Page:Francesca Carrara 1.pdf/66

62 indifference was the only sorrow which her anxious fancy never conjured up. She felt more for what she believed must be his regret than for her own.

Lady Evelyn's death led to her leaving the hall for a home more than ever distasteful; true, she was independent, even rich, for her station; but for it she was utterly unfit. She was too gentle, too unselfish, not to be beloved; and though her father sometimes wished that she were more active, and her grandmother that she were less sad, still they were both proud and fond of her. They soon would have sorely missed the fairy hand whose birds and flowers gave a new cheerfulness to the house, and the sweet voice ever ready to sing their favourite old songs, or to read the sacred page, which, to use the poor old woman's words, "she did like an angel." But for herself the hope of life was gone. Every hour that she could, she passed in solitude, dreary, unoccupied, mournful solitude;—what wonder was it that the colour left a cheek so often washed with tears?

But the crimson just now was radiant enough. Recovering from the first almost shock of delight, she clasped her hands in mute thankfulness to Heaven. She, whose timid eyes drooped at his least look, now gazed on his countenance as if