Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 2).djvu/79

 her fallen back, pale, and weeping in her chair. The lute instantly dropped from Madeline, and starting up, she instinctively flung her arms round her benefactress, exclaiming, "Good heavens! Madam, what is the matter." Then, without waiting for a reply, she was flying from the room for assistance, when the voice of the Countess made her stop.

"Return, my dear, (said she, raising herself on her chair) I am now better. It was only my spirits were overcome. Your solemn strains awoke in my mind recollections of the most painful nature; the hymn you were playing was a favourite of my lord's. The evening preceding the illness which terminated his life, as pale and languid he sat by me in this very room, he requested me to play it for him; his words, his looks, while he listened, as afterwards considered by me, have since convinced me that he knew his end was approaching, and that he fixed on this hymn as a kind of requiem for his de-