‘I’ll try if I can’t prevail upon Mr. Heywood, the unfortunate father of Clara, to come to your wedding; poor fellow! he may be compared to the ruined wing of the crazy old mansion-house he was converted into a farm, that looks down in gloomy silence upon the bright and smiling landscape which everywhere surrounds it. Ah! that sad girl! the flowers they go to gather are less frail than she has proved. My children be virtuous if you would be happy.’
Thus saying, the old man re-entered the cottage, but his words had been so many daggers to my heart.
‘Clara’s father,’ observed Ellen, when her father had left them, ‘ah! if our poor Clara herself were only here now, how her heart would rejoice in our happiness.’
‘Don’t name her, Ellen,’ said George, ‘don’t name her; a virtuous girl’s lips ought not to be sullied by the mention of her name.’
‘Ah! George,’ replied Ellen, ‘pity becomes the virtuous, and the more she has fallen, the more she deserves to be pitied.’
‘Psha!’ cried George, ‘can’t you talk about something else?’
‘A sad day it was when she went away,’ continued Ellen, ‘everybody was downcast, as if some great affliction had befallen the village.’
‘More fools they,’ was George’s abrupt retort; ‘if you or I had gone, indeed, it might have afflicted them; now, Ellen, you shall not talk any more about her. Come, come, let us be going.’
Suddenly accumulating all my fortitude, I emerged from the place where I had concealed myself, and called upon Ellen by name. Both her and her lover started, and the former exclaimed in a tone of astonishment and alarm:—
‘Bless us! what’s that?’