BY GEORGIANA LADY CHATTERTON. AUTHOR OF LIFE AND ITS REALITIES," &c. &c. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL I. LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1858. The right of Translation is reserved. 249. V. 248. THE REIGNING BEAUTY. CHAPTER I. THE EFFECTS OF ANGER. "ONCE upon a time," said a dear quaint old governess who told the tale, and her stories used to make me so happy at the time, and left such pleasant impressions on my mind, that I am going to write one, as nearly as I can remember, in her own words. Once upon a time, there was an ancient country house that stood on the highest part of a large deer park, and from the south gallery windows you could look over a vast extent of wooded country. On very fine clear days you could see the blue sea beyond, and sometimes even a few white ships glistening like pearls in the sunshine, or pencilled along the horizon against the glowing sky of evening. Just below the windows of this long gallery, there was a broad gravel walk, bordered with flowers, and then a terraced garden that sloped down as far as the river. And at the western corner of the lowest terrace, there was an old fashioned summer-house with a pinnacled roof, like a miniature of the beautiful clock-tower that surmounted the centre of the old house. I used to delight in watching the sunsets from the western oriel of that gallery, and in tracing afterwards the course of the little river towards the piece of water, or rather lake, that ornamented the lower parts of the park, and then seek for it again emerging from the thick woods beyond, like a golden thread glistening here and there, till it was lost in the distance. That hour was generally my only leisure time, before the candles were lighted; so I often lingered, enjoying the changing colours and reflections in the lake, till I fancied that the dark yew trees, and gigantic oaks which skirted its banks bent over it lovingly, and tossed their branches with exulting mirth in the evening breeze. Then I would turn round and look along the dimly-lighted gallery, and start with a sort of half pleased and half frightened shudder at the figures in armour, that were ranged in carved oak niches at the further end. For the evening sky would tinge their helmets and the points of their lances with a blood red gleam, while the figures in the faded tapestry assumed a spectral appearance, and seemed to move with slow and stealthy steps in their shadowy recesses, and the old family |