AURORA FLOYD.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 397, 30 March 1863, Page 6

AURORA FLOYD.

EripX Acx,apji2«s 92 " LADX'AtrotET's Becee-t. v

(From Temple Bar.)

CHAPTER 111.

(Continued.)

•.- Captain Bulstrode glanced downward at tbe banker's ••duuuhter.- His g:rz.» lingered upon the graceful bend, with its coronal of shining scarlet berries, encii-eiing smooth mn*ses of blue-black hair. He expected to see the modest drooping of the eyelies peculiar to young ladies with long lashes, but lie was d-Vnppoii.ted or Aurora Floyd was looking straight before her. aeithar at him, nor at tho lights, nor the fl ivrnx*, nor the dancers, but fur away into vacancy. She was so young, prosperous, admired, and beloved, that it was difficult to account for tho dim shadow of trouble lh.it clouded her glorious eyes. While he was wondering what he should say to he-, she lilted hor eyes to his face, and asked iiim the strangest question he had ever heard from girlish lips. "Do you'know if Thund'jtbolt won the Leger?" ■he asked. He was too much confounded to answer for a mo ment, and she continued rather impatiently, " They must have heard by six »'c ock th;s evening in Loudon; but I have asked half a cozen peonle here to night, and n<> one stems to know any thing about it." Talbot's close-cropped hair seemed lifted from his head as he listened to this terrible address. Good heavens! wliut a horrible woman! The hussar's vivid imagination pietu-ed the heir of all the KalHgh Bulstrodes receiving hi-infantine impre-sions from »uch a mother. She would teach him to read out of the RacingCdendtr: sh* would invent a ■ oynl a'pliahet ofthe turf, and tell him that '• D stands for Derby, old England's great race:" and " E stands for Kiisom, n crack meediig-plhCii, &c. He told Miss Floyd that he had never been to Doiicaster in his life, that. h» , had never read a sporting paner, and that he knew no more of Thunderbolt thm of King Uhenps. She looked at himrnthercontemptuously, " Cheop' wasn't mnch," sb* said ; " but he won 'the Liverpool Autumn Cup in Blink Bonny's year." Talbot Bulstrode shuddered afresh ; but a feeling of pity mingled with his horror. " If I had n sister," j he thought, " I would get her to talk to this niisera ble girl, and bring her to a sense of her imijiii'y." Aurora said no more to the Captain of Hussars, but relapsed into the old far-away gaze into vacancy, nnd sat twisting a bracelet round and round upon her finely modelled wrist. Jt was a riiainoii-l biacriet, worth a couple of hundred pounds, which bad been given her that day by her fatjicr. He would have nyested all his fortune in Messrs Hunt and Koskell's cunning handiwork, if Aurora had sighed for gems and gewgaws. Mi'es Floyd's glance fell u| on the glittering ornament, and she looked at it lung and earnestly, rather as if she were calcu'atiug the valueof the stones than admiring the taste of tho workmanship. While Ta hot was watching her, lull of wondering pity and horror, a young man hurrie I up to the spawhere she was seated, and reminded her of an engagement for the quadrille that was forming, she looked at her tablets of ivory, gnld, and turquoise, and. with a certain disdainful weariness, rose and took his arm. Talbot followed her receding form. Tallei than, roost among the throng, her queenly head was not soon lost right of. "A Cleopatra with a snub nose two fizes too small for her face, and a taste for horscfl sh ;" said Talbot Bulstrode, ruminating upou the departed divinity. •' She oueht to cairy a bettiDg-book instead of those ivory tablets. How distrait she was ali the time she satheie! I dare say riie ha 3 made a book tor the Leger, and was calculating how much she stands to loi-e. What wi 1 this poor old tiauker do with her ? put her into a madhouse, or get her elected a inembnof the jockey-club ? With her black eyes and fifty thousand pounds, she might lead tbe sporting world. There has been a female Pope, why should there not be a female ' Napoleon of the Turf 1' Later, wheu the rustling leaves ofthe trees in Berkenliain Wo ids were shiveingin that cold gray hour whioh precedes the advent of the dawn. Talbot l<ul-

strode drove hi* friend aw ay rom the banker's lighted mansion. Ha talked of Aurora F10.,d during thu whole of thai Ing cross country drive. He was merciless to her follies; he ridiculed, he nbused. he sneered at and condemned her .questionable t.stes

He bade Franciß Louis Maldon many her nt hi-peril and wished himj-.y of such a wife He declared tat if he had such a sister he would shoot her. unless she reformed and bnrnt her betiing-hook He woiknl himself up intoasiiviigehuuior.aboutthe yo-ing lady's delinquencies, and talked nf her as if she had done hira an unpardonable injury by cnteitainimr a taste for the Tu-f; til at last the poor meek voumr ensign plucked np a spirit, and told his Ru'iin-inr officer that Aurora Floyd was a very j-dly girl, an<l n goo I gill, and a perfect la-ly. iv d that ifshe did want to know who won the Leger. it was no business ot Captain Bulatrode's, and that he, Bulstrode, needn't make such a howling abo''t it. While the two men are getting to high words about her, Aurora is seated in her dr(-ssing.ro'>m, lhteiiinoto Lucy Floy's babble about tha b ill " ". here was never such a delightful party, that ymnglady said; "and did Aurora sic Mi-and-su. and so and-so, and so-and-so ? and above nil. did i-he observe Captain Bulstrode. who hail served all t.h-ough ♦he Crimean war, and who waiknl lame, and was the (•» of Sir John Walter Rateiirh Bulstrode, of Bulstrode Castle, near Camelford ?" 1^ Aurora shook her head with a weary gesture. No, j she hadn't "noticed any of these people. Poor Luev's | hildish tlk was stopped in a moment. "You are tired, Aurora dear,".she said: "hoiv cruel I am to n-oi-ty you ! " Auror* threw her arms about her cousin's neck and hid her face upon Lucy'y white shonlder. "I aria tired," she said, " very, very tired." She spoke with such an utterly despairing weariness in her tone, that her gentle cousin was alarmed by her words

"You are not unhappy, dear Aurora 1" she asked anxiously. ''No, no. only tirtd. There, go, Lucy. Gool night, good night." She gently pushed her cousin from the room, rejected the services of her maid, and dismissed htr also. Then, tir. dns she was, she remuved the candle from the dressing-table to a desk 011 the other side of the room,.and seating herself at thi-i desk unlocked it, and took from one of its most inmost re cesses the soiled pencil scrawl which had been sdveii her a week before by the man who tried tt tell her a dog In Oockspur street. The diamond b acelet, Archibald Floyd's birthday gift to his daughter, lay in a net of satin and velve; upon Aurora's dressing table. She 10 .k thp morocco ■rare in her hand, looked for a few moiwntsnt ih<-j*-wel, and then shut the lid of the Jitfcie ea.-ket with a sharp metallic snap. " Tiie 'fenr.t Wre in my father's eyes when he clasped the bracelet on my arm," she sail as sh resented herself at the disk. '• Whe could ste me now •''■■■

She wrapped the morocco cafe in a sheet of fyi'sCap, fccurwi the narcel in several phic;s with red wax and a plain seal, and dir eo ti;d it thus :

"J. C, Care of Mr J wrph Green, Bel Inn.

_ Do' caster." Lariy-thp next morning Miss Floyd drove her aunt and cousin into Croydon, and le'ivbnr t cm at, a Berlin Wool Shop, went alone io the Pt-st office, where she registered and posted this valuable parcel.