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On such occasions I have sometimes been startled by a subtle, fiendish suggestion inciting me to show him the contrary by a seeming encouragement of Hargrave’s advances; but such ideas are banished in a moment with horror and self-abasement; and then I hate him tenfold more than ever for having brought me to this!—God pardon me for it and all my sinful thoughts!

Walter did not answer, but walked to the window to collect his faculties. Arthur uttered a low whistle, and followed him with his eyes. A slight flush of anger rose to Hargrave’s cheek; but in a moment he turned calmly round, and said carelessly: ‘I came here to bid farewell to Mrs. Huntingdon, and tell her I must go to-morrow.’ ‘Humph! You’re mighty sudden in your resolution.

On the following morning I received a few lines from him myself, confirming Hargrave’s intimations respecting his approaching return. And he did come next week, but in a condition of body and mind even worse than before. I did not, however, intend to pass over his derelictions this time without a remark; I found it would not do.

‘I’m not going to show them to you, love,’ said he. ‘They’re hardly fit for a lady’s eyesthe most part of them. But look here. This is Grimsby’s scrawlonly three lines, the sulky dog! He doesn’t say much, to be sure, but his very silence implies more than all the others’ words, and the less he says, the more he thinksand this is Hargrave’s missive.

Hargrave’s anxiety to make good matches for her daughters is partly the cause, and partly the result, of these errors: by making a figure in the world, and showing them off to advantage, she hopes to obtain better chances for them; and by thus living beyond her legitimate means, and lavishing so much on their brother, she renders them portionless, and makes them burdens on her hands.

Hargrave’s being in the neighbourhood, is that the fear of meeting him at the Grove prevents me from seeing his sister so often as I otherwise should; for, of late, he has conducted himself towards me with such unerring propriety, that I have almost forgotten his former conduct. I suppose he is striving to ‘win my esteem.’ If he continue to act in this way, he may win it; but what then?

And, regardless of Miss Hargrave’s protestations that they were not worth looking at, he drew a chair to my side, and receiving the drawings, one by one from my hand, successively scanned them over, and threw them on the table, but said not a word about them, though he was talking all the time. I don’t know what Milicent Hargrave thought of such conduct, but I found his conversation extremely interesting; though, as I afterwards discovered, when I came to analyse it, it was chiefly confined to quizzing the different members of the company present; and albeit he made some clever remarks, and some excessively droll ones, I do not think the whole would appear anything very particular, if written here, without the adventitious aids of look, and tone, and gesture, and that ineffable but indefinite charm, which cast a halo over all he did and said, and which would have made it a delight to look in his face, and hear the music of his voice, if he had been talking positive nonsenseand which, moreover, made me feel so bitter against my aunt when she put a stop to this enjoyment, by coming composedly forward, under pretence of wishing to see the drawings, that she cared and knew nothing about, and while making believe to examine them, addressing herself to Mr. Huntingdon, with one of her coldest and most repellent aspects, and beginning a series of the most common-place and formidably formal questions and observations, on purpose to wrest his attention from meon purpose to vex me, as I thought: and having now looked through the portfolio, I left them to their tête-

Hargrave’s much-neglected home. His mother frequently asks us over, that she may have the pleasure of her dear Walter’s company; and this time she had invited us to a dinner-party, and got together as many of the country gentry as were within reach to meet us. The entertainment was very well got up; but I could not help thinking about the cost of it all the time. I don’t like Mrs.

But while I was assuring her that I had no wish to join them, and was not tired, Mr. Huntingdon himself came up to the little round table at which we sat. ‘Are these yours?’ said he, carelessly taking up one of the drawings. ‘No, they are Miss Hargrave’s.’ ‘Oh! well, let’s have a look at them.’