Page:Romance & Reality 2.pdf/146

144 "Ah, my dear Emily, to you is closed one of the sweetest sources of youthful felicity. You have no father with a proverbially flinty heart,—no guardian to lock you up! It is impossible for you to have an unfortunate attachment; and—young, rich, pretty—I think you can hardly console yourself with even an unrequited one. How ill-used I did think myself!—what consequence it gave me in my own eyes! Three weeks passed away,—I caught two sore throats by leaning out of an open window, watching the moon shine on the terrace where we used to walk. I threatened my mother with a consumption. I sat up at night reading and re-reading his letter, and gazing on a little profile which I had drawn with a black-lead pencil, and called his—Heaven knows there was no fear it would be recognised!

"Three weeks passed, when, taking up the paper, and turning—as a woman always does—to the births, deaths, and marriages, what should I see but—'Married, on Thursday last, at Gretna, Henry O'Byrne, of Killdaren Castle, in Connaught, to Eliza, only daughter and heiress of Jonathan Simpkin.' The paper dropped from my hand. I knew my red-haired rival well—she had dined at our house with