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THE PORTRAIT. 183
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Chapter Iii. A Few Days After The Imluck...
"I am sorry to hear you are so foolish . I wish , we were away from this city of temptation , " said Sarah .., with , a very angry
expression of face as she left me . The expected Thursday evening * came ; and at ten o ' clock I found
myself at the British Embassy . The illuminated city , to which I compared a love dream , was now exchanged for an enchanted
palace , in which I seemed to wander spell bound . Its splendor bewildered my outward senses , while other magic sights and
sounds confused my brain . Light floated round me in rainbow hues ; music and fragrant odours mingled with the air ; men and
women in rich attirelike the princes and princesses of fairy tales , passed and repassed , before my wondering eyes . I was in
dreamirresistible land , led . on b I y saw a mi , and ghty yet mag I saw ician not , whose ; the power real seemed was unseen changing yet
into the ideal . I was like the enchanted lady of the castle , who knew not the delusion until another magician of yet greater power
came and dissolved the charm and made the whole vanish . I almost doubted my own identity as I mingled with the glittering
crowd . I was no longer simple Emily Lindores , but an altogether different person , and those around me seemed changed too .
Mrs . Bethune looked unlike the Mrs . Bethune of yesterday . A soffc tinge of inksoft as the lining of the pearly shellwas on her cheek ,
her eyes p sparkle , d , her jet hair shone lustrous , with its circlet of diamondsand over her whole person was shed an air of graceful
refinement , denoting the woman of taste and of delicate nurture . The heir of , Riverton was a degree less ugly and presuming , as he
encountered many whose pretensions so far exceeded his that he must have felt less _conseqLiential in that distinguished assemblage
of French and English by whom our Ambassador was encircled . AnyhowI scarcelonce looked at Master Edwardalthough Sarah
, y , had begged that I would keep an eye upon him . Truly , I was otherwise occupied in ' my enchanted palace than to think or look
at Mr . Edward Mansfield . I turned hini over to Mr . Cleveland's understanding pretty cWsin , in and the keep hope beside they would each arrive other at the a whole decidedl evening y good -.
I had a horror of being tormented by that intolerable fox _37 and did best to get rid of him . _Fortimately I succeeded by help
of the my young lady and her mother . I whispered in the ear of the latter that he was immensely rich;—so she at once kindly took
him Cleveland off my hands alone . looked the samefor he had been long since
idealized by my imagination . In him , I observed no change , unless it were that his eye had a dreamier expression in it , as if for him
there appeared some hidden object on which he gazed , an objectinvisible to all save himselfwhile the moving figures near him were
, as _shadows . Was he also under the magician's spell ? The niht wore onFatigued with her exertionsMrs . Bethune .
had seated g herself near . and was in conversation with , Lady C ,
The Portrait. 183
THE PORTRAIT . 183
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), May 1, 1861, page 183, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01051861/page/39/
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