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There was a time early in the century when the voice of Rosamunda Pisaroni was believed to be the most perfect and delightful, not only of all contraltos of the age, but to have reached the absolute ideal of what this voice should be.
I knew it well enough; but I wished to lead this little talker on, and so I said I did not. "Unhappy, young lady! Why should she be unhappy?" I asked it naturally, as though I was very surprised; but you could not deceive Mlle. Rosamunda. A more artful little witch never played at fairies in a wood. "If she is not unhappy, why have you come here, Monsieur Captain? You come to help her oh, I know!
Once, it is true, the young girl who called herself "Rosamunda" came and sat by my side and wished to talk to me; but, prettily as she spoke our tongue, her measure of it was limited, and we did not get very far, in spite of good intentions. "Do you like the island, do you like living here?" I asked her. She answered me with a doubting shake of her pretty head.
But when Jupiter gives the nod, you know, even Juno, stately as she is, must bend. So I have my Rosamunda for my little Julia who, by-the-bye, is no longer my little Julia, but a prodigious fine woman, as you shall see. But, all this time, is your fellow putting your things up? No! Hey? how?
"Don't you know her? Did you never see her before? No! you've been out of England; but you've heard of her, certainly? Rosamunda," whispered Lord Glistonbury to Vivian. "And who is Rosamunda?" said Vivian; "an actress." "Actress! Hush! Bless you! no but the famous poetess. Is it possible that you hav'n't read the poems of Rosamunda?
"I thought you were with mother, so I took forty winks after I got those girls off. Now, I'm at your service, Rosamunda, whenever you like." "You look as if your head ached. If it does, don't mind me. I'm not afraid to run home alone, it's so early," answered Rose, observing the flushed cheeks and heavy eyes of her cousin. "I think I see myself letting you do it.
I should not be afraid of them if I were you, captain." "I never was," said I, bluntly; "I never was, doctor. There's not enough on my conscience for that. But I do believe you speak truly. Making love is more in their line this watch. Ask Dolly Venn there. From what I saw between him and little Rosamunda down below, lie's an authority on that point.
Little Dolly Venn muttered in his sleep a name I thought I had heard before, and, truth to tell, it was something like "Rosamunda." The doctor himself was as busy as a housemaid. "Yes," he continued, presently, "we should be pretty well through with the sleep-time, and after that, waking. Does anything occur to you?" I sat up in the chair and looked at him closely.
Still through all this, regardless and unknowing of it all, the Rosamunda talked on, happily abstracted, egotistically secured from the pains of sympathy or of curiosity by the all-sufficient power of vanity. Even her patron, Lord Glistonbury, was at last provoked and disgusted.
When he entered the room, the first thing he heard, as usual, was Miss Bateman's voice, who was declaiming upon some sentimental point, in all "the high sublime of deep absurd." Vivian, little interested in this display, and joining neither in the open flattery nor in the secret ridicule with which the gentlemen wits and amateurs listened to the Rosamunda, looked round for Lady Julia.
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