English fiction -- 19th century; Marriage -- Fiction
And there is an end to that part of the question! Lady Arpington
interpreted it, by the gaze more than the words, under subjection of the
young woman's character. Nevertheless, she bore away Carinthia's consent
to a final meeting with the earl at her house in London, as soon as
things were settled at Croridge. Chillon, whom she saw, was just as
hard, unforgiving, careless of his country's dearest interests; brother
and sister were one heart of their one blood. She mentioned the general
impression in town, that the countess and only she could save the earl
from Rome. A flash of polite laughter was Chillon's response. But after
her inspection of the elegant athlete, she did fancy it possible for a
young wife, even for Henrietta, to bear his name proudly in his absence
--if that was worth a moment's consideration beside the serious issues
involved in her appeal to the countess; especially when the suggestion
regarding young wives left unprotected, delicately conveyed to the
husband, had failed of its purpose. The handsome husband's brows
fluttered an interrogation, as if her clear-obscure should be further
lighted; and it could not be done. He weighed the wife by the measure
of the sister, perhaps; or his military head had no room for either.
His callousness to the danger of his country's disintegration, from the
incessant, becoming overt, attacks of a foreign priesthood might--
an indignant great lady's precipitation to prophecy said would--bring
chastisement on him. She said it, and she liked Henrietta, vowing to
defeat her forecast as well as she could in a land seeming forsaken by
stable principles; its nobles breaking up its national church, going over
to Rome, embracing the faith of the impostor Mahomet.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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