The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood by George Frisbie Whicher
page 83 of 250 (33%)
page 83 of 250 (33%)
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Part II. At Sienna the lovers enjoy a season of perfect felicity until Don Jaques comes to town in pursuit of a defaulting steward, discovers Clementina, and apprehends the pair. While the two are confined in separate convents awaiting trial, Clementina's maid, Ismenia (who has already related her little history), becomes their go-between and serves her mistress the same trick that Clementina had already played upon her friend Miramene. Ismenia and the faithless Baron decamp to parts unknown, while Clementina's father starts back to Rome with his recreant daughter. In man's clothes she escapes from her parent to seek revenge upon her lover. At an inn she hears a woman in the next room complaining of her gallant's desertion, and going in to console her, hears the moving story of Signiora Vicino and Monsieur Beaumont, told as a warning to the credulous and unwary sex. The injured fair enters a convent. Still in pursuit of her lover, Clementina on Montelupe meets the funeral of a young woman who had been torn to pieces by wolves. The chief mourner proves to be Glencairn. She is hindered in an attempt to stab him and thrown into prison, where he visits her and disarms her resentment by offering to marry her. After the ceremony they proceed to Paris where each plunges into dissipation. Finally they separate, Clementina dies of a fever, and the Baron is left free to pursue his inclinations through a possible third part, which, however, was never written. After a slumber of forty years "The Agreeable Caledonian" was reprinted, as the "Monthly Review" informs us, from a copy corrected by Mrs. Haywood not long before her death.[16] The review continues, "It is like the rest of Mrs. Haywood's novels, written in a tawdry style, now utterly exploded; the romances of these days being reduced much nearer |
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