Page:The castle of Otranto (Third Edition).djvu/217

 while I have life to ask it—Oh! my mother! what will she feel!—will you comfort her, my Lord! will you not put her away? indeed she loves you—oh! I am faint! bear me to the castle—can I live to have her close my eyes?

Theodore and the monks besought her earnestly to suffer herself to be borne into the convent; but her instances were so pressing to be carried to the castle, that placing her on a litter, they conveyed her thither as she requested. Theodore supporting her head with his arm, and hanging over her in an agony of despairing love, still endeavoured to inspire her with hopes of life. Jerome on the other side comforted her with discourses of heaven, and holding a crucifix before her, which she bathed with innocent tears, prepared her for her passage to immortality. Manfred plunged in the deepest affliction, followed the litter in despair.

E'er they reached the castle, Hippolita, informed of the dreadful catastrophe, had flown to meet her murdered child: but when she saw