Читать книгу Fabiola; Or, The Church of the Catacombs онлайн

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“You, dear Agnes,” replied the father, “are privileged to do as you please. But, seriously speaking, I must say that, even with you, this may have answered while you were a mere child; now that you are marriageable,[23] you must begin to make a little more display, and try to win the affections of some handsome and eligible youth. A beautiful necklace, for instance, such as you have plenty of at home, would not make you less attractive. But you are not attending to me. Come, come, I dare say you have some one already in view.”

During most of this address, which was meant to be thoroughly good-natured, as it was perfectly worldly, Agnes appeared in one of her abstracted moods, her bewitched looks, as Fabiola called them, transfixed, in a smiling ecstasy, as if attending to some one else, but never losing the thread of the discourse, nor saying any thing out of place. She therefore at once answered Fabius: “Oh, yes, most certainly, one who has already pledged me to him by his betrothal-ring, and has adorned me with immense jewels.”[24]