Read "Lodore" by Mary Shelley online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The pure, the open, prosperous love. That pledged on earth, and sealed above. Grows in the world's approving eyes. In friendship's smile and home's caress. Collecting all the heart's sweet ties Into one knot of happiness. --Lalla Rookh.
Another month withered away in fruitless expectation. Villiers felt that he was following an ignis fatuus, yet knew not how to give up his pursuit. At length, he listened more docilely to Ethel's representations of the expediency of quitting town. She wished to pay her long-promised visit to her aunt, and Villiers at last consented to accompany her. They gave up their house, dispersed a tolerably numerous establishment, and left town for their sober and rural seclusion in Essex.