Kitabı oku: «The Heroine», sayfa 14

CHAPTER V

'Tis she! – Pope.

O Vous! – Telemachus.

All hail! – Macbeth.

An Extraordinary Rencontre. – Pathetic Repartees. – Natural Consequences resulting from an Excess in Spirituous Liquors. – Terrific Nonsense talked by two Maniacs

One night as Lord Theodore, on his return from the theatre, was passing along a dark alley, he perceived a candle lighting in a small window, on the ground-floor of a deciduous hovel.

An indescribable sensation, an unaccountable something, whispered to him, in still, small accents, 'peep through the pane.' He did so; but what were his emotions, when he beheld – whom? Why the very young lady that he had left for dead in the forest – his Hysterica!!!

She was clearstarching in a dimity bedgown.

He sleeked his eyebrows with his finger, then flung open the sash, and stood before her.

'Ah, ma belle Amie!' cried he. 'So I have caught you at last. I really thought you were dead.'

'I am dead to love and to hope!' said she.

'O ye powers!' cried he, making a blow at his forehead.

'There are many kinds of powers,' said she carelessly: 'perhaps you now mean the powers of impudence, Mr. – I beg pardon – Lord Theodore De Willoughby, I believe.'

'I believe so,' retorted he, 'Mrs. – or rather Lady Hys – Hys – Hys.' —

'Hiss away, my lord!' exclaimed the sensitive girl, and fainted.

Lord Theodore rushed at a bottle that stood on the dresser, and poured half a pint of it into her mouth; but perceiving by the colour that it was not water, he put it to his lips; – it was brandy. In a paroxysm of despair he swallowed the contents; and at the same moment Hysterica woke from her fainting-fit, in a high delirium.

'What have you done to me?' stammered she. 'Oh! I am lost.' 'What!' exclaimed the youth, who had also got a brain-fever; 'after my preserving you in brandy?' 'I am happy to hear it,' lisped she; 'and every thing round me seems to be happy, for every thing round me seems to be dancing!'

Both now began singing, with dreadful facetiousness; he, 'fill the bowl,' and she, 'drink to me only.'

At length they sang themselves asleep.

CHAPTER VI

 
Take him for all in all,
We ne'er shall look upon his like again.
 

– Shakespeare.

Birth, Parentage, and Education of our Hero. – An aspiring Porter. – Eclaircissement

Lord Theodore De Willoughby was the son of Lord De Willoughby, of De Willoughby Castle. After having graduated at Oxford, he took, not alone a tour of the Orkney Islands, but an opportunity of saving our heroine's life. Hence their mutual attachment. About the same time, Count Stiletto had conceived a design against that poor orphan; and dreading Lord Theodore as a rival, waylaid and imprisoned him.

But to return.

Next morning, the lovers woke in full possession of their faculties, when the happiest denouement took place. Hysterica told Theodore that she had extricated herself from the snow, at the risk of her life. In fact, she was obliged to pelt it away in balls, and Theodore now recollected having been hit with one, during his search for her. Fearful of returning to the castle, she walked à Londres; and officiated there in the respective capacities of cook, milliner, own woman, and washerwoman. Her honour too, was untarnished, though a hulking porter had paid her the most delicate attentions, and assured her that Theodore was married to cruel Barbara Allen.

Theodore called down several stars to witness his unalterable love; and, as a farther proof of the fact, offered to marry her the next day.

Her former scruples (the mysterious circumstances of her birth) being now removed, she beamed an inflammatory glance, and consented. He deposited a kiss on her cheek, and a blush was the rosy result. He therefore repeated the application.

CHAPTER VII

Sure such a day as this was never seen! – Thomas Thumb.

The day, th' important day! – Addison.

O giorno felice! – Italian.

Rural Scenery. – The Bridal Costume. – Old Friends. – Little Billy greatly grown. – The Marriage. – A Scene of Mortality. – Conclusion

The morning of the happy day destined to unite our lovers was ushered into the world with a blue sky, and the ringing of bells. Maidens, united in bonds of amity and artificial roses, come dancing to the pipe and tabor; while groups of children and chickens add hilarity to the unison of congenial minds. On the left of the village are seen plantations of tufted turnips; on the right a dilapidated dog-kennel,

With venerable grandeur marks the scene;

while every where the delighted eye catches monstrous mountains and minute daisies. In a word,

All nature wears one universal grin.

