The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties (Volume 5 of 5)Burney, Fanny
History
The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties (Volume 5 of 5)
Burney, Fanny
France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799 -- Refugees -- Fiction; Historical fiction; Refugees -- Fiction; War stories
But short, here, was her reign. Harleigh was speedily ready: and his
cause, seconded by Lady Aurora and the Admiral, could not be pleaded in
vain to Juliet; who, in giving her hand where she had given her whole
heart; in partaking the name, the mansion, the fortune, and the fate of
Harleigh; bestowed and enjoyed such rare felicity, that all she had
endured seemed light, all she had performed appeared easy, and even
every woe became dear to her remembrance, that gradually and
progressively, though painfully and unsuspectedly, had contributed to so
exquisite and heartfelt a union.
Her own happiness thus fixed, her first solicitude was for her guardian
and preserver the Bishop; whom, with her sympathizing Harleigh, she
attended to the Continent. There she was embraced and blessed by her
honoured benefactress, the Marchioness; there, and not vainly, she
strove to console her beloved Gabriella; and there, in the elegant
society to which she had owed all her early enjoyments, she prevailed
upon Harleigh to remain, till it became necessary to return to their
home, to present, upon his birth, a new heir to the enchanted Admiral.
A rising family, then, put an end to foreign excursions; but the dearest
delight of Harleigh was seeking to assemble around his Juliet her first
friends.
Lady Aurora had hardly any other home than that of her almost adored
sister, till she was installed in one, with an equal and amiable
partner, upon the same day that Lord Melbury obtained the willing hand
of the lively, natural, and feeling Lady Barbara Frankland.
Sir Jaspar Herrington, to whom Juliet had such essential obligations,
became, now that all false hopes or fanciful wishes were annihilated,
her favourite guest. He still saw her with a tenderness which he
secretly, though no longer banefully nourished; but transferred to her
rapturously attentive children, the histories of his nocturnal
intercourse with sylphs, fairies, and the destinies; while, ever awake
to the wishes of Juliet, he rescued the simple Flora from impending
destruction, by portioning her in marriage with an honest vigilant
farmer.
Scarcely less welcome than the whimsical Baronet to Juliet, nor less
happy under her roof, was the guileless and benevolent Mr Giles Arbe;
who there enjoyed, unbroken by his restless, adroit, and worldly cousin,
his innocent serenity.
Juliet sought, too, with her first power, the intuitively virtuous Dame
Fairfield; whose incorrigible husband had briefly, with the man of the
hut, paid the dread earthly penalty of increased and detected crimes.
Harleigh placed a considerable annuity upon the faithful, excellent
Ambroise; to whose care, soon afterwards, he committed the meritorious
widow, and her lovely little ones, by a marriage which ensured to them
the protection and endearments of a kind husband, and an affectionate
father.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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