The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties (Volume 3 of 5)Burney, Fanny
History
The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties (Volume 3 of 5)
Burney, Fanny
France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799 -- Refugees -- Fiction; Historical fiction; Refugees -- Fiction; War stories
Juliet, now, was crimsoned with shame and embarrassment. How account for
thus palpably wishing him to remain in the house? or how suffer him, by
silence, to suppose it was from a desire of his society? Her blushes
astonished, yet, by heightening her beauty, charmed still more than they
perplexed him. To settle what to think of her might be difficult and
teazing; but to admire her was easy and pleasant. He approached her,
therefore, with the most flattering looks and smiles; but, to avoid any
mistake in his manner of addressing her, he kept his speech back, with
his judgment, till he could learn her purpose.
This prudential circumspection redoubled her confusion, and she
hesitatingly stammered her concern that she had prevented his airing.
More amazed still, but still more enchanted, to see her thus at a loss
what to say, though evidently pleased that he had relinquished his
little excursion, he was making a motion to take her hand, which she had
scarcely perceived, when a violent ringing at the door-bell, checked
him; and concentrated all her solicitude in the impending danger of
Flora; and, in her eagerness to rescue the simple girl from ruin, she
hastily said: 'Can you, Sir Jaspar, forgive a liberty in the cause of
humanity? May I appeal to your generosity? You will receive a visitor in
a few minutes, whom I have earnest reasons for wishing you to detain in
your apartment to the last moment that is possible. May I make so
extraordinary a request?'
'Request?' repeated Sir Jaspar, charmed by what he considered as an
opening to intimacy; 'can you utter any thing but commands? The most
benignant sprite of all Fairyland, has inspired you with this gracious
disposition to dub me your knight.'
Yet his eyes, still bright with intelligence, and now full of fanciful
wonder, suddenly emitted an expression less rapturous, when he
distinguished the voice of Sir Lyell Sycamore, in parley with the
shop-man. Disappointment and chagrin soon took place of sportive
playfulness in his countenance; and, muttering between his teeth, 'O ho!
Sir Lyell Sycamore!'--he fixed his keen eyes sharply upon Juliet; with a
look in which she could not but read the ill construction to which her
seeming knowledge of that young man's motions, and her apparent interest
in them, made her liable; and how much his light opinion of Sir Lyell's
character, affected his partial, though still fluctuating one of her
own.
Sir Lyell, however, was upon the stairs, and she did not dare enter into
any justification; Sir Jaspar, too, was silent; but the young baronet
mounted, singing, in a loud voice,
O my love, lov'st thou me?
Then quickly come and see one who dies for thee!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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