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She was the Countess's almoner: every day she did good, lessening pain, whispering balm to the anguish-stricken, speaking as with authority to troubled souls. Back from the hovel to stately houses she went, and lo! the maid of honor, exquisite, perfect as a flower. Men wooed, but might not win her. They came and went, but to her it was no matter.
He was becoming very sweet upon the Grafinn Fanny de Butterbrod, a very gentle tender-hearted and unassuming young creature, a Canoness and Countess in her own right, but with scarcely ten pounds per year to her fortune, and Fanny for her part declared that to be Amelia's sister was the greatest delight that Heaven could bestow on her, and Jos might have put a Countess's shield and coronet by the side of his own arms on his carriage and forks; when when events occurred, and those grand fetes given upon the marriage of the Hereditary Prince of Pumpernickel with the lovely Princess Amelia of Humbourg-Schlippenschloppen took place.
And a fourth observed: "I'll wager he's another suitor for Amrei." Barefoot started. What did this mean? What was that she said? But she soon found out the meaning of it, for the first old lady resumed: "Then I'm sorry for him; for the Butter Countess makes fools of all the men." And so the Butter Countess's name was also Amrei.
"Once thus disguised, the count hastens to carry out the rest of his plan, to arrange everything to throw the law off the scent, and to make it appear that he, as well as his wife, has been murdered. He hunts up Guespin's vest, tears it out at the pocket, and puts a piece of it in the countess's hand. Then taking the body in his arms, crosswise, he goes downstairs.
The opportunity was made use of to remove the count from this harrowing spectacle, and everyone followed the countess dowager. Even the countess's own maids were not allowed to remain, being sent on errands which kept them out of the way. This further reason was given, that the eldest being scarcely fifteen, they were too young to be present on such an occasion.
Her father, who had been at work in his garden, now came in to learn the young Countess's errand, and to him Amelia told the story. Shocked beyond measure at the charge, the old man was so overcome that he was obliged to sink into a chair. "My dear child," he said to Mary solemnly, "to steal a ring of this price is a crime which in this country is punished with death. But this is not all.
"Selina," said her ladyship, as soon as her daughter was seated on the sofa opposite to her mother's easy chair, while Griffiths, having shut the door, had, according to custom, sat herself down on her own soft-bottomed chair, on the further side of the little table that always stood at the countess's right hand. "Selina, what do you think your father tells me?"
'May I presume to ask what recompense? Rose shook her head. 'Such a very poor one, Countess! He has no idea of relative value. The Countess's great mind was just then running hot on estates, and thousands, or she would not have played goose to them, you may be sure. She believed that Evan had been wheedled by Rose into the acceptance of a small sum of money, in return for his egregious gift.
It miscarried, as the reader is aware, from the Countess's alert preparations for defence; and neither Christian nor Bridgenorth held it sound policy to practise openly, even under parliamentary authority, against a lady so little liable to hesitate upon the measures most likely to secure her feudal sovereignty; wisely considering that even the omnipotence, as it has been somewhat too largely styled, of Parliament, might fail to relieve them from the personal consequences of a failure.
The major then snatched up the countess's diamonds, held them in one hand, drew his sabre with the other, and began to strike with the flat of its blade such of the sleepers as he thought the most intrepid. He succeeded in awaking the colossal grenadier, and two other men whose rank it was impossible to tell. "We are done for!" he said. "I know it," said the grenadier, "but I don't care."
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