Page:Lady Barbarity; a romance (IA ladybarbarityrom00snai).pdf/330

 *versity, yet sets her foot upon it. For to-day, if all things fail, I am persuaded that I'll receive my enemies and outface them every one."

I was robed, therefore, with much care, and it pleased me, and also braced my resolution up, to know that my personal charms could not have been displayed to more delicate advantage. I knew that to meet the fierce eyes of my enemies would be the severest ordeal that I had undergone; and yet I did not shrink, but rejoiced rather in the self-elected task. They would expect to see me spiritless and crushed with woe; for they were not aware that I meant to show them what a fortitude was mine. None the less, the time that intervened between now and the coming of the coach that was to bear me to the final scene of all was passed in morbidity and wretchedness. For several days I had sent letters of vague comfort and encouragement to young Anthony, yet the Governor of Newgate refused to allow them to be delivered, and had sent them back again. And now at the last, as the rebel must be ignorant of the efforts I was making, I became haunted with the fear that he might have made an attempt upon his life, for I was certain that, to a person of his high temper, any death was preferable to the one he was doomed to undergo. And then there was the sincerity of Mr. Snark, whose possibilities were ever present, and harrowing my thoughts. Ten minutes before the coach arrived I wrung my hands and cried to the already weeping Mrs. Polly: