CHAPTER LXXXIII.
There, if, O gentle love! I read aright
The utterance that sealed thy sacred bond,
'T was listening to those accents of delight
She hid upon his breast those eyes, beyond
Expression's power to paint, all languishingly fond.--CAMPBELL.
"And you will positively leave us for London," said Lady Flora,
tenderly, "and to-morrow too!" This was said to one who under the name
of Clarence Linden has played the principal part in our drama, and
whom now, by the death of his brother succeeding to the honours of his
house, we present to our reader as Clinton L'Estrange, Earl of
Ulswater.
They were alone in the memorable pavilion; and though it was winter
the sun shone cheerily into the apartment; and through the door, which
was left partly open, the evergreens, contrasting with the leafless
boughs of the oak and beech, could be just descried, furnishing the
lover with some meet simile of love, and deceiving the eyes of those
willing to be deceived with a resemblance to the departed summer. The
unusual mildness of the day seemed to operate genially upon the
birds,--those children of light and song; and they grouped blithely
beneath the window and round the door, where the hand of the kind
young spirit of the place had so often ministered to their wants.
Every now and then, too, you might hear the shrill glad note of the
blackbird keeping measure to his swift and low flight, and sometimes a
vagrant hare from the neighbouring preserves sauntered fearlessly by
the half-shut door, secure, from long experience, of an asylum in the
vicinity of one who had drawn from the breast of Nature a tenderness
and love for all its offspring.
Her lover sat at Flora's feet; and, looking upward, seemed to seek out
the fond and melting eyes which, too conscious of their secret, turned
bashfully from his gaze. He had drawn her arm over his shoulder; and
clasping that small and snowy hand, which, long coveted with a miser's
desire, was at length won, he pressed upon it a thousand kisses,
sweeter beguilers of time than even words. All had been long
explained; the space between their hearts annihilated; doubt, anxiety,
misconstruction, those clouds of love, had passed away, and left not a
wreck to obscure its heaven.
"And you will leave us to-morrow; must it be to-morrow?"
"Ah! Flora, it must; but see, I have your lock of hair--your
beautiful, dark hair--to kiss, when I am away from you, and I shall
have your letters, dearest,--a letter every day; and oh! more than
all, I shall have the hope, the certainty, that when we meet again,
you will be mine forever."
"And I, too, must, by seeing it in your handwriting, learn to
reconcile myself to your new name. Ah! I wish you had been still
Clarence,--only Clarence. Wealth, rank, power,--what are all these
but rivals to poor Flora?"
Lady Flora sighed, and the next moment blushed; and, what with the
sigh and the blush, Clarence's lips wandered from the hands to the
cheek, and thence to a mouth on which the west wind seemed to have
left the sweets of a thousand summers.
