Page:Francesca Carrara 2.pdf/134

Rh That little window, half-hidden by the odoriferous branches, was the vista through which the future broke, bright, tender, and certain. Years to come rose visibly before me. The happy home, that dearest face for ever beside my hearth, the successful pursuit, the honours, the wealth, which were to be gained and lavished for her alone, gathered round me in perfect certainty. I believed in the destiny I created.

"Well may the human heart tremble in the presence of its happiness; the angelic visitant is revealed but in departing. Ay, children who sit there, gazing upon me with the earnest eyes of youth, dread a moment of enjoyment—it will be dearly purchased; it is the bright sunshine which presages and is merged in the heaviest showers. I stood gazing upward at that room. I fancied its sweet inmate sleeping; the black hair sweeping in masses over the pillow indented with the warm crimson cheek, which found a yet softer pillow on the fairy hand. I fancied the low and regular breathings of those fragrant lips over whose quiet rest I would have given worlds to watch. Suddenly a shadow darkened the lattice—it moved—she was not sleeping, then; perhaps, as with me, slumber was banished by a delicious unrest; perhaps she might look forth, and ask for sympathy