- I had still hold of her hands - and how it
happened I can give no account; but I neither ask'd her - nor drew
her - nor did I think of the bed; - but so it did happen, we both sat
down.
I'll just show you, said the fair fille de chambre, the little
purse I have been making to-day to hold your crown. So she put her
hand into her right pocket, which was next me, and felt for it some
time - then into the left. - "She had lost it." - I never bore
expectation more quietly; - it was in her right pocket at last; - she
pull'd it out; it was of green taffeta, lined with a little bit of
white quilted satin, and just big enough to hold the crown: she
put it into my hand; - it was pretty; and I held it ten minutes with
the back of my hand resting upon her lap - looking sometimes at the
purse, sometimes on one side of it.
A stitch or two had broke out in the gathers of my stock; the fair
fille de chambre, without saying a word, took out her little
housewife, threaded a small needle, and sew'd it up. - I foresaw it
would hazard the glory of the day; and, as she pass'd her hand in
silence across and across my neck in the manoeuvre, I felt the
laurels shake which fancy had wreath'd about my head.
A strap had given way in her walk, and the buckle of her shoe was
just falling off. - See, said the fille de chambre, holding up her
foot. - I could not, for my soul but fasten the buckle in return,
and putting in the strap, - and lifting up the other foot with it,
when I had done, to see both were right, - in doing it too suddenly,
it unavoidably threw the fair fille de chambre off her centre, - and
then -
THE CONQUEST.
Yes, - and then -. Ye whose clay-cold heads and luke-warm hearts
can argue down or mask your passions, tell me, what trespass is it
that man should have them? or how his spirit stands answerable to
the Father of spirits but for his conduct under them?
If Nature has so wove her web of kindness, that some threads of
love and desire are entangled with the piece, - must the whole web
be rent in drawing them out? - Whip me such stoics, great Governor
of Nature! said I to myself: - wherever thy providence shall place
me for the trials of my virtue; - whatever is my danger, - whatever
is my situation, - let me feel the movements which rise out of it,
and which belong to me as a man, - and, if I govern them as a good
one, I will trust the issues to thy justice; for thou hast made us,
and not we ourselves.
