Women -- Social conditions -- 19th century -- Fiction
impertinence, and, displeasing my husband, become miserable beyond
words. Stay with us; you I love, and should be wretched to part from.
Stay and enjoy this paradise with us. Intreat his sisters, if they wish
to see Horatio, to come over. I will be more than a sister to them; but
let us all forget that such a place as that cold, distant England
exists."
This was Clorinda's usual mode of speaking of her husband's native
country: but once, when Ethel had urged her going there with more
earnestness than usual, suddenly her countenance became disturbed; and
with a lowering and stormy expression of face, that her English friend
could never afterwards forget, she said, "Say not another word, I pray.
Horatio loved--he loves an Englishwoman--it is torture enough for me to
know this. I would rather be torn in quarters by wild horses, broken in
pieces on the rack, than set foot in England. My cousin, as you have
pity for me, and value the life of Horace, use your influence to prevent
his only dreaming of a return to England. Methinks I could strike him
dead, if I only knew that such a thought lived for a second in his
heart."
These words said, Clorinda resumed her smiles, and was, more than usual,
desirous of flattering and pleasing Ethel; so that she softened, though
she could not erase, the impression her vehemence had made. However,
there appeared no necessity for Ethel to exert her influence. Horace was
equally averse to going to England. He loved to talk of it; he
remembered, with yearning fondness, its verdant beauty, its pretty
villages, its meandering streams, its embowered groves; the spots he had
inhabited, the trivial incidents of his daily life, were recalled with
affection: but he did not wish to return. Villiers attributed this
somewhat to his unforgotten attachment to Lady Lodore; but it was more
strange that he negatived the idea of one of his sisters visiting
him:--"She would not like it," was all the explanation he gave.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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