First Love: A Novel. Vol. 1 of 3Loudon, Mrs. (Margracia)
General
First Love: A Novel. Vol. 1 of 3
Loudon, Mrs. (Margracia)
Fiction
Finally, she came to the valiant resolve, to shake off the artificial
manner, made up of too much, perhaps sometimes, and, certainly, often
too little courtesy, which she felt she had had a part, at least, of
yesterday, and to be, what she had ever been, towards one, who had no
friends but those at Lodore House. "I don't mean," said she to herself,
"flying into his arms at meetings and partings, as I used to do, when I
was a foolish child;" and here she blushed, and felt astounded, at the
recollection; "but I mean to show him frank and unaffected kindness,
always the same."
As she arrived at this sage conclusion, Edmund stood before her,
looking not the worse for the want of his hat, the careless
arrangement the breeze had thought fit to make of his hair, and the
heightened colour caused by running; to say nothing of a certain
beaming light, which thoughts, that lovers' lips dare not confess,
sometimes shed through lovers' eyes. In short, his dream had given
a most dangerous, delighted, bridegroom-like expression to his
countenance!
On first seeing him Julia blushed, as though, in her late conference
with herself, she had been speaking, instead of only thinking, and
might have been overheard. In pursuance, however, of her resolve, she
extended towards him the open palm of welcome, as she bade him good
morning.
When he felt her hand within his, soft as it had been in his dream;
when he saw her cheek glowing, and in her eyes, as she lifted them to
his, beheld the blended expression of kindness and timidity, called up
by the yet unsubdued current of such reflexions as had just passed
through her mind; he could not help thinking how like she, at that
moment, looked, to what she had appeared in the too delightful vision,
from which he had so lately and so unwillingly awakened.
He was so much absorbed by this idea, that his eyes dwelt on her face,
till hers were bent on the ground: her blush, too, deepened. She wished
to speak, but felt there was something in his manner, which made it
impossible for her to keep her resolution of behaving with perfect
ease; both remained silent, and she withdrew her hand.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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