The Midnight Queen [50]
eyes of the boy. "And what do you want of her?"
The page glanced at him.
"Perhaps you know her yourself, sir Norman? If so, you will
answer quite as well as your friend, as I only want to know where
she lives."
"I have been out of town to-night," said Sir Norman, evasively,
"and there may have been more ladies than one jumped into the
Thames, daring my absence. Pray, describe your angel in white."
"I did not notice her particularly myself," said the boy, with
easy indifference, "as I am not in the habit of paying much
attention to young ladies who run wild about the streets at night
and jump promiscuously into rivers. However, this one was rather
remarkable, for being dressed as a bride, having long black hair,
and a great quantity of jewelry about her, and looking very much
like me. Having said she looks like me, I need not add she is
handsome."
"Vanity of vanities, all in vanity !" murmured Sir Norman,
meditatively. "Perhaps she is a relative of yours, Master
Hubert, since you take such an interest in her, and she looks so
much like you."
"Not that I know of," said Hubert, in his careless way. "I
believe I was born minus those common domestic afflictions,
relatives; and I don't take the slightest interest in her,
either; don't think it!"
"Then why are you in search of her?"
"For a very good reason - because I've been ordered to do so."
"By whom - your master?"
"My Lord Rochester," said that nobleman's page, waving off the
insinuation by a motion of his hand and a little displeased
frown; "he picked her up adrift, and being composed of highly
inflammable materials, took a hot and vehement fancy for her,
which fact he did not discover until your friend, Mr. Ormiston,
had carried her off."
Sir Norman scowled.
"And so he sent you in search of her, has he?"
"Exactly so; and now you perceive the reason why it is quite
important that I find Mr. Ormiston. We do not know where he has
taken her to, but fancy it must be somewhere near the river."
"You do? I tell you what it is, my boy," exclaimed Sir Norman,
suddenly and in an elevated key, "the best thing you can do is,
to go home and go to bed, and never mind young ladies. You'll
catch the plague before you'll catch this particular young lady -
I can tell you that!"
"Monsieur is excited," lisped the lad raining his hat end running
his taper fingers through his glossy, dark curls. "Is she as
handsome as they say she is, I wonder?"
"Handsome!" cried Sir Norman, lighting up with quite a new
sensation at the recollection. "I tell you handsome doesn't
begin to describe her! She is beautiful, lovely, angelic, divine
- " Here Sir Norman's litany of adjectives beginning to give
out, he came to a sudden halt, with a face as radiant as the sky
at sunrise.
"Ah! I did not believe them, when they told me she was so much
like me; but if she in as near perfection as you describe, I
shall begin to credit it. Strange, is it not, that nature should
make a duplicate of her greatest earthly chef d'oeuvre?"
"You conceited young jackanapes!" growled Sir Norman, in deep
displeasure. "It is far stranger how such a bundle of vanity can
contrive to live in this work-a-day world. You are a foreigner,
I perceive?"
"Yes, Sir Norman, I am happy to say I am."
"You don't like England, then?"
"I'd be sorry to like it; a dirty, beggarly, sickly place as I
ever saw!"
Sir Norman eyed the slender specimen of foreign manhood, uttering
this sentiment is the sincerest of tones, and let his hand fall
heavily on his shoulder
"My good youth, be careful! I happen to be a native, and not
altogether used to this sort of talk. How long have you been
here? Not long, I know myself - at least, not in the Earl of
Rochester's service, or I would have seen you."
"Right! I have not been here a month; but