The Queen of Sheba, and My Cousin the Colonel — John Shaqi
The Queen of Sheba, and My Cousin the ColonelAldrich, Thomas Bailey
General
The Queen of Sheba, and My Cousin the Colonel
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey
Fiction
In his statement Lynde
had omitted several matters which may properly be set down here.
That first day at the table d'hote and the next day, when he was able
more deliberately to study the young woman, Edward Lynde had made no
question to himself as to her being the same person he had seen in so
different and so pathetic surroundings. It was unmistakably the same.
He had even had a vague apprehension she might recognize him, and had
been greatly relieved to observe that there was no glimmer of
recognition in the well-bred, careless glance which swept him once or
twice. No, he had passed out of her memory--with the other shapes and
shadows! How strange they should meet again, thousands of miles from
New England; how strange that he alone, of all the crowded city, should
know there had been a dark episode in this girl's history! What words
she had spoken to him and forgotten, she who now sat there robed in the
beauty of her reason!
It was a natural interest, and a deep interest, certainly, that
impelled Lynde to seek the acquaintance of the two ladies. On the third
day a chance service rendered the elder--she had left a glove or a
handkerchief beside her plate at table, and Lynde had followed her with
it from the dining-room--placed him upon speaking terms. They were his
country-women, he was a gentleman, and the surface ice was easily
broken. Three days afterwards Lynde found himself oddly doubting his
first conviction. This was not that girl! The likeness was undeniable:
the same purple-black hair, the same long eyelashes, a very distinctive
feature. In voice and carriage, too, Miss Denham curiously recalled the
other; and that mark on Miss Denham's cheek--a birth-mark--was singular
enough. But there the analogies ended. Miss Denham was a young woman
who obviously had seen much of the world; she possessed accomplishments
which could have been acquired only by uninterrupted application; she
spoke French, German, and Italian with unusual purity. That intellect,
as strong and clear as crystal, could never have suffered even a
temporary blur. He was beginning to be amazed at the blunder he had
committed, when suddenly, one evening, a peculiar note in her voice,
accompanied by a certain lifting of the eyelashes--a movement he had
noticed for the first time, but which was familiar to him--threw Lynde
into great perplexity. It WAS that other girl! How useless for him to
try to blind himself to the truth! Besides, why should he wish to, and
why should the fact of the identity trouble him to such a degree? The
next day he was staggered by Miss Denham alluding incidentally to the
circumstance that she and her aunt had passed a part of the spring of
1872 in Florida. That was the date of Lynde's adventure, the spring of
1872. Here was almost positive proof that Miss Denham could not have
been in New England at the time. Lynde did not know what to think. Of
course he was mistaken; he must be mistaken--and yet! There were
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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