That
is a very fine plot, which I recommend to our female novelists. My aim
in these pages has been much humbler, and is, I hope, too clear to need
explanation.
CHARLES READE.
A SIMPLETON.
CHAPTER I.
A young lady sat pricking a framed canvas in the drawing-room of Kent
Villa, a mile from Gravesend; she was making, at a cost of time and
tinted wool, a chair cover, admirably unfit to be sat upon--except by
some severe artist, bent on obliterating discordant colors. To do her
justice, her mind was not in her work; for she rustled softly with
restlessness as she sat, and she rose three times in twenty minutes, and
went to the window. Thence she looked down, over a trim flowery
lawn, and long, sloping meadows, on to the silver Thames, alive with
steamboats ploughing, white sails bellying, and great ships carrying to
and fro the treasures of the globe. From this fair landscape and epitome
of commerce she retired each time with listless disdain; she was waiting
for somebody.
Yet she was one of those whom few men care to keep waiting. Rosa
Lusignan was a dark but dazzling beauty, with coal-black hair, and
glorious dark eyes, that seemed to beam with soul all day long; her
eyebrows, black, straightish, and rather thick, would have been majestic
and too severe, had the other features followed suit; but her black
brows were succeeded by long silky lashes, a sweet oval face, two
pouting lips studded with ivory, and an exquisite chin, as feeble as any
man could desire in the partner of his bosom.
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