Page:Duty and Inclination 1.pdf/204

196 to count the tedious hours in his gloomy confinement. One of his companions had met with a better fate; the Baronet, though not liberated, had succeeded in obtaining an apartment to himself. The Marquis had become his exclusive companion, and they were seated together, mutually commiserating their untoward destiny, when the door being opened, the jailer said, with a significant nod, that there were persons without who demanded an instant admittance to the prisoner Colonel De Brooke. Sensations indescribable overwhelmed him; they were no, other than his wife and children who met his fond, his transported gaze, and who were alternately clasped in wild ecstasy to his bosom; presenting a scene to the humane eye of the Marquis that filled him with the warmest sympathy, forgetting his own griefs in the part he took in those before him. Upon entering that small chamber, an icy chill had pervaded the frame of Mrs. De Brooke; she led by the hand her eldest child, the young Aubrey, then about seven years of age; her little daughters, Oriana and Rosilia, were carried in the arms of Robert. Scared at the dismal objects around her, the youngest uttered cries of fear, till soothed by the caress of her father. Oriana also hung affrighted upon the neck of her sable supporter. Less sensible to the gloom around