The procession now set forward to the church. The bride was habited in white drapery. Ten signs of the Zodiac, worked in spangles, sparkled round its edge, but Virgo was omitted at her own desire; and the bridegroom proposed to dispense with Capricorn. Sweet delicacy! She held a pot of myrtle in her hand, and wore on her head a small lighted torch, emblematical of Hymen. The boys and girls bounded about her, and old Margueritone begged the favour of lighting her pipe at her la'ship's head.

'Aha, I remember you!' said little Billy, pointing his plump and dimpled finger at her. She remarked how tall he was grown, and took him in her arms; while he playfully beat her with an infinitude of small thumps.

The marriage ceremony passed off with great spirit; and the fond bridegroom, as he pressed her to his heart, felt how pure, how delicious are the joys of virtue.

That evening, he gave a fête champetre to the peasantry; and, afterwards, a magnificent supper to his friends.

The company consisted of Lord Lilliput, Sir James Brobdignag, little Billy, Anacharsis Clootz, and Joe Miller.

Nothing, they thought, could add to their happiness; but they were miserably mistaken. A messenger, pale as Priam's, rushed into the room, and proclaimed Lord Theodore a peer of Great Britain, as his father had died the night before.

All present congratulated Lord De Willoughby on this prosperous turn of affairs; while himself and his charming bride exchanged a look that spoke volumes.

Little Billy then pledged him in a goblet of Falernian; but he very properly refused, alleging, that as the dear child was in love with Hysterica, he had probably poisoned the wine, in a fit of jealousy. The whole party were in raptures at this mark of his lordship's discretion.

After supper, little Billy rose, and bowing gracefully to the bride, stabbed himself to the heart.

Our readers may now wish to learn what became of the remaining personages in this narrative.

Count Stiletto is dead; Lord Lilliput is no more; Sir James Brobdignag has departed this life; Anacharsis Clootz is in his grave; and Mr. J. Miller is in another, and we trust, a better world.

Old Margueritone expired with the bible in her hand, and the coroner's inquest brought in a verdict of lunacy.

Having thus conducted our lovers to the summit of human happiness, we shall take leave of our readers with this moral reflection: —

THE FALLING OUT OF LOVERS IS THE RENEWAL OF LOVE

THE END

I must now leave you to prepare my dress for the ball. The ball-room, which occupies an entire wing of the house, is full of artists and workmen; but her ladyship will not permit me to see it till the night of the dance; as, she says, she means to surprise me with its splendour. Cynics may say what they will against expensive decorations; but in my opinion, whatever tends to promote taste in the fine arts (and a mental is in some degree productive of a moral taste); whatever furnishes artizans with employment, and excites their emulation, must improve the condition of society.

Adieu.

LETTER XXXII

The morning of the ball, I awoke without any remains of my late indisposition, except that captivating paleness, that sprinkling of lilies, which adds to interest without detracting from beauty.

I rose with the sun, and taking a small china vase in my hand, tripped into the parterre, to collect the fresh and fragrant dew that glistened on the blossoms. I filled the piece of painted earth with the nectar of the sky, and returned.

During the day, I took nothing but honey, milk, and dried conserves; a repast the most likely to promote that ethereal character which I purposed adopting at night.

Towards evening, I laved my limbs in a tepid bath; and as soon as the sun had waved his last crimson banner in the west, I began my toilette.

So variable is fashion, that I determined not to dress according to its existing laws; since they might be completely exploded in a month; and, at all events, by the time my life is written, they will have become quite antiquated. For instance, do we not already abhor Evelina's and Harriet Byron's powdered, pomatumed, and frizzled hair? It was, therefore, my plan to dress in imitation of classical models, and to copy the immortal toilette of Greece.

Having first divested myself from head to foot of every habiliment, I took a long piece of the finest cambric, and twice wound it gracefully round my shoulders and bosom, and twice enveloped my form in its folds; which, while they delineated the outline of my shape, veiled the tincture of my skin. I then flung over it a drapery of embroidered gauze, and its unimplicated simplicity gave to my perfect figure the spirit of an antique statue. An apparent tissue of woven air, it fell like a vapour round me. A zone of gold and a clasp prettily imprisoned my waist; and my graceful arms, undegraded by gloves, were bare to the shoulder. Part of my hair was confined by a bodkin, and part floated over my neck in native ringlets. As I could not well wear my leg naked, I drew on it a texture of woven silk; and laced a pair of sandals over my little foot; which resembled that of a youthful Thetis, or of a fugitive Atalanta.

