Aurora Floyd

that the Demoiselles Lespard suffered considerably in reputation among the circle round Felden Woods from Miss Floyd's impaired good looks. She was out of spiri

or Aurora to a shadow: the girl was not used to study, she said; she had been accustomed t

and the Rue Saint Dominique, and that the very memory of Paris was disagreeable to her. Like most young ladies with black eyes and blue-black hair, Miss Floyd was a good hater; so Lucy forbore to ask for more information upon what was so evidently an unpleasant subject to her cousin. Poor Lucy had been mercilessly well educated; she spoke half a dozen languages, knew all about the natural sciences

eenth anniversary of his daughter's first appearance on this mortal scene, to give an entertainment, w

d judgment as to color, and that perfect taste in form, which bespeak the soul of an artist; and while poor mild Lucy was giving endless trouble, and tumbling innumerable boxes of flowers, before she could find any head-dress in harmony with her rosy cheeks and golden hair, Aurora, after one brief glance at t

Lucy, don't you know that yours is the beauty which really does not want adornment? A few pearls or forget-me-not blossoms, or a crown of wat

that sublime art of confectionery which hovers midway between sleight of hand and cookery, and in which the Berkeley Square professor is without a rival. When poor Thomas Babington Macaulay's New Zealander shall come to ponder over the ruins of St. Pa

she had a commission to execute at Dent's - the purchase

lankly staring at the shifting figures in the crowd, when a man hurrying by was attracted by her face at the carriage-window, and started, as if at some great surprise. He passed on, however, and walked rapidly toward the Horse Guards; but, before he turned the corner, came to a dead stop, stood still for two or three minutes scratching the back of his head reflectively with his big bare hand, and then walked slowly back toward Mr. Dent's emporium. He was a broad-shouldered, bull-necked, sandy-whiskered fellow, wearing a cut-away coat and a gaudy neckerchief, and smoking a huge cigar, the

veniencing himself by the remo

ion of Miss Floyd and the vehicle in which she sat - even carrying his powers of observation so far as to take particular notice of a p

th her eyes flashing forked lightnings of womanly fury, and her face crimson with indig

o ears but those of Aurora herself. When he had done whispering, he took a greasy, leather-covered account-book, and a short stump of lead pencil, considerably the worse for c

rom him - looked away with an irrepre

tan animal up to the carriage-window, "or a French poodle what'll balance a bit of bread on h

N

er's, just in time to catch a glimpse of the man's broa

ging of you, Aurora?" she

a dog of him, and

you to buy

es

ich seemed to set her above her fellows, or simply in that inherent spirit of toadyism common to the best of us; but Mrs. Alexander and her fair-haired daughter always paid mute reverence to the banker's heiress, and were silent when it pleased her, or conversed at her royal will. I verily

ted repetition of visitors' names, and pealed across the silent woods; through the long vista of half a dozen rooms opening one into another, the waters of a fountain, sparkling with a hundred hues in the light, glittered amid the dark floral wealth of a conservatory filled with exotics. Great clusters of tropical pl

ho have driven across the country in a mail phaeton. The elder of these two, and the dr

een you and your Kentish banker very considerably inconvenienced before I wo

oung man, impetuously. "Archibald Floyd is the bes

d to marry a penniless scapegrace like Francis Lewis Maldon, of her Majesty's 11th Hussars. However, I don't want to stand in your way, my boy. Go in and win

ficer laughed aloud at the stupendous joke. "You'll

alth and grandeur made so pleasant, but not Talbot Bulstrode. The vices and follies of the common herd were perhaps retrievable, but vice or folly in a Bulstrode would have left a blot upon a hitherto unblemished escutcheon never to be erased by time or tears. That pride of birth, which was utterly unallied to pride of wealth or station, had a certain noble and chivalrous side, and Talbot Bulstrode was beloved by many a parvenu whom meaner men would have insulted. In the ordinary affairs of life he was as humble as a woman or a child; it was only when Honor was in question that the sleeping dragon of pride which had guarded the golden apples of his youth, purity, probity, and truth, awoke and bade defiance to the enemy. At two-and-thirty he was still a bachelor, not because he had never loved, but because he had never met with a woman whose stainless purity of soul fitted her in his eyes to become the mother of a noble race, and to rear sons who should do honor to the name of Bulstrode. He looked for more than ordinary every-day virtue in the woman of his choice; he demanded those grand and queenly qualities which are rarest in woman-kind. Fearless truth, a sense of honor keen as his own, loyalty of purpose, unselfishness, a soul untainted by the petty baseness of daily life - all these he sought in the being he loved; and at the first warnin

