Page:Romance & Reality 3.pdf/77

Rh were easily roused by being moved. If she, to satisfy her own fears, were to wake her mother! Beatrice trembled even to touch her hand. The storm had now spent its fury, and was succeeded by a heavy shower. Fortunately, the thick shelter of the leaves protected them: and the rain that fell through though sufficient to drench her own light garments, would do little injury to the thick cloak which enveloped her mother. It was too violent to last; but a long and dreary interval had yet to pass before daybreak,—haunted, too, by the fear of her mother's death, which had now completely taken possession of poor Beatrice. At last a faint break appeared in the sky; it widened, objects became faintly outlined on the air—shadowy, indistinct, and sometimes seeming as if about to darken again; a slight red hue suddenly shone on the trunk of the ilex, and light came rapidly through the branches. Beatrice only watched it as it fell on her mother; her face was now visible—it wore the placid look of a sleeping child; again she felt her warm breath upon her cheek. For the first time that night, Beatrice wept, and in the blessing of such tears forgot for a moment the dangers which yet surrounded them. She now perceived that they were quite