I then bathed my face with the dew which I had gathered in the morning, poured on my hair and bosom the balmy waters of the distilled rose, and sprinkled my drapery with fragrant floods of lavender; so that I might be said to move in an ambient atmosphere of odours.

Behold me now, dressed to a charm, to a criticism. Here was no sloping, or goring, or seaming, or frilling, or flouncing. Detestable mechanism of millinery! No tedious papillotes, or unpoetical pins were here. All was done, in a few minutes, with a clasp, a zone, and a bodkin.

As I surveyed my form in the mirror, I was enraptured at its Sylphic delicacy; but I trembled to reflect, that the fairest flowers are the most fragile. You would imagine that a maiden's sigh could dissipate the drapery; and its aerial effect was as if a fairy were to lift the filmy gossamer on her spear, and lightly fling it over a rose-bud.

Resolving not to make myself visible till all the guests had arrived, I sat down and read Ossian, to store my mind with ideas for conversation. I love Ossian, it is so sublime, so bewildered, so full of a blue and white melancholy; of ghosts, and the four elements. I likewise turned over other books; for, as I had never mixed in fashionable society, I could not talk that nothingness, which is every thing in high life. Nor, indeed, if I could, would I; because, as a heroine, it was my part to converse with point, flowers, and sublimation.

About to appear in a world where all was new to me; ignorant of its forms, inexperienced in its rules; fair, young, and original, I resolved on adopting such manners as should not be subject to place, time, accident, or fashion. In short, to copy universal, generalized, unsophisticated nature, and Grecian statues.

As I had studied elegance of attitude before I knew the world, my graces were original, and all my own creation; so that if I had not the temporary mannerisms of a marchioness, I had, at least, the immortal movements of a seraph. Words may become obsolete, but the language of gesture is universal and eternal.

As for smiles, I felt myself perfect mistress of all that were ever ascribed to heroines; – the fatal smile, the smile such as precedes the dissolution of sainted goodness, the fragment of a broken smile, and the sly smile that creates the little dimple on the left side of the little mouth.

At length the most interesting moment of my life arrived; the moment when I was to burst, like a new planet, on the fashionable hemisphere. I descended the stairs, and pausing at the door, tried to tranquillize my fluttered spirits. I then assumed an air-lifted figure, scarcely touching the ground, and glided into the room.

The company were walking in groups, or sitting.

'That is she; – there she is; – look, look!' was whispered on all sides. Every eye fixed itself upon me, while I felt at once elevated and opprest.

Lady Gwyn advanced, took my hand, and paying me the highest compliments on my appearance, led me to a sofa, at the upper end of the room. A semicircle of astonished admirers, head over head, ranged itself in my front, and a smile of glowing approbation illuminated the faces of all. There I sat, in all the bashful diffidence of a simple and inexperienced recluse, trembling for myself, fearing for others, systematically suppressing my feelings, impulsively betraying them; while, with an expression of sweet wildness, and retiring consciousness, was observable a degree of susceptibility too exquisite to admit of lasting peace.

At last a spruce and puny fop stepped from amidst the group, and seated himself beside me.

'This was a fine day, Ma'am,' said he, as he admired the accurate turn of his ankle.

'Yes,' answered I, 'halcyon was the morn, when I strayed into the garden, to gather flowery dew; and it seemed as if the twins of Latona had met to propitiate their rites. Blushes, like their own roses, coloured the vapours; and rays, pure as their thoughts, silvered the foliage.'

The company murmured applause.

'What a pity,' said he, 'that this evening was wet; as in consequence of it, we have probably lost another beautiful description from you.'

'Ah, my good friend,' cried I, wreathing my favourite smile; and laying the rosy tip of my finger on his arm; 'such is the state of man. His morning rises in sunshine, and his evening sets in rain.'

While the company were again expressing their approbation, I overheard one of them whisper to the fop:

'Come, play the girl off, and let her have your best nonsense.'

The fop winked at him, and then turned to me; while I sat shocked and astonished, but collecting all my powers.

'See,' said he, 'how you have fascinated every eye. Actually you are the queen-bee; with all your swarm about you.'

'And with my drone too,' said I, bowing slightly.

'Happy in being a drone,' said he, 'so he but sips of your honey.'

'Rather say,' cried I, 'that he deserves my sting.'

'Ah,' said he, laying his hand on his heart; 'your eyes have fixed a sting here.'

'Then your tongue,' returned I, 'is rather more innocent; for though it may have the venom of a sting, it wants the point.'

