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Updated: May 9, 2025
Everyone present, however, on the night of the last dinner-party she gave to her London guests, was bound to admit that a sweeter, fairer creature than its present mistress never trod the old oaken floors of Abbot's Manor; and that even the radiant pictured beauty of 'Mary Elia Adelgisa de Vaignecourt, to whom no doubt many a time the Merry Monarch had doffed his plumed hat in salutation, paled and grew dim before the living rose of Maryllia's dainty loveliness and the magnetic tenderness of Maryllia's eyes.
And if Miss Vancourt should chance to resemble in the least her ancestress, Mary Elia Adelgisa de Vaignecourt, they were wholly unsuitable. A creditor might write 'Dear Madam' to a customer in application for an outstanding bill, but to Mary Elia Adelgisa one would surely begin, Ah! now how would one begin? He paused, biting the end of his penholder.
She left the room and descended the stairs, followed by the faithful Plato, and was soon to be seen by various retainers of the curious and excited household, walking slowly up and down on the grass terrace in her flowing white draperies, the afterglow of the sinking sun shining on her gold-brown hair, and touching up little reddish ripples in it, such ripples as were painted by the artist of Charles the Second's day when he brushed into colour and canvas the portrait of Mary Elia Adelgisa de Vaignecourt.
Habited in a riding dress of velvet the colour of a purple pansy, Mary Elia Adelgisa held her skirt, white gauntleted gloves, and riding whip daintily in one hand, her hat, a three-cornered piece of coquetry, lay ready for wear, on a garden-seat hard by, a blush rosebud was fastened carelessly in her close-fitting bodice, which was turned back with embroidered gold revers, and over her head, great forest trees, heavy with foliage, met in an arch of green.
The portrait of Mary Elia Adelgisa made her more seriously discontented with herself than ever, and after closely studying the picturesque make of the violet velvet riding-dress which the fair one of Charles the Second's day had worn, and deciding that she would have one 'created' for her own adornment exactly like it, she turned towards the other end of the gallery.
But if you remember the pictures in the gallery at the Manor, sir, you may call to mind one of the ancestresses of the Vancourts, painted in a vi'let velvet; ridin' dress and holdin' a huntin' crop, and the name underneath is 'Mary Ella Adelgisa de Vaignecourt' and it was after her that the old Squire called his daughter Maryllia, rollin' the two fust names, Mary Elia, into one, as it were, just to make a name what none of his forebears had ever had.
Facing this, at the opposite end, hung another picture, disclosed in all its warm and brilliant colouring to the light of day, the picture of Mary Elia Adelgisa de Vaignecourt, who, in the time of Charles the Second had been a noted beauty of the 'merry monarch's' reign, and whose counterfeit presentment Mrs.
Softly she trod the polished floor, with keen quick instinct and appreciative eyes, she noted the fine Vandyke portraits, the exquisite Greuze that shone out, star-like, from a dark corner of the panelled walls, and walking with measured pace she went straight up to the picture of 'Mary Elia Adelgisa de Vaignecourt' and gazed at it with friendly and familiar eyes.
He had passed long hours of delightful research in the old library, and many afternoons of meditation in the picture gallery, where the portrait of the lady in the 'vi'let velvet, Mary Elia Adelgisa de Vaignecourt, had often caught his eye and charmed his fancy when the setting sun had illumined its rich colouring and had given life to the face, half-petulant, half-sweet, which pouted forth from the old canvas like a rose with light on its petals.
Walden rubbed his eyes, and gazed and gazed,-anon his heart gave a wild leap, and he felt himself growing deadly pale. Had the portrait of 'Mary Elia Adelgisa de Vaignecourt' in Abbot's Manor come visibly to life? or was it, could it be indeed, Maryllia?
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