‘Heaven’s smile repay that word,’ I exclaimed fervently; ‘the weight which pressed me to the earth is removed, and all around me breathes ecstasy.’
‘It delights me to hear thee say so, my dearest Clara,’ replied the earl, ‘go, sweetest, and put on your richest dress to celebrate this joyous day.’
‘That day,’ I added, with enthusiasm, ‘that day which gives me back to honor. It shall be done, my lord.’
The earl kissed me affectionately, and left the room; and once more a cheering hope brought consolation to my heart, and assured me of future happiness and joy. Alas! how soon was I to be awakened to the greatest agony! To more misery than I had ever before experienced.
The festivities of the day passed off most brilliantly until the play commenced. The gardens in which it took place were brilliantly illuminated, and the temporary theatre was formed among the trees in the back. Just as the performances were about to commence, a servant entered and delivered to the earl a letter, upon perusing the contents of which, he excused himself to me and the numerous guests, it being necessary that he should be absent for a short time; but he begged that his absence might not interrupt their pleasure, as the village actors would amuse them with their humble efforts; and ere they had ended, he would return.
When the earl had gone, I beckoned Celia over to me, and the play immediately commenced; but what were my feelings of intense agony as it proceeded, when I perceived that the plot, and every incident of the piece, so corresponded with my own circumstances, that it seemed as if they had actually chosen me to sketch the heroine from. A nobleman wooed a peasant girl; he vowed the most unbounded affection for her;—promised her marriage, if she would but elope with him;—she was persuaded;—she sunk senseless in his arms, and was conveyed away.
During the time the piece was being played, my anguish was insupportable, and I was so worked upon by the power of each scene, that I could scarcely persuade myself but that it was reality.
‘Fatal resemblance,’ I ejaculated, at the passage where the seducer bears his victim away; ‘has there before been such another deluded being?’
‘Be calm, dear mistress, be calm,’ said Celia, ‘it is only a play.’
But my thoughts were too intently fixed upon the scene which followed, to pay any particular attention to her words. The parents of the betrayed one, as represented in the piece, upon hearing the screams of their daughter, rushed on to the stage, the father demanding of his wife the meaning of the alarm, and the cause of the cries he had heard. The mother looking round, and finding that her daughter was not there, exclaimed:—