The company laughed, and he coloured.

'Do I tease you?' said he, trying to rally. 'How cruel! Actually I am so abashed, as you may see, that my modesty flies into my face.'

'Then,' said I, 'your modesty must be very hard run for a refuge.'

Here the room echoed with acclamations.

'I am not at a loss for an answer,' said he, looking round him, and forcing a smile. 'I am not indeed.'

'Then pray let me have it,' said I, 'for folly never becomes truly ludicrous till it tries to be pert.'

'Bravo! Bravo!' cried an hundred voices at once, and away the little drone flew from my hive. I tossed back my ringlets with an infantine shake of the head, and sat as if unconscious of my triumph.

The best of it is, that every word he said will one day appear in print. Men who converse with a heroine ought to talk for the press, or they will make but a silly figure in her memoirs.

'I thank you for your spirit, my dear,' said Lady Gwyn, sitting down beside me. 'That little puppy deserves every severity. Think of his always sitting in his dressing-gown, a full hour after he has shaved, that the blood may subside from his face. He protests his surprise how men can find pleasure in running after a nasty fox; cuts out half his own coat at his tailor's; has a smile, and a "pretty!" for every one and every thing; sits silent till one of his four only topics is introduced, and then lisping a descant on the last opera, the last boxing-match, the last race, or the last play, he drains his last idea, and has nothing at your service, for the remainder of the night, but an assenting bow. Such insects should never come out but at butterfly-season; and even then, only in a four-wheeled bandbox, while monkeys strew the way with mignionette. No, I can never forgive him for having gone to Lady Bontein's last rout in preference to mine; though he knew that she gave her's on the same evening purposely to thin my party.'

'And pray,' said I, 'who is Lady Bontein?'

'That tall personage yonder, with sorrel hair,' answered her ladyship; 'and with one shoulder of the gothic order, and the other of the corinthian. She has now been forty years endeavouring to look handsome, and she still thinks, that by diligent perseverance she will succeed at last. See how she freshens her smiles, and labours to look at ease; though she has all the awkwardness of a milkmaid, without any of the simplicity. You must know she has pored over Latin, till her mind has become as dead as the language itself. Then she writes well-bred sonnets about a tear, or a primrose, or a daisy; but nothing larger than a lark; and talks botany with the men, as she thinks that science is a sufficient excuse for indecency. Nay, the meek creature affects the bible too; but it is whispered, that she has often thrown it at her footman's head, without any affectation at all. But the magnificence of to-night will put all competition out of her power; and I have also planned a little Scena, classical, appropriate, and almost unique; not alone in order to complete my triumph over her, but to grace your entrance into life, by conferring a peculiar mark of distinction on you.'

'On me!' cried I. 'What mark? I deserve no mark, I am sure.'

'Indeed you do,' said she. 'All the world knows that you are the first heroine in it; and the fact is, I mean to celebrate your merits to-night, by crowning you, just as Corinne was crowned in the capitol.'

'Dear Lady Gwyn,' cried I, panting with joy; 'sure you are not – Ah, are you serious?'

'Most serious, my love,' answered she, 'and in a short time the ceremony will commence. You may perceive that the young men and girls have left the room. It is to prepare for the procession; and now excuse me, as I must assist them.'

She then hurried out, and I remained half an hour, in an agony of anxious expectation.

At last, I heard a confused murmur at the door, and a gentleman ran forward from it, to clear a passage. A lane was soon formed of the guests; and fancy my feelings, when I beheld the promised procession entering!

First appeared several little children, who came tripping towards me; some with baskets of flowers, and others with vases of odorous waters, or censers of fragrant fire. After them advanced a tall youth of noble port, conspicuous in a scarlet robe, that trailed behind him with graceful dignity. On his head was a plat of palm, in his left hand he held a long wand, and in his right the destined wreath of laurel and myrtle. Behind him came maidens, two by two, and hand in hand. They had each a drapery of white muslin flung negligently round them, and knotted just under the shoulder; while their luxuriant hair floated over their bosoms. The youths came next, habited in flowing vestments of white linen.

The leader approached, and making profound obeisance, took my hand. I rose, bowed, and we proceeded with a slow step out of the room; while the children ran before us, tossing their little censers, scattering pansies, and sprinkling liquid sweets. The nymphs and youths followed in couples, and the company closed the procession. We crossed the hall, ascended the winding staircase, and passed along the corridor, till we reached the ball-room. The folding doors then flew open, as if with wings; and a scene presented itself, which almost baffles description.

