Love Me Little, Love Me Long Charles Reade Love Me Little, Love Me Long Table of Contents Love Me Little, Love Me Long.................................................................................................................................1 Charles Reade................................................................................................................................................1 PREFACE......................................................................................................................................................1 CHAPTER I...................................................................................................................................................2 CHAPTER II................................................................................................................................................15 CHAPTER III..............................................................................................................................................33 CHAPTER IV..............................................................................................................................................46 CHAPTER V................................................................................................................................................54 CHAPTER VI..............................................................................................................................................55 CHAPTER VII.............................................................................................................................................61 CHAPTER VIII............................................................................................................................................77 CHAPTER IX..............................................................................................................................................86 CHAPTER X................................................................................................................................................89 CHAPTER XI............................................................................................................................................102 CHAPTER XII...........................................................................................................................................104 CHAPTER XIII..........................................................................................................................................122 CHAPTER XIV.........................................................................................................................................134 CHAPTER XV...........................................................................................................................................173 CHAPTER XVI.........................................................................................................................................186 CHAPTER XVII........................................................................................................................................190 CHAPTER XVIII.......................................................................................................................................198 CHAPTER XIX.........................................................................................................................................207 CHAPTER XX...........................................................................................................................................209 CHAPTER XXI.........................................................................................................................................210 CHAPTER XXII........................................................................................................................................224 CHAPTER XXIII.......................................................................................................................................227 CHAPTER XXIV......................................................................................................................................230 CHAPTER XXV........................................................................................................................................233 CHAPTER XXVI......................................................................................................................................241 CHAPTER XXVII.....................................................................................................................................245 CHAPTER XXVIII....................................................................................................................................247 CHAPTER XXIX......................................................................................................................................251 CHAPTER XXX........................................................................................................................................253 CHAPTER XXXI......................................................................................................................................254 i Love Me Little, Love Me Long Charles Reade This page copyright © 2002 Blackmask Online. http://www.blackmask.com • PREFACE • CHAPTER I. • CHAPTER II. • CHAPTER III. • CHAPTER IV. • CHAPTER V. • CHAPTER VI. • CHAPTER VII. • CHAPTER VIII. • CHAPTER IX. • CHAPTER X. • CHAPTER XI. • CHAPTER XII. • CHAPTER XIII. • CHAPTER XIV. • CHAPTER XV. • CHAPTER XVI. • CHAPTER XVII. • CHAPTER XVIII. • CHAPTER XIX. • CHAPTER XX. • CHAPTER XXI. • CHAPTER XXII. • CHAPTER XXIII. • CHAPTER XXIV. • CHAPTER XXV. • CHAPTER XXVI. • CHAPTER XXVII. • CHAPTER XXVIII. • CHAPTER XXIX. • CHAPTER XXX. • CHAPTER XXXI. Etext by James Rusk, jrusk@mac−email.com Charles Reade web site: http://www.blackmask.com/jrusk/ PREFACE SHOULD these characters, imbedded in carpet incidents, interest the public at all, they will probably reappear in more potent scenes. This design, which I may never live to execute, is, I fear, the only excuse I can at present Love Me Little, Love Me Long 1 Love Me Little, Love Me Long offer for some pages, forming the twelfth chapter of this volume. CHAPTER I. NEARLY a quarter of a century ago, Lucy Fountain, a young lady of beauty and distinction, was, by the death of her mother, her sole surviving parent, left in the hands of her two trustees, Edward Fountain, Esq., of Font Abbey, and Mr. Bazalgette, a merchant whose wife was Mrs. Fountain's half−sister. They agreed to lighten the burden by dividing it. She should spend half the year with each trustee in turn, until marriage should take her off their hands. Our mild tale begins in Mr. Bazalgette's own house, two years after the date of that arrangement. The chit−chat must be your main clue to the characters. In life it is the same. Men and women won't come to you ticketed, or explanation in hand. "Lucy, you are a great comfort in a house; it is so nice to have some one to pour out one's heart to; my husband is no use at all." "Aunt Bazalgette!" "In that way. You listen to my faded illusions, to the aspirations of a nature too finely organized, ah! to find its happiness in this rough, selfish world. When I open my bosom to him, what does he do? Guess nowwhistles." "Then I call that rude." "So do I; and then he whistles more and more." "Yes; but, aunt, if any serious trouble or grief fell upon you, you would find Mr. Bazalgette a much greater comfort and a better stay than poor spiritless me." "Oh, if the house took fire and fell about our ears, he would come out of his shell, no doubt; or if the children all died one after another, poor dear little souls; but those great troubles only come in stories. Give me a friend that can sympathize with the real hourly mortifications of a too susceptible nature; sit on this ottoman, and let me go on. Where was I when Jones came and interrupted us? They always do just at the interesting point." Miss Fountain's face promptly wreathed itself into an expectant smile. She abandoned her hand and her ear, and leaned her graceful person toward her aunt, while that lady murmured to her in low and thrilling toneshis eyes, his long hair, his imaginative expressions, his romantic projects of frugal love; how her harsh papa had warned Adonis off the premises; how Adonis went without a word (as pale as death, love), and soon after, in his despair, flung himselfto an ugly heiress; and how this disappointment had darkened her whole life, and so on. Perhaps, if Adonis had stood before her now, rolling his eyes, and his phrases hot from the annuals, the flourishing matron might have sent him to the servants' hall with a wave of her white and jeweled hand. But the melody disarms this sort of brutal criticisma woman's voice relating love's young dream; and then the picturea matron still handsome pouring into a lovely virgin's ear the last thing she ought; the young beauty's eyes mimicking sympathy; the ripe beauty's soft, delicious accentspurr! purr! purr! Crash overhead! a window smashed aie! aie! clatter! clatter! screams of infantine rage and feminine remonstrance, feet pattering, and a general hullabaloo, cut the soft recital in two. The ladies clasped hands, like CHAPTER I. 2 Love Me Little, Love Me Long guilty things surprised. Lucy sprang to her feet; the oppressed one sank slowly and gracefully back, inch by inch, on the ottoman, with a sigh of ostentatious