Night and Morning, CompleteLytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
General
Night and Morning, Complete
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
English fiction
“Fanny, look there--no, to the left--you see that old woman, in rags,
crawling wearily along; turn now to the right--you see that fine house
glancing through the trees, with a carriage and four at the gates? The
difference between that old woman and the owner of that house is--Money;
and who shall blame your grandfather for liking Money?”
Fanny understood; and while the wise man thus moralised, the girl, whom
his very compassion so haughtily contemned, moved away to the old woman
to do her little best to smooth down those disparities from which wisdom
and moralising never deduct a grain! Vaudemont felt this as he saw her
glide towards the beggar; but when she came bounding back to him, she
had forgotten his dislike to her songs, and was chaunting, in the glee
of the heart that a kind act had made glad, one of her own impromptu
melodies.
Vaudemont turned away. Poor Fanny had unconsciously decided his
self-conquest; she guessed not what passed within him, but she suddenly
recollected--what he had said to her about her songs, and fancied him
displeased.
“Ah I will never do it again. Brother, don’t turn away!”
“But we must go home. Hark! the clock strikes seven--I have no time to
lose. And you will promise me never to stir out till I return?”
“I shall have no heart to stir out,” said Fanny, sadly; and then in a
more cheerful voice, she added, “And I shall sing the songs you like
before you come back again!”
CHAPTER VIII.
“Well did they know that service all by rote;
Some singing loud as if they had complained,
Some with their notes another manner feigned.”
CHAUCER: Pie Cuckoo and the Nightingale,
modernised by WORDSWORTH.--HORNE’s Edition.
And once more, sweet Winandermere, we are on the banks of thy happy
lake! The softest ray of the soft clear sun of early autumn trembled
on the fresh waters, and glanced through the leaves of the limes and
willows that were reflected--distinct as a home for the Naiads--beneath
the limpid surface. You might hear in the bushes the young blackbirds
trilling their first untutored notes. And the graceful dragon-fly, his
wings glittering in the translucent sunshine, darted to and fro--the
reeds gathered here and there in the mimic bays that broke the shelving
marge of the grassy shore.
And by that grassy shore, and beneath those shadowy limes, sat the young
lovers. It was the very place where Spencer had first beheld Camilla.
And now they were met to say, “Farewell!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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