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A pale and stately lady, with a brow That might have well beseemed a Roman dame, Cornelia, ere her glorious children died; Or that imperial mother, who beheld Her son forgive his country at her word. Yet there was trouble written on her face; The past had left its darkness.

was a wretched evening on which Norbourne Courtenaye reached his home. A cold wind, a piercing rain, and a bad road, with a worse hack (for his own horses had been knocked up), rendered more acute the misery which he, as a parted lover, was bound to feel. He felt himself more unhappy at every succeeding mile: and when he arrived—wet through, cold, tired, and hungry—he conceived, very justly, that he was the most unhappy of created beings. Still,