Rhoda Fleming -- Volume 1

ite torture of the highest form was administered to him. Her faith in her sister was so sure that she could half pardon him for the momentary harm he had done to Da

to him. Letters from Dahlia came regularly. The first, from Lausanne, favoured Rhoda's conception of her as of a happy spirit resting at celestial stages of her ascent upward through spheres of ecstacy. Dahlia could see the snow-mountains in a flying glimpse; and again, peacefully seated, she could see the snow-mountains reflected in clear blue waters from her window, which, Rhoda thought, must be like heaven. On these inspired occasions, Robert presented the form of a malignan

. I hope he has been very angry with me: then it will be soon over, and we shall be-but I cannot look back. I shall not look back til

me was still her

as she turned them over, she was startled by the intoxication of her sentiments, for the wild thought would come, that many, many whose passionate hearts she could feel as her own, were ready to

to the laws and duties of earth, until her conscious womanhood checked it, and sh

ith her sister, that the touch of her hand, the gaze of her eyes, th

dissecting scrutiny, that was bewildering and confusing to the country damsel. Algernon likewise bestowed marked attention on her. Some curious hints had been thrown out to her by this yo

Mrs. Lovell, and sometimes without a companion. His appearance sent her quick wits travelling through many scales of possible conduct: and they struck one ringing note:-she though

the poetry of gondolas, varied by allusions to the sad smell of the low tide wa

the model than for the artist. Even modesty seems too hot a covering for human creatures here. The sun strikes me down. I am ceasing to have a complexion. It is

dinner (speaking English), 'with your resplendent wife.' Edward has no mercy for errors of language, and he would not take me. Ah! who knows how strange men ar

and he knows that there never was a wife who brought a heart to her husband like mine to him. He wants to think, or he wants to smoke, and he leaves me; but, oh! when he returns, he can sca

umble about my good looks. You used to spoil me at home-you and that wicked old Mother Dumpling, and our own dear mother, Rhoda-oh! mother, mother! I wish I had always thought of you looking down on me! You made me

ecessity of being careful of our fingernails. My feet are of moderate size, though they are not French feet, as Edward says. No: I shall never dance. He sent me to the dancing-master in London, but it was too late. But I have been complimented on my walking, and that seems to ple

say they think more. But I feel he must be right. Oh, my dear, cold, loving, innocent

hord snapped in Rhoda's bosom. While she was hearing from her sister almost weekly, her confidence was buoyed on a summer sea. In the silence it fell upon a dread. She had no answer in her mind for her father's unspoken dissatisfact

lone, studied each change in her face, and read its signs. He was left to his own interpretation of them, but the signs he knew acc

our to her cheeks. She opened it, evidently not knowing the handwriting; her e

ane where Robert had previously

id, and he was one who could hav

?" said Rhoda, with a wo

u go no farther, Miss Rhoda,

t do that,

ad better r

reasons you have for beha

Robert. "At present, You'll let th

oyed free play, and had never risen to anger; but violent anger now surged again

ood at the same time a full-statured strength o

s treating her as a child; but it was to herself alone that she could defend herself. She marvell

man at all in this world?" Rh

e did the same. Between them stood Robert, thinki

id Dahlia; and she said little more, except that she was waiting to see her sister, and bade her urgently to travel up

e me too," said the far

bronze to Robert when t