Page:Romance & Reality 3.pdf/268

266 eyes filled with tears, and her voice became inaudible, as she watched Emily's feverish colour die away into marble paleness, and felt how heavily that slight and wasted frame leant on her for support. "So young, so beautiful, so gentle—gifted with rank, fortune, and one so made to love and to be loved—and yet dying—and dying, too, of that carefully kept grief which seemed a thing in which she could have no part. Alas! Life—on what a frail tenure dost thou hold thy dearest and loveliest! Her heart has given its most precious self, and the gift has been either slighted or betrayed. And I," thought Beatrice—"I, who am so happy in the love I deem my own—how could I bear neglect or falsehood from Edward? Happiness, thou art a fearful thing." It may be questioned whether Beatrice found either the support or the enjoyment in her father's society she expected. Keen in her perceptions, accurate in her conclusions, she could not but see the hollowness of arguments whose strength was in their sound; and she could not but perceive the absurdity of the small vanities which wore a giant's armour till they fancied they had a giant's power. However, the Grecian painter's veil is as good for a parent's folly as for