If things were done right--but they are not and, never will be, while
this whirligig world of mistakes spins round, and all Adam's children,
to the end of the chapter, will continue sinning to-day and repenting
tomorrow, falling the next and bewailing it the day after. If Leoline
had gone to bed directly, like a good, dutiful little girl, as Sir
Norman ordered her, she would have saved herself a good deal of trouble
and tears; but Leoline and sleep were destined to shake hands and turn
their backs on each other that night. It was time for all honest folks
to be in bed, and the dark-eyed beauty knew it too, but she had no
notion of going, nevertheless. She stood in the centre of the room,
where he had left her, with a spot like a scarlet roseberry on either
cheek; a soft half-smile on the perfect mouth, and a light unexpressibly
tender and dreamy, in those artesian wells of beauty--her eyes. Most
young girls of green and tender years, suffering from "Love's young
dream," and that sort of thing, have just that soft, shy, brooding look,
whenever their thoughts happen to turn to their particular beloved; and
there are few eyes so ugly that it does not beautify, even should they
be as cross as two sticks. You should have seen Leoline standing in
the centre of her pretty room, with her bright rose-satin glancing and
glittering, and flowing over rug and mat; with her black waving hair
clustering and curling like shining floss silk; with a rich white
shimmer of pearls on the pale smooth forehead and large beautiful arms.
She did look irresistibly bewitching beyond doubt; and it was just as
well for Sir Norman's peace of mind that he did not see her, for he was
bad enough without that. So she stood thinking tenderly of him for a
half-hour or so, quite undisturbed by the storm; and how strange it was
that she had risen up that very morning expecting to be one man's bride,
and that she should rise up the next, expecting to be another's. She
could not realize it at all; and with a little sigh-half pleasure, half
presentiment--she walked to the window, drew the curtain, and looked
out at the night. All was peaceful and serene; the moon was fall to
overflowing, and a great deal of extra light ran over the brim; quite a
quantity of stars were out, and were winking pleasantly down at the dark
little planet below, that went round, and round, with grim stoicism, and
paid no attention to anybody's business but its own. She saw the heaps
of black, charred ashes that the rush of rain had quenched; she saw the
still and empty street; the frowning row of gloomy houses opposite, and
the man on guard before one of them. She had watched that man all day,
thinking, with a sick shudder, of the plague-stricken prisoners he
guarded, and reading its piteous inscription, "Lord have mercy on us!"
till the words seemed branded on her brain. While she looked now, an
upper window was opened, a night-cap was thrust out and a voice from its
cavernous depths hailed the guard.