Here, overcome with emotion, Mrs Pemberton paused; but Adeline could not break silence: she rose, she stretched out her hand as if going to speak, but her utterance failed her, and again she sunk on a chair.
'It was thine,' resumed Mrs Pemberton in a faint and broken voice, 'to diffuse happiness around thee, and to enjoy wealth unhated, because thy hand dispensed nobly the riches which it had received bounteously: when the ear heard thee, then it blessed thee; when the eye saw thee, it gave witness to thee; and yet—'
Here again she paused, and raised her fine eyes to heaven for a few minutes, as if in prayer; then, pressing Adeline's hand with an almost convulsive grasp, she drew her bonnet over her face, as if eager to hide the emotion which she was unable to subdue, and suddenly left the house; while Adeline, stunned and overwhelmed by the striking contrast which Mrs Pemberton had drawn between her past and present situation, remained for some minutes motionless on her seat, a prey to a variety of feelings which she dared not venture to analyse.
But, amidst the variety of her feelings, Adeline soon found that sorrow, sorrow of the bitterest kind, was uppermost. Mrs Pemberton had said that she was about to be visited by affliction—alluding, there was no doubt, to the probable death of Glenmurray—And was his fate so certain that it was the theme of conversation at Richmond? Were only her eyes blind to the certainty of his danger?
On these ideas did Adeline chiefly dwell after the departure of her monitress; and in an agony unspeakable she entered the room where Glenmurray was sitting, in order to look at him, and form her own judgment on a subject of such importance. But, alas! she found him with the brilliant deceitful appearance that attends his complaint—a bloom resembling health on his cheek, and a brightness in his eye rivalling that of the undimmed lustre of youth. Surprised, delighted, and overcome by these appearances, which her inexperience rendered her incapable of appreciating justly, Adeline threw herself on the sofa by him; and, as she pressed her cold cheek to his glowing one, her tearful eye was raised to heaven with an expression of devout thankfulness.
'Mrs Pemberton paid you a long visit,' said Glenmurray, 'and I thought once, by the elevated tone of her voice, that she was preaching to you.'
'I believe she was,' cheerfully replied Adeline, 'and now I have a confession to make; the season of reserve shall be over, and I will tell you all the adventures of this day without evasion.'
'Aye, I thought you were not ingenuous with me this morning,' replied Glenmurray: 'but better late than never.'
Adeline then told him all that had passed between her and Mary and Mrs Pemberton, and concluded with saying, 'But the surety of your better health, which your looks give me, has dissipated every uneasiness; and if you are but spared to me, sorrow cannot reach me, and I despise the censure of the ignorant and the prejudiced. The world approve! What is the world to me?'—
'The conscious mind is its own awful world!'