Read "Melmoth The Wanderer, Volume 4" by Charles Maturin online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Oh, spare me, Grimbald! I will tempt hermits for thee in their cells, And virgins in their dreams. DRYDEN'S KING ARTHUR.
It is a singular, but well-attested fact, that women who are compelled to undergo all the inconveniences and uneasiness of clandestine pregnancy, often fare better than those whose situation is watched over by tender and anxious relatives; and that concealed or illegitimate births are actually attended with less danger and suffering than those which have all the aid that skill and affection can give. So it appeared likely to fare with Isidora. The retirement in which her family lived -- the temper of Donna Clara, as slow to suspect from want of penetration, as she was eager in pursuing an object once discovered, from the natural cupidity of a vacant mind -- these circumstances, combined with the dress of the day, the enormous and enveloping fardingale, gave safety to her secret, at least till the arrival of its crisis.