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THE MISDEEDS OF AURA P!LAI$TOW. 185
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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Transcript
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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.
I. She Was But Nineteen; And Nineteen Do...
and vague doubts of the young lady's sanity or moral propriety . Her book-shelves at home held very pretty illustrated books ; some
with her father ' s pictures engraved in them , and some old cherished fairy tales ; the fresh air blew freely through that little nest all day ,
and all night too ; here the window had not been opened for a week at the very least , and the closeness of the atmosphere was
actually oppressive . The paper on the walls here was a heavy " nock , " expensive and very ugly ; at home it was a cheap " lining
paper very / ' of a quiet cool grey , but hung with pictures and sketches that would have graced the boudoir of a princess . The great wealth
and representative of property at Merridno lay in its pictures . Her dressing lass here was large and handsomebut clumsy ; at home it
was a small g square of thin distortion , very black , , with the quicksilver worn off in large patches , and mottled and separated all over , set
into a frame that had to be kept steady by bits of paper and old not gloves shut , with but one the drawer large that jug of would flowers not b op efore en , and it conceale one that d half would its
defectsand ; transformed to beauties the other half . Butindeed Aura cared , little about that articular article of her toilet , table ; ,
for she rarely dressed herself p by its help , and never looked into it for curiosity or vanity . Had she done so oftener she would not
have been so uniformly seen with her curly bands of hair fastened lower on the one side than the other , nor with the " parting _"
up so near to her leffc eyebrow , and so far from the centre of her forehead . And as these were made almost into crimes against her here ,
though at Merridno they had been additional beauties , it would have been well if she could have saved herself from the censure
that befell her on this point . But she looked as little into this large handsome mirror as she had done into her own shabby
makeshift ; and went about the I-Iollies with her hair on one side , and her sweet face unevenly _framedjixst as she had done at Merridno ,
, where such things were never noticed . At home her little room washer studwhen she wanted to studywhich was not often , and
nothing deeper y , than the name of a wild , flower , or the line of a scroll ; but here all was so closeprim , plain , and stifling , that she
, escaped as eagerly as from a prison cell , scarcely staying long enough to quite finish her dressing , and generally to be seen putting
in the last pin on the stairs . One peculiarity of the Delanes was , they never opened their
windows . The utmost that was done in the way of ventilation was the occasional opening of the kitchen door , and the setting the hall
door ajar until the family breakfast time , while the young ladies put down their bed-room windows about a couple of inches from the 1 ? op _.
The wide windows and open doors of Merridno would have seemed improper , if not indelicate , to the family at the Hollies ; for fresh
air savored too much of freedom for them , and must be dealt out sparingly , to suit the dimensions of tlieir orbits .
Still ., Aura was determined to make the best of everything ; and
The Misdeeds Of Aura P!Lai$Tow. 185
THE MISDEEDS OF AURA P _! LAI $ TOW . 185
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Nov. 1, 1858, page 185, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01111858/page/41/
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