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Aurora's triumphant joy as she entered the ball-room as a beauty, was much greater certainly than her pleasure at her Mamma's dinner party. But the weariness and anxiety afterwards were increased also. She was still getting away from our friend Time present, and forecasting into some future delight. "The good time coming, Boys," was her, as well as many other people's bugbear.
On the day but one following that of the impressment of the Aurora's men, a gun was fired at sunrise by the commodore, blue-peter was hoisted at the fore-royal-mastheads, and the fore-topsails were loosed on board the ships of the convoying squadron, and the still morning air immediately began to resound with the songs of seamen and the clanking of windlass-pawls, as the fleet of merchantmen constituting the convoy began to get under weigh.
In youthful form he came, in lovelier guise Than they who from Aurora's lap arise; Fairer than Hesper, breathing incense dim, In floods of ether steeped appeared each limb; He moved with graceful and majestic motion, Like silvery billows heaving o'er the ocean, Or as Hyperion, whose bright shoulders ever His bow and arrow bear, and clanging quiver; His robe of light behind him gracefully Danced in the breeze, his voice breathed melody, Like crystal streams with silvery murmur falling, More ravishing than Orpheus' strains enthralling.
And so skilfully did she play her part, appealing to Aurora's pity, and assuring Augustus of her sister's love in spite of her seeming coldness, that before many weeks had passed Aurora had yielded and was listening with no unwilling ear to the vows of her exalted lover, now transported to the seventh heaven of happiness.
Aurora's face beamed, so much was she rejoicing in her own excellent sense, which had told her that one look at each other would do a thousand times more to make things right between them than innumerable letters could have done. "I didn't know what to think," she said, "so I came to find out.
"It is plain," she had begun to say to herself, unable to comprehend Aurora's peculiar trust in Providence, "that if the money is to be got I must get it." A possibility had flashed upon her mind; she had nurtured it into a project, had submitted it to her father-confessor in the cathedral, and received his unqualified approval of it, and was ready this morning to put it into execution.
They were now both hungry, but in want of some present friend acquainted with the motions of mental distress who could guess this fact and press them to eat. By their eyes it was plain they had been weeping much; by the subdued tone, too, of their short and infrequent speeches. Alphonsina, having made the fire, went out with a bundle. It was Aurora's last good dress.
Octavius darted forward, but stopped short when he heard Aurora's voice low, dull, as if a sickening horror had quenched forever its life: "You have thought that all these years? O God! Louis Louis, what more " She fell before Octavius could reach her. Aileen and Ann, hearing the bell, came running through the hall into the room.
The sight of millions of tons of fresh ice is most tantalizing. It would be a week's journey to the berg and back over pack and pressure, and probably we could bring enough ice to last two days." The record of the early months of the 'Aurora's' long drift in the Ross Sea is not eventful. The galley condenser was rigged, but the supply of fresh water remained a problem.
They tell me I am well. The cough has ceased and the pain. But deep below, it beats. Aurora's eyes are veiled. Only when I play will they glow. They fill the world with light. I sit and play softly her pen moves fast. She can write with music music over her around Chopin's music, whispered low but clear as love. They said once George Sand was clever. It is Chopin's touch that makes her great.
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