That duty done, my fortitude was exhausted, I saw before me, not the erring husband—the being who had blighted my youth by anxiety, and wounded all the dearest feelings of my soul; but the playfellow of my childhood, the idolized object of my youthful heart, and the husband of my virgin affections! and I was going to lose him! and he lay pale and bleeding before me! and his last fond lingering look of unutterable love was now about to close on me for ever!
"She has forgiven me!" he faltered out; "and Oh! mayst Thou forgive my trespasses against thee!—Helen! it is sweet and consoling, my only love, to die here," said he, laying his cheek upon my bosom:—and he spoke no more!
Alas! I could not have the sad consolation, when I recovered my recollection, to carry his body to England, to repose by those dear ones already in the grave; but I do not regret it now. Since then, the hands of piety have planted the rough soil in which he was laid; flowers bloom around his grave; and when five years ago I visited Paris, with my own hands I strewed his simple tomb with flowers that spring from the now hallowed soil around.
Object of my earliest and my fondest love never, no never, have forgotten thee! nor can I ever forget! But, like one of the shades of Ossian, thou comest over my soul, brightly arrayed in the beams of thy loveliness; but all around thee is dark with mists and storms!
To conclude.—I have only to add, that after two years of seclusion, and I may say of sorrow, and one of that dryness and desolation of the heart, when it seems as if it could love no more, that painful feeling vanished, and I became the willing bride of De Walden; that my beloved uncle lived to see me the happy mother of two children; and that my aunt gossips, advises and quotes, as well and as constantly as usual; that on the death of his uncle and his mother, my husband and I came to reside entirely in England; that Lord Charles Belmour, with a broken constitution and a shattered fortune, was glad at last to marry for a nurse and a dower, and took to wife a first cousin who had loved him for years,—a woman who had sense enough to overlook his faults in his good qualities, and temper enough to bear with the former; and he grows every day more happy, more amiable, and more in love with marriage.
For myself, I own with humble thankfulness the vastness of the blessings I enjoy; and though I cannot repent that I married the husband of my own choice, I confess I have never been so truly happy as with the husband of my mother's:—for though I feel that it is often delightful to forgive a husband's errors, she, and she alone, is truly to be envied, whose husband has no errors to forgive.
THE END.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE Missing punctuation has been added and superfluous punctuation removed(most frequently quotation marks). Period spellings have been retained,although a number of obvious typographical errors were corrected.Hyphenation is inconsistent throughout, and a number of words occurin various spellings. The name of one historical figure appears both as Hebert and as Herbertin the original, and has been changed to Hébert. Otherwise, nocorrections have been made to the French. The following additional changes have been made and can be identifiedin the body of the text by a grey dotted underline. | |
| I went to down dinner | I went down to dinner |
| and as i If addressed an inferior | and as if I addressed an inferior |
| We were asked to stay dinner | We were asked to stay to dinner |
| a mono-drame, a a ballet of action | a mono-drame, a ballet of action |
| the impractible Lord Charles | the impracticable Lord Charles |
| (NB impracticable here has its old meaning of unmanageable) | |
| were a tearful one fails | where a tearful one fails |
| as little attention as as I can | as little attention as I can |
One passage had a line of text out of sequence: | |
returned in much agitation from his walk, but I | |
The corrected passage reads: | |
returned in much agitation from his walk, but I | |