At my time of life, however, the spirits are never long depressed, especially by an uncertain and remote sorrow; but as a captive butterfly, when the pressure on its wings is removed, flutters them again in air, with all their glittering dyes and buoyancy uninjured, so do the spirits of youth quickly resume their brilliancy and their elasticity.
When I rose the next morning, I was sure that Lady Helen would recover; I was sure that Seymour would reform, even if the reports concerning him were not exaggerated; and I was also sure that some time or other I should be his wife.
But, alas! Lady Helen had not spoken from momentary dejection, and still less from the ungenerous wish to excite interest and alarm in the hearts that tenderly loved her: she spoke from her deep conviction—a conviction only too well founded.
In less than two months, she was attacked by fever and inflammation of the brain, such as had before seized her on the death of her husband. She had, however, lucid intervals; and though my mother and myself felt our hearts wrung by her delirious ravings—during which she called upon her son's name in the most affecting language—still we suffered more, when, on recovering her senses, she asked for this darling son, and we were obliged to reply that he was not yet arrived.
And where—oh! where was he, at a moment like that? We knew not.
As soon as Lady Helen's attack was judged to be a dangerous one, my mother wrote to him at Oxford, desiring him to set off immediately, or he might come too late; and as Oxford was only a ten hours' journey from home, he might have been with us the next morning, had he been at college. It was also term time; but yet he came not, though on such an occasion, leave of absence was easily to be obtained. My mother was too angry to be as wretched as I was at this distressing circumstance—for indignation often swallows up every other feeling, and once she hinted to me that he must have received the letter, and that mere idle neglect kept him away; but the poor invalid, who, unsuspected by us, overheard our conversation, exclaimed—
"No, Julia; whatever are his other faults, my poor boy loves me—tenderly loves me; and even from a sick-bed he would hasten to his dying mother. Oh no! he has never received your letter—he is not in college."
"Then where is he? In college he ought to be."
"True, Julia; but he is young and thoughtless, and we ought to remember that we were so once ourselves. We ought not to have run away from our parents—yet we did so, Julia."
"We did, indeed," cried my mother, abashed and silenced.