The extraordinary confessions of Diana Please

INTRODUCTORY I. I MAKE MY DÉBUT II. I AM ABDUCTED III. I ESCAPE IV. I FALL INTO THE HANDS OF A COLLECTOR V. I AM CARRIED AWAY AS A SPECIMEN VI. I AM “PINNED OUT” VII. I AM PUT A...

My sauciness took her completely aback. She stared at me for some moments in silence, and then cried out suddenly, “God forgive you, Diane, and the vile creature who has instruc...

At least I call him a man; but O, my Alcide, he was a marionnette! His joints creaked. All the bran in his body seemed to have been shaken down into his calves. His hat supporte...

I heard a shuffling on the stairs as I re-entered by the window, and in a moment, tripping lightly, came upon Father Pope descending. He had his great book under his arm, and he...

After all, I believed it was true; that she could not have survived the wreck of all things which my abduction must have meant to her. The gentlewoman gave a gasp of pity and se...

“Wait,” I cried, “and I will pay them both out! What right had they, after what I said, to try and torture a lie out of you? Don’t fear for the convent, child. I pledge my word...

“Ay, Mistress Una,” said he, “you’re all pretty players, from miss to my lady dowager. Don’t tell me. You all love to excite the emotions you don’t understand, and then off with...

I will admit that the shock to my vanity was for the moment acute, until reflection came to convince me that this rickety light-o’-love, wearying of his one day’s abstinence, an...

“You make a mistake, madam,” said my captor. “He was not to have met you. But, be reconciled; time and judicious treatment, I have not the least doubt, will cure you of this del...

Dr. Peel knew well the impotence of virtue to conquer. He saw it of such poor force in the world as to figure of no moment at all in a contest with vice. He did not fear God, bu...

“Yes,” I said quietly, “for the second time and always, because of what you have done. But I fear for myself now, and shall go on fearing. Let me go--O, Gogo, let me escape into...

Yet I must own that the oasis in which this destiny was to be fulfilled figured for a period the greenest in all my desert career. It was a dear time, in truth; a dear, abandone...

“That sounds frank,” said he. He sat musing a little. “You’re a child, ’tis true, mutable and thoughtless; but where could be the harm? If the secret were mine only-- Well, stud...

That did not assuage my fears, though it was some comfort henceforth to be spared the pretence of blindness to his flittings--a comfort, I think, to him as well as to me, though...

Chief among my favourites was a madcap young member, whose wit was never so impertinent as when, flitting here and there for an opportunity, it could prick the sides of some gre...

“If you are strong--yes. I have been alert and watchful, child, while you never knew it. But he did; and he means to separate us; to rid himself of the watch-dog, that he may se...

“You shall give me your neckerchief,” I said; and, cutting the discussion short, drove her away at length, with her pretty face in the hood, and tears in her eyes.

“I do not want you, child, _I_?” he said, in a sick voice, and held out his hands fondly to her across the table. “Ah, but we know better the truth of our hearts! When the battl...

“Didn’t you?” she said, gathering the folds of her cloak about her. “Well, supposing you didn’t, what then? You ain’t goin’ to forego your principles for a sentiment like that--...

“He has but now ridden--been driven, would be truer--from Albano. For the moment everything seems lost. Ferdinand is at the last extreme of exhaustion and agitation. Madam will...

And the following day we sailed for Palermo, in a vessel as full of royal livestock as if it had been a training ship for kings. Besides their Majesties, and as many of their pr...

“Gogo,” I whispered suddenly, “you will give me credit for having known nothing of your state all this time. Whenever I asked M. de’ Medici, he assured me of your comfort and pr...