Adelaide, Or, the Countercharm; A Novel

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. 1813. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XvIII. In a week after the departure of Bouverie from Seaview Mellifont returned, with intelligence that his friend had sailed, with an auspicious wind; and brought to Adelaide, from Bouverie, the most beautiful and expensive drawing-box that London could supply him with. This superb present, with the certainty that Bouverie was now upon the ocean, borne by the swelling waves far, far from Seaview, renewed that grief which had been lulled to calmness by the tranquillizing power of reason in the bosom of the grateful Adelaide, who determined to evince her thankfulness for his beautiful gift by making every proficiency her most strenuous exertions could lead her to in the art of drawing. She knew it was a$ accomplishment highly estimated by Montagu, and he should not find his box thrown away, she resolved: and this secret determina- tion soon produced a visible effect on the drawing she was then engaged in, amazing Mrs. Falkland each succeeding day by the increasing powers of surpassing genius. At length the morning of Lady Beech brook's ball arrived, but not the pearls; and Adelaide, in grief of disappointment, thought church work could be nothing in tardiness to jeweller's work. Evening, too, arrived, and Mrs. Falkland emerged from her toilet, looking elegant and beautiful to a high degree, in a most becoming dress of simple style, unexceptionable, Adelaide thought, for an unmarried woman; but a wife--the wife of her dear guardian, she wished should have her beautiful neck and hair ornamented by something more costly than a row of white beads and a sprig of an exotic from Mordaunt Priory. " Adelaide, my love!' said Mrs. Falkland, " why do you look so mournfully at me, as if I was dressed for sacrifice instead of a ball?" At this moment Dennis, hal...