- England -- Fiction
What Louis said of her to his tutor on the Monday night of their
arrival was beyond the bounds of all reason; and it was even more
memorable that Jem was neither satirical nor disputatious, assented to
all, and if he sighed, it was after his door was shut.
A felicitous day ensued, spent by James in shooting, by Fitzjocelyn, in
the drawing-room; whither Mrs. Mansell had requested Isabel's presence,
as a favour to herself. The young lady sat at work, seldom raising her
eyes, but this was enough for him; his intense admiration and pleasure
in her presence so exhilarated him, that he rattled away to the utmost.
Louisa was at first the excuse. In no further doubt of his
good-nature, she spent an hour in the morning in giving him anagrams to
guess; and after she had repaired to the schoolroom, he went on
inventing fresh ones, and transposing the ivory letters, rambling on in
his usual style of pensive drollery. Happiness never set him off to
advantage, and either there was more froth than ordinary, or it
appeared unusually ridiculous to an audience who did not detect the
under-current of reflection. His father would have been in despair,
Mrs. Ponsonby or Mary would have interposed; but the ladies of
Beauchastel laughed and encouraged him,--all but Isabel, who sat in the
window, and thought of Adeline, 'spighted and angered both,' by a
Navarrese coxcomb, with sleeves down to his heels, and shoes turned up
to his knees. She gave herself great credit for having already created
him a Viscount.
In the afternoon, Louis drove out lionizing with his aunt; but though
the ponies stopped of themselves at all the notable views; sea, hill,
and river were lost on him. Lady Conway could have drawn out a far
less accessible person, and her outpouring of his own sentiments made
him regard her as perfect.
She consulted him about her winter's resort. Louisa required peculiar
care, and she had thought of trying mineral baths--what was thought of
Northwold? what kind of houses were there? The Northwold faculty
themselves might have taken a lesson from Fitzjocelyn's eloquent
analysis of the chemical properties of the waters, and all old Mr.
Frost's spirit would seem to have descended on him when he dilated on
the House Beautiful. Lodgers for Miss Faithfull! what jubilee they
would cause! And such lodgers! No wonder he was in ecstasy. All the
evening the sound of his low, deliberate voice was unceasing, and his
calm announcements to his two little cousins were each one more
startling than the last; while James, to whom it was likewise all
sunshine, was full of vivacity, and a shrewd piquancy of manner that
gave zest to all he said, and wonderfully enlivened the often rather
dull circle at Beauchastel.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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