The Midnight Queen by May Agnes Fleming (first e reader TXT) 📕

hand to his lips, and quite beside himself with ecstasy.

"Ah, I did not tell you to say that!" she cried, with a gay laugh and vivid blush. "I never said you were to call me dear."

"It arose from my heart to my lips," said Sir Norman, with thrilling earnestness and fervid glance; "for you are dear to me--dearer than all the world beside!"

The flush grew a deeper glow on the lady's face; but, singular to relate, she did not look the least surprised or displeased; and the hand he had feloniously purloined lay passive and quite contented in his.

"Sir Norman Kingsley is pleased to jest," said the lady, in a subdued tone, and with her eyes fixed pertinaciously on her shining dress; "for he has never spoken to me before in his life!"

"That has nothing to do with it, Leoline. I love you as devotedly as if I had known you from your birthday; and, strange to say, I feel as if we had been friends for years instead of minutes. I cannot realize at all that you are a stranger to me!"

Leoline laughed:

"Nor I; though, for that matter, you are not a stranger to me, Sir Norman!"

"Am I not? How is that!"

"I have seen you go past so often, you know; and Prudence told me who you were; and so I need--I used--" hesitating and glowing to a degree before which her dress paled.

"Well, dearest," said Sir Norman, getting from the positive to the superlative at a jump, and diminishing the distance between them, "you need to--what?"

"To watch for you!" said Leoline, in a sly whisper. "And so I have got to know you very well!"

"My own darling! And, O Leoline! may I hope--dare I hope--that you do not altogether hate me?"

Leoline looked reflective; though her bleak eyes were sparkling under their sweeping lashes.

"Why, no," she said, demurely, "I don't know as I do. It's very sinful and improper to hate one's fellow-creatures, you know, Sir Norman, and therefore I don't indulge in it."

"Ah! you are given to piety, I see. In that case, perhaps you are aware of a precept commanding us to love our neighbors. Now, I'm your nearest neighbor at present; so, to keep up a consistent Christian spirit, just be good enough to say you love me!"

Again Leoline laughed; and this time the bright, dancing eyes beamed in their sparkling darkness fall upon him.

"I am afraid your theology is not very sound, my friend, and I have a dislike to extremes. There is a middle course, between hating and loving. Suppose I take that?"

"I will have no middle courses--either hating or loving it must be! Leoline! Leoline!" (bending over her, and imprisoning both hands this time) "do say you love me!"

"I am captive in your hands, so I must, I suppose. Yes, Sir Norman, I do love you!"

Every man hearing that for the first time from a pair of loved lips is privileged to go mad for a brief season, and to go through certain manoeuvers much more delectable to the enjoyers than to society at large. For fully ten minutes after Leoline's last speech, there was profound silence. But actions sometimes speak louder than words; and Leoline was perfectly convinced that her declaration had not fallen on insensible ears. At the end of that period, the space between them on the couch had so greatly diminished, that the ghost of a zephyr would have been crushed to death trying to get between them; and Sir Norman's face was fairly radiant. Leoline herself looked rather beaming; and she suddenly, and without provocation, burst into a merry little peal of laughter.

"Well, for two people who were perfect strangers to each other half an hour ago, I think we have gone on remarkably well. What will Mr. Ormiston and Prudence say, I wonder, when they hear this?"

"They will say what is the truth--that I am the luckiest man in England. O Leoline! I never thought it was in me to love any one as I do you."'

"I am very glad to hear it; but I knew that it was in me long before I ever dreamed of knowing you. Are you not anxious to know something about the future Lady Kingsley's past history?"

"It will all come in good time; it is not well to have a surfeit of joy in one night.

"I do not know that this will add to your joy; but it had better be told and be done with, at once and forever. In the first place, I presume I am an orphan, for I have never known father or mother, and I have never had any other name but Leoline."

"So Ormiston told me."

"My first recollection is of Prudence; she was my nurse and governess, both in one; and we lived in a cottage by the sea--I don't know where, but a long way from this. When I was about ten years old, we left it, and came to London, and lived in a house in Cheapside, for five or six years; and then we moved here. And all this time, Sir Norman you will think it strange--but I never made any friends or acquaintances, and knew no one but Prudence and an old Italian professor, who came to our lodgings in Cheapside, every week, to give me lessons. It was not because I disliked society, you must know; but Prudence, with all her kindness and goodness--and I believe she truly loves me--has been nothing more or less all my life than my jailer."

She paused to clasp a belt of silver brocade, fastened by a pearl buckle, close around her little waist, and Sir Norman fixed his eyes upon her beautiful face, with a powerful glance.

"Knew no one--that is strange, Leoline! Not even the Count L'Estrange?"

