Valentine Forde (Volume 2); A Novel (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1870. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER IV. AS a rule the indulgence of any humour is a prophecy of its repetition, and our likes or dislikes, our hopes or our suspicions, are apt to be confirmed by an open expression of them. Freda's jealousy of her lover received for her a seal of confirmation when she found her own belief in it had been sufficiently strong to induce her to betray it in his presence. If George had come to the cottage, and she bad been by that means amused and made happy, the impression created by the incident of the morning might not have been so strong. But he stayed away, uncertain whether her prohibition had proceeded from any real reason, or from mere perverseness of temper--in which case it wasequally deterrent: and she spent a dull evening in the company of Mrs. Burton, who, though an excellent and faithful person, was too old and too ignorant to be very entertaining. Freda's engagement to George, which had been necessarily confided to her, did not meet with her approbation. She would now and then reproach Freda with having turned from Valentine in his ill fortune, following up this charge, which the consciousness of perfect innocence disposed her young lady rather to laugh at than resent, by comparisons between the two brothers, in which by dwelling on Valentine's sweetness of manner and wonderful beauty, she succeeded in giving the whole advantage to the one she liked best. "I don't care," Freda would answer, bravely, "George isn't so handsome as Valentine--nobody is or ever will be--nor so gentle, nor yet so gay. Well, but after all, George is George, and that is all I care about." But Mrs. Burton, very quick to observe the shortcomings of one who had usurped the place destined in her own mind to one dearer than he, had more power to vex Freda when she compla...