“Oh! say not so!” ejaculated Agnes, bursting into tears. “Surely it must be with my father’s knowledge that you came to see me—that you are taking me away with you. And yet,” she added, a sudden reminiscence flashing to her mind, and causing her to start painfully,—“and yet, I recollect now that I left the garden stealthily—that you urged me to come round to you in the lane, unperceived by the servants—that you knew not my father was in Paris. Oh! mother, mother,” cried the young girl, again interrupting herself, and speaking with a burst of anguish,—“what does all this mean? Whom am I to obey—you or my father?—for it is clear to me that in yielding deference to the counsel of the one, I must prove disobedient to the other!”
“Tranquillise yourself, dearest Agnes—tranquillise yourself, I implore you!” exclaimed the lady, straining the trembling—almost affrighted maiden to her breast.
“Ah! dearest mother, when I hear your voice and receive your kisses, I have no thought save for you,” murmured the young girl. “Oh! and now your tears fall upon my cheek. Mother—dear mother—forgive me for what I said ere now—I will obey you—and you only. But do not—do not weep, my beloved parent!”
“May God Almighty bless you, Agnes!” fervently exclaimed the lady, her tears streaming in blinding torrents from her eyes.
“Oh! do not weep—I implore you!” cried Agnes, in a tone of the most tender affection. “Are you unhappy, dear mother? If so, tell me the cause of your sorrow!”
“I am both happy and unhappy, Agnes,” was the response, almost choked with sobs. “I experience ineffable pleasure and acute pain, all at the same moment! But your words soothe me—your voice descends into my soul like sweet music—your caresses are as a balm to my bruised and weltering spirit!”
“Dear mother, let me embrace you closer still!” murmured Agnes, clinging to her parent in that narrow chaise as if there were an imminent danger of their immediate separation. “But wherefore are you happy and unhappy at the same time?”
“I am happy because I have this evening recovered you, and thus seen accomplished the hope of long, long years,” returned the lady; “and I am unhappy because I fear that some untoward circumstance will part us again.”
“Oh! what circumstance can part us, dear mother?” asked Agnes, her bosom filled with vague alarms. “May I not dwell with you, if I choose—and if you choose to have me with you?”
“Yes—oh! yes, Agnes,” replied her mother, earnestly and in an impassioned tone. “But will you not pine—when the excitement of these new feelings shall have passed away,—will you not pine, I say, for your secluded cottage—your beautiful garden—and—and your father?” she added, her voice suddenly becoming low and tremulously plaintive.