It was a spacious apartment, oval in its form, and walled all round with a luxuriant texture of interwoven foliage, kept compact by green lattice-work. Branches of the broad chesnut and arbutus were relieved with lauristinas, acacias, and mountain-ash; while here and there, within the branches, appeared clusters of lamps, that mingled their coloured rays, and poured a flood of lustre on the leaves. The floor was chalked into circular compartments, and each depicted some gentle scene of romance. There I saw Mortimer and his Amanda, Delville and his Cecilia, Valencourt and his Emily. The ceiling was of moss, illuminated with large circles of lamps; and from the centre of each circle, a basket was seen peeping, and half inverted, as if about to shower its ripe fruits and chaplets upon our heads.

At the upper end of the room I beheld a large arbour, elevated on a gradual slope of turf. Its outside was intertwined with jessamines, honeysuckles, and eglantines, tufted with clumps of sunflowers, lilies, hollyhocks, and a thousand other blossoms, and hung with clusters of grapes, and trails of intricate ivy; while all its interior was so studded with innumerable lamps, that it formed a resplendent arch of variegated fire. The seat was a grassy bank, strewn with a profusion of aromatic herbs; and the footstool was a heap of roses. Just from under this footstool, and through the turf, came gushing a little rill, that first tumbled its warbling waters down some rugged stones, and then separating itself to the right and left, ran along a pebbled channel, bordered with flowery banks, till it was lost, at either side, amidst overshadowing branches.

The moment I set foot in the room, a stream of invisible music, as if from above, and softened by distance, came swelling on my enraptured ear. Thrice we circled this enchanted chamber, and trod to the solemn measure. I was amazed, entranced; I felt elevated to the empyrean. I moved with the grandeur of a goddess, and the grace of a vision.

At length my conductor led me across the little rill, into the bower. I sat down, and he stood beside me. The children lay in groups on the grass, while the youths and virgins ranged themselves along the opposite side of the streamlet, and the rest of the company stood behind them.

The master of this august ceremony now waved his wand: the music ceased, all was silent, and he thus began.

'My countrymen and countrywomen.

'Behold your Cherubina; behold the most celebrated woman in our island. Need I recount to you all her accomplishments? Her impassioned sensibility, her exquisite art in depicting the delicate and affecting relations between the beauties of nature, and the deep emotions of the soul? Need I dwell on those elegant adventures, those sorrows, and those horrors, which she has experienced; I might almost say, sought? Oh! no. The whole globe already resounds with them, and their fame will descend to the most remote posterity.

'Need I portray her eloquence, the purity of her style, and the smoothness of her periods? Are not her ancestors illustrious? Are not her manners fascinating? Alas! to this question, some of our hearts beat audible response. Her's is the head of a Sappho, deficient alone in the voluptuous languor, which should characterize the countenance of that enamoured Lesbian.

'To crown her, therefore, as the patroness of arts, the paragon of charms, and the first of heroines, is to gratify our feelings, more than her own; by enabling us to pay a just homage to beauty and to virtue.'

He ceased amidst thunders of applause. I rose; – and in an instant, it was the stillness of death. Then with a timorous, yet ardent air, I thus addressed the assembly.

'My countrymen, my countrywomen!

'I will not thank you, for I cannot. In giving me cause to be grateful, you have taken from me the means of expressing my gratitude, for you have overpowered me.

'How I happen to deserve the beautiful eulogium just pronounced, I am sure I cannot conceive. Till this flattering moment, I never knew that the grove resounds with my praises, that my style is pure, and my head a Sappho's. But unconsciousness of merit is the characteristic of a heroine.

'The gratitude, however, which my words cannot express, my deeds shall evince; and I now pledge myself, that neither rank nor riches (which, from my pursuits, I am peculiarly liable to) shall ever make me unmindful of what I owe to adversity. For, from her, I have acquired all my knowledge of the world, my sympathy, my pensiveness, and my sensibility. Yes, since adversity thus adds to virtue, it must be a virtue to seek adversity.

'England, my friends, is now the depository of all that remains of virtue; – the ark that floats upon the waters of the deluge. But what preserves her virtuous? Her women. And whence arises their purity? From education.

