“The fool!” thought the noble George, laughing in his sleeve, “as if I should ever furnish the house from his box!” Strange that some men should be proud of being mean! The moment Isabel escaped to dress for dinner, she opened her lover’s note. It was as follows.—
Be in the room, your retreat, at nine this evening. Let the window be left unclosed. Precisely at that hour I will be with you. I shall have everything in readiness for your flight. Be sure, dearest Isabel, that nothing prevents your meeting me there, even if all your house follow or attend you. I will bear you from all. Oh, Isabel! in spite of the mystery and wretchedness of your letter, I feel too happy, too blest at the thought that our fates will be at length united, and that the union is at hand. Remember nine. A. M.
Love is a feeling which has so little to do with the world, a passion so little regulated by the known laws of our more steady and settled emotions, that the thoughts which it produces are always more or less connected with exaggeration and romance. To the secret spirit of enterprise which, however chilled by his pursuits and habits, still burned within Mordaunt’s breast, there was a wild pleasure in the thought of bearing off his mistress and his bride from the very home and hold of her false friends and real foes; while in the contradictions of the same passion, Isabel, so far from exulting at her approaching escape, trembled at her danger and blushed for her temerity; and the fear and the modesty of woman almost triumphed over her brief energy and fluctuating resolve.
CHAPTER XXVII.
We haste,-the chosen and the lovely bringing;
Love still goes with her from her place of birth;
Deep, silent joy, within her soul is springing,
Though in her glance the light no more is mirth.—Mrs. HEMANS.
“Damn it!” said the General.
“The vile creature!” cried Miss Diana.
“I don’t understand things of that sort,” ejaculated the bewildered Mr. Glumford.
“She has certainly gone,” said the valiant General.