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She groped along the winding walls for some time, when she perceived the way was obstructed. She now discovered that another door interrupted her progress, and sought for the bolts which might fasten it. These she found; and strengthened by desparation forced them back. The door opened, and she beheld in a small room, which received its feeble light from a window above, the pale and emaciated figure of a woman, seated, with half-closed eyes, in a kind of elbow-chair. On perceiving Julia, she started from her seat, and her countenance expressed a wild surprise. Her features, which were worn by sorrow, still retained the traces of beauty, and in her air was a mild dignity that excited in Julia an involuntary veneration. It must be grand to be so strong that one could, well, beat everybody—that is, of course, all the boys,—if one had a mind to do it. Not that he, Johnny Blossom, really wanted to fight everybody; only to have strength enough to do it, if it were necessary. And to be able to hold the heaviest things with your arm stretched out straight! “No, no, Dad!” Bob cried. “We won’t give up the idea! I—didn’t know you felt that way about it. The engineering can go. I’ll write Whiskers and tell him I’m not coming. Of course we’ll have the firm of Hazard and Son and we’ll make rival lawyers sit up and take notice!”.
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Conrad
“You are lucky but I’m mighty glad for you. It’ll be a heap more fun than that office work.” Hippolitus, who had languished under a long and dangerous illness occasioned by his wounds, but heightened and prolonged by the distress of his mind, was detained in a small town in the coast of Calabria, and was yet ignorant of the death of Cornelia. He scarcely doubted that Julia was now devoted to the duke, and this thought was at times poison to his heart. After his arrival in Calabria, immediately on the recovery of his senses, he dispatched a servant back to the castle of Mazzini, to gain secret intelligence of what had passed after his departure. The eagerness with which we endeavour to escape from misery, taught him to encourage a remote and romantic hope that Julia yet lived for him. Yet even this hope at length languished into despair, as the time elapsed which should have brought his servant from Sicily. Days and weeks passed away in the utmost anxiety to Hippolitus, for still his emissary did not appear; and at last, concluding that he had been either seized by robbers, or discovered and detained by the marquis, the Count sent off a second emissary to the castle of Mazzini. By him he learned the news of Julia's flight, and his heart dilated with joy; but it was suddenly checked when he heard the marquis had discovered her retreat in the abbey of St Augustin. The wounds which still detained him in confinement, now became intolerable. Julia might yet be lost to him for ever. But even his present state of fear and uncertainty was bliss compared with the anguish of despair, which his mind had long endured. The two elder girls, when they had heard his tale, cried and screamed, and began saying all sorts of cruel things to Beauty, who did not shed a tear. "See what the pride of this wretched little creature has brought us to!" said they. "Why couldn't she ask for wearing apparel as we did? but no, she must needs show herself off as a superior person. It is she who will be the cause of our father's death, and she does not even cry!" Rosette's portrait was carried uncovered, at the top of a long pole, and the King walked after it in solemn state, with all his nobles and his peacocks, followed by ambassadors from various kingdoms. The King of the Peacocks was very impatient to see his dear Rosette; but when he did see her—well, he very nearly died on the spot. He flew into a violent rage, he tore his clothes, he would not go near her, he felt quite afraid of her. "What!" he cried, "have those two villains I have in prison had the boldness and impudence to make a laughing-stock of me, and to propose my marrying such a fright as that? They shall both be killed; and let that insolent woman, and the nurse, and the man who is with them, be immediately carried to the dungeon of my great tower, and there kept." While this was going on, the King and his brother, who knew that his sister was expected, had put on their bravest apparel ready to receive her; but instead of seeing their prison door open and being set at liberty, as they had hoped, the gaoler came with a body of soldiers and made them go down into a dark cellar, full of horrible reptiles, and where the water was up to their necks; no one was ever more surprised or distressed than they were. "Alas!" they said to one another, "this is indeed a melancholy marriage feast for us! What can have happened that we should be so ill-treated?" They did not know what in the world to think, except that they were to be killed, and they were very sorrowful about this. Three days passed, and no news reached them of any kind. At the end of that time, the King of the Peacocks came, and began calling out insulting things to them through a hole in the wall. "You called yourselves King and Prince, that I might fall into your trap, and engage myself to marry your sister; but you are nothing better than two beggars, who are not worth the water you drink. I am going to bring you before the judges, who will soon pass their verdict upon you; the rope to hang you with is already being made." "King of the Peacocks," replied the King, angrily, "do not act too rashly in this matter, or you may repent it. I am a King as well as you, and I have a fine kingdom, and rich clothing, and crowns, to say nothing of good gold pieces. You must be joking to talk like this of hanging us; have we stolen anything from you?".
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