"Ah! you know him?" she cried eagerly, lifting her eyes with a bright look; "do--do tell me who he is?"

"Upon my honor, my dear," said Sir Norman, considerably taken aback, "it strikes me you are the person to answer that question. If I don't greatly mistake, somebody told me you were going to marry him."

"Oh, so I was," said Leoline, with the utmost simplicity. "But I don't know him, for all that; and more than that, Sir Norman, I do not believe his name is Count L'Estrange, any more than mine in!"

"Precisely my opinion; but why, in the name of--no, I'll not swear; but why were you going to marry him, Leoline?"

Leoline half pouted, and shrugged her pretty pink satin shoulders.

"Because I couldn't help it--that's why. He coaxed, and coaxed; and I said no, and no, and no, until I got tired of it. Prudence, too, was as bad as he was, until between them I got about distracted, and at last consented to marry him to get rid of him."

"My poor, persecuted little darling! Oh," cried Sir Norman, with a burst of enthusiasm, "how I should admire to have Count L'Estrange here for about tea minutes, just now! I world spoil his next wooing for him, or I am mistaken!"

"No, no!" said Leoline, looking rather alarmed; "you must not fight, you know. I shouldn't at all like either of you to get killed. Besides, he has not married me; and so there's no harm done."

Sir Norman seemed rather struck by that view of the case, and after a few moments reflection on it, came to the conclusion that she knew best, and settled down peaceably again.

"Why do you suppose his name is not Count L'Estrange?" he asked.

"For many reasons. First--he is disguised; wears false whiskers, moustache, and wig, and even the voice he uses appears assumed. Then Prudence seems in the greatest awe of him, and she is not one to be easily awed. I never knew her to be in the slightest degree intimidated by any human being but himself and that mysterious woman, La Masque.

"Ah! you know La Masque, then?"

"Not personally; but I have seen her as I did you, you remember," with an arch glance; "and, like you, being once seen, is not to be forgotten."

Sir Norman promptly paid her for the compliment in Cupid's own coin:

"Little flatterer! I can almost forgive Count L'Estrange for wanting to marry you; for I presume he it only a man, and not quite equal to impossibilities. How long is it since you knew him first?"

"Not two months. My courtships," said Leoline, with a gay laugh, "seem destined to be of the shortest. He saw me one evening in the window, and immediately insisted on being admitted; and after that, he continued coming until I had to promise, as I have told you, to be Countess L'Estrange."

"He cannot be mach of a gentleman, or he would not attempt to force a lady against her will. And so, when you were dressed for your bridal, you found you had the plague?"

"Yes, Sir Norman; and horrible as that was I do assure you I almost preferred it to marrying him."

"Leoline, tell me how long it is since you've known me?"

"Nearly three months," said Leoline, blushing again celestial rosy red.

"And how long have you loved me?"

"Nonsense. What a question! I shall not tell you."

"You shall--you must--I insist upon it. Did you love me before you met the count? Out with it."

"Well, then--yes!" cried Leoline desperately.

Sir Norman raised the hand he held, is rapture to his lips:

"My darling! But I will reserve my raptures, for it is growing late, and I know you mast want to go to rest. I have a thousand things to tell you, but they must wait for daylight; only I will promise, before parting, that this is the last night you mast spend here."

Leoline opened her bright eyes very wide.

"To-morrow morning," went on Sir Norman, impressively, and with dignity, "you will be up and dressed by sunrise, and shortly after that radiant period, I will make my appearance with two horses--one of which I shall ride, and the other I shall lead: the one I lead you shall mount, and we will ride to the nearest church, and be married without any pomp or pageant; and then Sir Norman and Lady Kingsley will immediately leave London, and in Kingsley Castle, Devonshire, will enjoy the honeymoon and blissful repose till the plague is over. Do you understand that?"

"Perfectly," she answered, with a radiant face.

"And agree to it?"

"You know I do, Sir Norman; only--"

"Well, my pet, only what?"

"Sir Norman, I should like to see Prudence. I want Prudence. How can I leave her behind?"

"My dear child, she made nothing of leaving you when she thought you were dying; so never mind Prudence, but say, will you be ready?"

"I will."

"That is my good little Leoline. Now give me a kiss, Lady Kingsley, and good-night."

Lady Kingsley dutifully obeyed; and Sir Norman went out with a glow at his heart, like a halo round a full moon.


CHAPTER X. THE PAGE, THE FIRES, AND THE FALL.

The night was intensely dark when Sir Norman got into it once more; and to any one else would have been intensely dismal, but to Sir Norman all was bright as the fair hills of Beulah. When all is bright within, we see no darkness without; and just at that