when he took a hand at long whist with his father, and mother, and the parson of the parish, in the south drawing-room at Bulstrode Castle. He had a peculiar aversion to all games of chance and skill, contending that it was beneath a gentleman to employ, even for amusement, the implements of the sharper's pitiful trade. His rooms were as neatly kept as those of a woman. Cases of mathematical instruments took the place of cigar-boxes; proof impressions of Raphael adorned the walls ordinarily covered with French prints, and water-colored sporting sketches from Ackermann's emporium. He was familiar with every turn of expression in Descartes and Condillac, but would have been sorely puzzled to t

ering orders on the breast of his uniform, told of deeds of prowess lately done. He took very little delight in the gay assembly revolving before him to one of Charles d'Albert's waltzes. He had heard the same music before, executed by the same band; the faces, though unfamiliar to him, were not new: dark beauties in pink, fair beauties in blue; tall, dashing beauties in silks, and laces, and jewels, and splendor; modestly downcast beauties in white crape and rose-buds. They had all been spread for him, those familiar nets of gauze and areophane, and he had escaped them all; and the name of Bulstrode might drop out of the history of Cornish gentry to find no record save upon gravestones, but it would never be tarnished by an unworthy race, or dragged through the mire

reature, and he found that her earthly name was Auror

or her portion, so she didn't want a rich husband; but she was a nobody, so of course she wanted position, and had no doubt read up the Raleigh Bulstrodes in the sublime pages of Burke. The clear gray eyes grew cold as ever, therefore, as Talbot bowed to the heiress. Mr. Maldon found his partner a chair close to the pillar ag

d to see the modest drooping of the eyelids peculiar to young ladies with long lashes, but he was disappointed; for Aurora Floyd was looking straight before her, neither at him, nor at the lights, nor t

e lifted her eyes to his face, and asked him the str

underbolt won the

ently, "They must have heard by six o'clock this evening in London; but I have ask

ng his infantine impressions from such a mother. She would teach him to read out of the Racing Calendar; she would invent a royal alphabet of the turf, and tell him that "D stands for Derby, old England's great race," an

eops wasn't much," she said; "but he won the

h his horror. "If I had a sister," he thought, "I would get her to t

worth a couple of hundred pounds, which had been given her that day by her father. He would have invested all his fortune in Messrs. Hunt and Roskell's cunning handiwork if Aurora had sighed for gems and

an engagement for the quadrille that was forming. She looked at her tablets of ivory, gold, and turquoise, and with a certain disdainful wear

ets. How distraite she was all the time she sat here! I dare say she has made a book for the Leger, and was calculating how much she stands to lose. What will this poor old banker do with her? put her into a mad-house,

condemned her questionable taste. He bade Francis Louis Maldon marry her at his peril, and wished him joy of such a wife. He declared that if he had such a sister he would shoot her, unless she reformed and burnt her betting-book. He worked himself up into a savage humor about the young lady's delinquencies, and talked of her as if she had done him an unpardonable i

ut her, Aurora is seated in her dressing-room,

and so-and-so? and above all, did she observe Captain Bulstrode, who had served all through the Crimean war,

, she hadn't noticed any of these people. Poor

dear," she said; "how c

r cousin's neck, and hid her f

she said, "ver

ring weariness in her tone, that her

y, dear Aurora?" sh

There, go, Lucy. Go

e candle from the dressing-table to a desk on the other side of the room, and, seating herself at this desk, unlocked it and took from one of

and velvet upon Aurora's dressing-table. She took the morocco case in her hand, looked for a f

ed the bracelet on my arm," she said, as she rese

secured the parcel in several places with r

.

Mr. Jose

l I

cas

roydon, and, leaving them at a Berlin wool-shop, went alone to the