Page:An Evening at Lucy Ashton’s.pdf/5

Rh "And yet," murmured Lucy, "far happier than I! The shaft which struck her in youth did its work at once; but I bear the arrow in my heart that destroys me not. Well, well, its time will come!" The flickering light of the enormous chimney, whose hearth was piled with turf and wood, now flung its long and variable shadows round the chamber; and the figures on the tapestry seemed animate with strange and ghastly life. Lucy felt their eyes fix upon her, and the thought of death came cold and terrible. Ay; be resigned, be hopeful, be brave as we will, death is an awful thing! The nailing down in that close black coffin—the lowering into the darksome grave—the damp mould, with its fearful dwellers, the slimy worm and the loathsome reptile, to be trampled upon you—these are the realities of dread and disgust! And then to die in youth—life unknown, unenjoyed; no time to satiate of its pleasures, to weary of its troubles, to learn its wretchedness—to feel that you wish to live a little longer—that you could be happy! "And," added the miserable girl, "to know that he loves me—that he will kneel in the agony of a last despair by my grave! But no, no; they say he is vowed to another—a tall, dark, stately beauty:—what am I, that he should be true to me?" She wrung her hands, but the paroxysm was transitory; and fixing her eyes on the burning log,