Page:An Evening at Lucy Ashton’s.pdf/13

Rh negligently, contrasted with the warm colour of the velvet; but extending the other towards the table, she took a glass; at her sign the Count filled it with wine. "'Will you pledge me?' said she, touching the cup with her lips, and passing it to him. He drank it—for wine and air seemed alike freighted with the odour of her sigh. "'My beauty!' exclaimed Ludolf, detaining the ivory hand. "'Nay, Count,' returned the stranger, in that sweet and peculiar voice, more like music than language—'I know how lightly you hold the lover's vow!' "'I never loved till now!' exclaimed he, impatiently; 'name, rank, fortune, life, soul, are your own.' "She drew a ring from her hand, and placed it on his, leaving her's in his clasp. 'What will you give me in exchange,—this?'—and she took the diamond cross of an order which he wore. "'Ay, and by my knightly faith will I, and redeem it at your pleasure.' "It was her hand which now grasped his; a change passed over her face: 'I thank you, my sister-in-death, for your likeness,' said she, in an altered voice, turning to where the portrait had hung. For the first time, the Count observed that the frame was empty. Her grasp tightened upon him—it was the bony hand of a skeleton. The beauty