Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 3.djvu/258

 melancholy and pensive attitude, it seemed, with its gaudy plumage, to have dismissed the world and its vanities, while in mournful silence it surveyed the crowded mementos of eternity.

"This is my office, not thine," said I, apostrophizing the bird, which, alarmed at my near approach, quitted its position, and disappeared among the surrounding tombs. I sat down, and fixing my eyes on the name which the tablet bore, ran over, in a hurried manner, all that part of my career which had been more immediately connected with the history of Eugenia. I remembered her many virtues; her self-devotion for my honour and happiness; her concealing herself from me, that I might not blast my prospects in life by continuing an intimacy which she saw would end in my ruin; her firmness of character, her disinterested generosity, and the refinement of attachment which made her prefer misery and solitude to her own gratification in the society of the man she loved. She had, alas! but one fault, and that fault