"Alice May, and Bruising Bill" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ingraham Joseph Holt)

May had discovered the foreigner.
If Alice had not been a girl of a strong mind and independent native character,
she would have sunk through the floor at this annonncement. As it was she
trembled like an aspen leaf, and internally resolved to hate him. He was
presented to her, and coldly yet politely received. He was a good looking
Frenchman, about thirty with an air of high fashion. He was at once struck with
the charms of which he had heard so much; and Colonel May taking an opportunity
to desert his daughter, left her dependant on the Count for a protector in the
throng. He offered his arm which she knew not how to decline in her unprotected
state, and accepted. He found her disinclined to converse, and proof against his
compliments. After trying his best for half an hour to entertain her and get
into her good gracesЧ for the Count's estates were under mortgage, and the young
Louisiana belle was an heiressЧhe began to despair. At length her father
reappeared, and she flew to his arm in a way that convinced him of the
difficulty of getting a titled son-in-law. In her presence he invited the Count
to dine with them the next day; an invitation which he accepted, it seemed to
her, with great pleasure.
This event so embittered the hours of the assembly that Alice at length
prevailed on her father, on the plea of ill health, to retire with her. The
ensuing day the Count came, and Colonel May studied to leave him alone with her.
But coldness and distance alone characterized her manner in his presence.
Day after day he was a visitor to Lauvidais, and daily pressing his suit by
every attention and every gentle device in love's armoryЧbut in vain. At length
he made a bold stroke and addressed her. She refused him civilly but firmly.
This enraged her father, who threatened, unless she gave her consent to marry
him within three months, he would deprive her of her inheritance, and shut her
up in a convent.
`Give me half that time to decide,' said she with firmness.
`I grant it Alice; and expect at the end of the period that you will be prepared
to comply with my wishes, and those of Mr. Bondier, who is devoted to you. Your
alliance with him will place you in the best society in Paris!'
On her father's departure, Alice fastened her chamber door, and setting down to
her escritoire, wrote the following letter;
`Lauvidais, - March 20. Dearest Edward,Ч
I write to avail myself of my privilege and duty as your betrothed wife, to
throw myself, at a crisis which has just occured in my life, upon your love! A
certain Count Bondier is persecuting me with his attentions, and althogh I have
in every way, not absolutely to insult him, shown him my repugnance to his suit,
and also distinctly and firmly declined his addresses, yet he pursues them
encouraged by my father, who is warmly in favor of an alliance with his powerful
family through me. My father has just left me with the menace that unless I will
consent to marry him at the end of three months, that he will immure me in a
convent, which God knows is to be prefered. I have asked and obtained six weeks
to decide. This letter will reach you in two. It will take three for you to
reach here. I need not ask you to flyЧfor my love tells me you will soon be here
to claim your own lover's bride.
Alice.'
This letter was received by Edward Orr in less than two weeks after it was
penned, and its perusal gave him intense agony. He made instant preparations to
proceed South, to rescue her from her fate but before his departure he received