'To you, then, my fair auditory, I would enjoin a diligent cultivation of learning. But oh! beware what books you peruse; for, trust me, some are as injurious as others are salutary. I cannot point out to you the mischievous class, because I have never read them; but indubitably, the most useful are novels and romances. Such as I am, these, these alone have made me. These, by depicting heroines sublimated almost to immateriality, teach the common class of womankind to reach what is uncommon, by striving at what is unattainable; to despise the grovelling follies and idlenesses of the mere worker of samplers, and to contract a taste for that sensibility, whose tear is the dissolution of pearls, whose blush is the sunbeam of the cheek, and whose sigh is more costly than the breeze, that comes laden with oriental frankincense.'

I spoke, and peals of acclamation shook the bower.

The priest of the ceremony now raises the crown on high, then lowers it by slow degrees, and holds it suspended over my head. Letting down my tresses, and folding my hands on my bosom, I throw myself upon my knees, and incline forward to receive it.

I am crowned.

At the same moment, drums, and trumpets, and shouts, burst upon my ear, in a hurricane of triumph. The youths and maidens make obeisance; I rise, press my hand to my heart, and bow deeply. Tears start into my eyes. I feel far above mortality.

Hardly had the tumult subsided when a harp was brought to the bower; and they requested that I would sing and play an improvisatore, like Corinne. What was I to do? for I knew nothing of the harp, but a few chords! In this difficulty, I luckily recollected a heroine, who was educated only by an old steward, and his old wife, in an old castle, with an old lute; and who, notwithstanding, as soon as she stepped into society, played and sang, like angels, by intuition.

I therefore felt quite reassured, and sat to the harp. I struck a few low Lydian notes, and cast a timid glance around me. At first my voice was scarcely louder than a sigh; and my accompaniment was a harmonic chord, swept at intervals. The words came from the moment.

'Where is my blue-eyed chief? said the white-bosomed daughter of Erin, as the wave kissed her foot; and wherefore went he from his weeping maid, to the fight of heroes? She saw a dim form rise before her, like a mist from the valley. Pale grew her cheek, as the blighted leaf in autumn. Your lover, it shrilly shrieked, sleeps among the dead, like a broken thistle amidst dandelions; but his spirit, like the thistly down, has ascended into the skies. The maiden heard; she ran, she flew, she sprang from a rock. The waves closed over her. Peace to the daughter of Erin!'

As I sang 'she ran, she flew,' the workings and tremblings of the minstrel were in unison; while my winged fingers fluttered along the chords, light as a swallow over a little lake, when he touches it with the utmost feather of his pinion. But while I sang, 'peace to the daughter of Erin!' my voice, as it died over the faint vibration of the strings, had all the heart-breaking softness of an Eolian lyre; so woeful was it, so wistful, so wildered. 'Viva! viva!' resounded through the room. At the last cadence, I dropped one arm gently down, and hanging the other on the harp, leaned my languishing head upon it, while my moistened eyes were half closed.

A sudden disturbance at the door roused me from my trance. I looked up, and beheld – what? – Can you imagine what? No, my friend, you could not to the day of judgment. I saw, in short, my great mother come striding towards me, with outspread arms, and calling, 'my daughter, my daughter!' in a voice that might waken the dead.

My heart died within me: down I darted from the bower, and ran for shelter behind Lady Gwyn.

'Give me back my daughter!' vociferated the dreadful woman, advancing close to her ladyship.

'Oh! do no such thing!' whispered I, pulling her ladyship by the sleeve. 'Take half – all my property; but do not be the death of me!'

'What are you muttering there, Miss?' cried my mother, espying me. 'What makes you stand peeping over that wretch's shoulder?'

'Indeed, Ma'am,' stammered I, 'I am – I am taking your part.'

'Who could have presumed to liberate this woman?' cried Lady Gwyn.

'The Condottieri,' said my mother, 'headed by the great Damno Sulphureo Volcanoni.'

'Then you must return to your prison, this moment,' cried Lady Gwyn.

My mother fell on her knees, and began blubbering; while the guests got round, and interceded for her being restored to liberty. I too thought it my duty to say something (my mother all the time sobbing horribly); till, at length, Lady Gwyn consented – for my sake, she said, – to set the poor wretch free; but on this special condition, that there should be no prosecution for false imprisonment.

All matters being amicably adjusted, my mother begged a morsel of meat, as she had not eaten any these ten years. In a few minutes, a small table, furnished with a cold turkey and a decanter of wine, was laid for her in the bower. The moment she perceived it, she ran, and seating herself in the scene of my recent triumph, began devouring with such avidity, that I was thunderstruck. One wing soon went; the second shared the fate of its companion, and now she set about a large slice of the breast.