Sandra Belloni -- Volume 1

softly, through the garden-gates. Arabella had, by right of birth, made claim to Mr. Pericles: not without an unwonted

tainly, dear, you have; an

ut his ears that Arabella had to repeat to him all her questions, and as it were force a way for her voice through the hide. This was provoking, since it not only stemmed the natural flow of conversation, but prevented her imagination from decorating the reminiscence of it subsequently (which was her profound secret pleasur

mewhat sharply: and Mr. Pericles, peering over the collar of the bear, with half an eye, continued the sentence, in the manner of one sent thereby farther from its meaning: "Ze moonlight?" Despairing and exasperated, Arabella commenced afresh: "I said, there seems a soul in it"; and Mr. Pericles as

-in ze moonlight-Luna?

!-Y

r heart was kept thirsting for the key to it. In advance were Adela and Edward Buxley, who was only a rich alderman's only son, but had the virtue of an extraordinary power of drawing caricatures, and was therefore useful in exaggerating the features of disagreeable people, and showing how odious they were: besides endearing pleasant ones exhibiting how comic they could be. Gossips averred that before Mr. Pole had been worried by his daught

ainst branches, and tripped over stumps, and ejaculated with energy; but though he gave no heed or help to his fair associate, she thought not the worse of him, so heroic can women be toward any creature that will permit himself to be clothed by a mystery. At times the party hung still, fancying the voice aloft, and then, after listening to the unreliev

fill them and soar over them, it was so full and rich, so light and sweet. And now, to add to the marvel, they heard a harp accompaniment, the strings being faintly touched, but with firm fingers. A woman's voice: on that could be no dispute. Tell me, what opens heaven more flamingly to heart and mind, than the voice of a woman, pouring clear accordant notes to the blue night sky, that grows light blue to

id the Greek, f

play with him. Real emotions at once set aside the

us contralto." Murmurs of objection to the voice being characterized

Pericles, imperiously, with his bearskin thrown back o

great lumps of green and gray moss, now stood on the poor old creature's place of habitation, and the moon, slanting through the fir-clumps, was scattered on the blossoms of twisted orchard-trees, gone wild again. Amid this desolation, a dwarfed pine, whose roots were partially bared as they grasped the broken bank that was its perch, threw far out a cedar-like hand. In the shadow of it sat the fair singer. A

s and fulness of passionate blood that marks the modern Italian, where there is much dallying with beauty in the thick of sweet anguish. Here, at a certain passage of the s

ey were anxious to speak, and they could not choose the word to utter. Mr. Pericles relieved them by mo

wed a girl: "Oh, stay; do stay, if I please you!" A s

I sing better when I hav

mpathetic, do you no

the unknown, with a very

l, at all events, for, at a word, the clear, bold, but finely nervous voice, was pealing to a brisker measure, that would hav

ment it ended, he cried out, in a tone of vexed apology for strange ignorance: "But I know not

" said the y

music,

I compo

me to sa

they thought more of it, or less, now that the authorship was known to them, the

t pleases you?"

iously felt too humble, it may be. She was girlish in her manner, and not imposing in her figure. She woul

t long: but my people at the farm will not keep supper for me, w

r to go?" ve

en minutes' walk through the wo

whether she came frequen

rain, every evenin

place inspires yo

m is ill, and she says that music all day is enough for her, and I m

piration in the place, do y

ord given her to crack, and muttered: "I feel it q

Cornelia fel

and that her bonnet was not of the newest fashion. The sisters remarked a boot-lace hanging loose. The peculiar black lustre of her hair, and thickness of her long black eyebrows, struck them likewise. Her harp being now comfortably mantled, Corn

ng him with a thankful smile. "I have

ndy hillock, where he had been reclining, a bro

mble." She uttered this as if she were giving Jim his evening lesson: and then with a sudde

menced thrumming a kind of Giles Scroggins, native British, beer-begotten air, while Jim smeared his mouth and grinned, as one who s

the company. "I play to him every night, for a finish; and then h

llity, and they laughed and applauded; but the ladies were silent after the performance, until the moment came to thank her for the enterta

xt to Cornelia, and then to Adela. She seemed to be hesitating before the gentlemen, and when

miss!" called

tance, and they could see that she was there embo

ked her if she meant the last piece; and, "Oh, gracious! not that!" Adela exclaimed. And then it was discovered how their common obse

quets, that's all!" cried W

sings? or is it only faculty?"

ranger for the intrusion of the bumpki

d Cornelia, whose use of emphasis customarily

rshest foreign accent: "Yeaz!" And thereupon he threw open the folds, and laid out a forefinger, and delivered himself: "I am made my mind! I send her abroad to ze Academie for one, two, tree year. She sh

y of our Press, sent a smile circling among the ladies and gentlemen. The youth who had wished to throw the fair unkno