Marguerite Gardiner
Published: 2013-09
Total Pages: 56
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1838 edition. Excerpt: ... breast, a treasured miniature carefully concealed from prying eyes. "Yes," replied he, " I have an admirable resemblance of her, which you shall see, and which has never left my breast since I lost her, until you, fair and dear Arabella, listened to my suit." I involuntarily placed my hand within his, at this acknowledgement; for I felt grateful for the delicacy of the renunciation of the portrait. Nay, in consideration of it I almost forgave the warmth of his praises of her; foiv slight as the circumstance was, it made a great impression on me. The next day, he brought the miniature, and though I had been prepared to expect beauty of no ordinary kind, I confess that the extreme loveliness of the portrait surprised--ay, and shall I own the truth ?--displeased me. If I had previously indulged a jealousy of the fair Lucinda, what were my jealous pangs now, that I beheld the radiant beauty of her face. The artist had caught the almost seraphic expression of her countenance, that fine and elevated expression, where the purity of the angel seems to have already descended on the suffering saint. It wanted only a halo round the head, to be one of the best personifications of a martyred saint ascending to heaven; and I, even /, could not repress the tear that fell on the crystal that covered it, though the source whence it sprang was not free from alloy. This apparen. sympathy, while it rendered me dearer to Lord Clydesdale, lured him into a still more frequent recurrence to the object of his first love. He judged more favourably of me than I deserved, in imputing to me a freedom from that envy, and jealousy, from which so few of my sex are exempt; and I had not courage to risk the forfeiture of this good opinion, by acknowledging how little it...