FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175  
176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   195   196   197   198   199   200   >>   >|  
at I am a siren. My mind is full of the Bond of Association and your Meeting at St. James's Hall. How shamefully Lord Cavernake has behaved, but dear Lord Gretingham has come out well. What a miserable set we have in the Lords just now!" She was making these remarks as the clock struck the hour, and her father entered the room. "Beauclerk came early, dear papa," said she, "because he had something to tell us. His engagement is broken off." Lord Garrow looked the grief appropriate to the news, and disguised, as well as he could, his dismay at its probable development. He murmured, "Tut! tut!" a number of times, held up his hands, and nodded his head from side to side. "I wish nothing said against poor Agnes," observed Reckage; "her mistakes are those of a generous, impetuous girl. Don't judge her hastily. All, I feel certain, has happened for the best." "Tut! tut!" repeated his lordship. "I am devoted to dear Agnes," said Sara, "but I never, never thought that she was the wife for Beauclerk." Then she stepped forward to greet Lady Augusta Hammit, who was at that moment announced. Lady Augusta was a tall woman about thirty-five years of age, with a handsome, sallow face, a superb neck, beautiful arms, hair the colour of ashes, pale lips, and large, gleaming white teeth. Unmarried, aristocratic, ordinarily well-off, and exceptionally pious according to her lights, she was a prominent figure in all work connected with the Moderate Party in the Church of England. In her opinion, foreigners might be permitted the idolatries of Rome; as for the English, Wesley was a lunatic; Pusey, a weak good creature; Newman was a traitor; Manning, a mistake. The one vital force on whom she depended for her spiritual illumination and her life's security was the Rev. Edwin Pole-Knox. "Pole-Knox," she said, "will save us yet." This good and industrious young man, a few years her junior, had been chaplain--mainly through Lady Augusta's devoted exertions--to three bishops. He did every credit to his patroness, but hints were already in the air on the subject of ingratitude. Some said he lacked ambition; others murmured dark conjectures about his heartlessness. It was left to the Lady Augusta's fellow-labourers in the sphere of beneficence to blurt out, with odious vulgarity, that he would never marry her in this world. She entered the room that evening in her haughtiest manner, for Pole-Knox was following close upon her heels, an
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175  
176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   195   196   197   198   199   200   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Augusta
 

murmured

 

Beauclerk

 

devoted

 

entered

 
Wesley
 
idolatries
 

haughtiest

 
English
 

permitted


foreigners

 

manner

 
lunatic
 

evening

 
mistake
 

Manning

 
creature
 
Newman
 

traitor

 

opinion


England

 

exceptionally

 

ordinarily

 

aristocratic

 

Unmarried

 

gleaming

 

lights

 

Moderate

 

Church

 

connected


prominent

 
figure
 

patroness

 

sphere

 

labourers

 
credit
 

exertions

 
bishops
 

beneficence

 
ambition

conjectures
 

fellow

 
subject
 
ingratitude
 

lacked

 

spiritual

 
heartlessness
 

illumination

 
security
 

junior