'Well! since you will know, child, I may as
well tell you--the brave Mr. Dalton is not alone in the field; he has
a powerful rival; one of those dark, heroic-looking Frenchmen of high
birth and fierce tempers. He swears he will have Mlle. Campuzano's
hand, or Ernest Dalton's heart-blood--at least this is the story I
have heard; she, in all her rich southern foreign loveliness, plays a
becomingly passive part, and is wooed, they say, first by one and then
by the other. If I were you, Amelia, I would never marry any one who
was not more faithful to me, than this, there will be little happiness
in store for you, if you do; he has plainly slighted you, in giving
cause for such vile rumours while I was in the town, and could hear of
his unbecoming behaviour--give him up child, he is altogether unworthy
of you.' Miss Hartney added, infusing something of a would-be sympathy
and solicitude unto her shrill accents.
"Your mother stood for a moment toying nervously with her white,
trembling fingers. She was so proud. My poor, dear Amelia, and this
taunting intelligence smote her to her heart's core. She swallowed a
great choking sob, and drove the blinding tears that lay upon the
surface of her large sad eyes back into the deep caverns from whence
they had sprung. She then sat quietly down, and resumed her writing.
In a month from that date, my dear Amey," cousin Bessie added in a low
hushed voice, "she was married to your father, Alfred Hampden, who had
wooed her in the meantime.
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