Page:Romance & Reality 3.pdf/248

246 in dismay at seeing her companion's head drop heavily upon her arm, she had not the least idea that her insensibility was occasioned by any part of her narrative. Remedies and relics were equally resorted to before she recovered, when every cause but the right one was assigned for her fainting.

Emily had thought she was accustomed to consider Lorraine attached to another; but that vague hope which lingers so unconsciously in the human heart, or not so much hope as uncertainty, that had as yet given no tangible shape to her rival, had ill prepared her to find that rival in her own familiar companion. Vain regrets; sorrow as passionate as it was bitter, ended in a feeling that could live only in the heart of a woman, young, affectionate, and unworldly. Lorraine, then, loved the young Spaniard, and "I," thought Emily, "may love her too." A patriot might take his best lesson of disinterestedness from feminine affection.