I often think
to myself, can this indeed be our little Plantagenet?'
'It is awful!' said Lady Annabel; 'much more than strange. For myself,
when I recall certain indications of his feelings when he was last at
Cadurcis, and think for a moment of the results to which they might
have led, I shiver; I assure you, my dear lord, I tremble from head to
foot. And I encouraged him! I smiled with fondness on his feelings! I
thought I was securing the peaceful happiness of my child! What can we
trust to in this world! It is too dreadful to dwell upon! It must have
been an interposition of Providence that Venetia escaped.'
'Dear little Venetia,' exclaimed the good Bishop; 'for I believe I
shall call her little Venetia to the day of my death. How well she
looks to-night! Her aunt is, I think, very fond of her! See!'
'Yes, it pleases me,' said Lady Annabel; but I do wish my sister was
not such an admirer of Lord Cadurcis' poems. You cannot conceive how
uneasy it makes me. I am quite annoyed that he was asked here to-day.
Why ask him?'
'Oh! there is no harm,' said Masham; 'you must forget the past. By all
accounts, Cadurcis is not a marrying man. Indeed, as I understood,
marriage with him is at present quite out of the question. And as for
Venetia, she rejected him before, and she will, if necessary, reject
him again.
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