New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1873-09-14
HONORAs
BY HARRIET PRESCOTT sPoFFoRDo


Tes, Honora Brentworth was always a
statuesque thing. They used to make their
angels, and ghosts, and sculptures of her
IN all their charades and tableaux, and well
she played the part. But one night saw
her in q statue scene that was enough to
chill your blood, almost as hers was chilled.
She was naturally pale-none of the sickly
cast of skin, but "a waxen whiteness that
was lovely in itself to the artistic eve, that
finds pleasure in all varying beauty, and
where it chooses bushes on one face, chooses
pallor on another But Honora herself de-
tested this pallor; and often put delicate
dash of rouge upon her cheek and chin:
and then she was beautiful, with her straight
fair hair banded away from the classic face.
whose profile was like Psyches, and the
long lashed eyes that were almost ALWAYS
cast down under their snow white lids.
s'What a deathly hue!' she would cry, as
she looked in the glass. at is a sort of
hospital flag. 1t warns everybody off from
me. Nobody likes to keep company with
she dead and dying. and so don't preach
any more about my rouge"
Nor was she altogether wrong in her com.
garrison, tor she had some inscruta BILE dis
ease of the heart that now they would call
by long and learned name, but that then
had no name at all, emperors not having
died of it. Its character, however was
better known than It's name, since it fire.
quently caused her to faint quite away, and
might eventually prove a more serious
thing, in case any sudden shock or pleasure
should ever hurry the blood too swiftly on
its passage through the leart-a thing not
likely to happen to Honora. who was cool
anu calm and unmoved to a degree not
common with women. for most women have
not such earthly tiXity, and in their chang
Ing and lifting and sparkling they are more
Ike the evanescent and ethereal fire. But
Honora had had the trouble for half a dozen
years, and said little or nothing about it.
and was well and strong in spite of the oc
caslonal falnting fit; and she was so fine and
Gueeniy and brilliant that she had more
lovers than she could count on her fingers. |
For all that, H0nora was not happy. |
Mordecai sat in the Kings gate. She was |
such self-contained, selt-balanced thing |
that nobody would have guessed it unless |
observing her as closely as l did since to /
me she was something of a study, for am
a gossiping thing, as you see, telling all l
K low. But HonOra took counsel with no.
b )dy but herself, and if you can understand |
Inc, did not always tell all she knew, even
to herself
d, SO as looked at her could we'll discover
now llstless she was when one person only
was absent from the group about her
could see that the room was empty to her
II ne was not there, that she heard people
talking as if in a dream. and wished that
she could waken; and when he came she
woke, she lifted the beautiful white lids,
and the great, soft, dove eyes glistened,
and while he spoke to her the sweetest sus-
picien OF color seemed to fan I'D into her
,heek, SO that then she needed no rouge at |
Ill. But. after all, that was seldom. for
Andrew Renton had other calls upon His
lime than those Honora made.
l think he was ligh.-minded man. not
>>rthy the devotion of so deep and strong
-a as HOnOra's-of such a nature "a | !