The pious Isabel with unwearied magnanimity persevered in the duties which her painful situation required. Her nights were uniformly spent in the chamber where her father was concealed, and her days were divided between him and the sad Constantia, who, ever pining for her Eustace, seemed to have no wish but to share his grave. Isabel tried to divert her thoughts to the consoling reflection that his honour was restored, his reputation cleared from the foul charge of treason and the accusations of Monthault; his name inscribed on the roll of England's loyal worthies, and the consecrating seal of death fixed on his memory. Dr. Beaumont endeavoured to make her wishes aspire to that happier world where she would rejoin him. He talked of the "order, nature, number, and obedience of angels[[1]];" and of her dear Eustace as now joined to their blessed society. He told her, that her lover and herself were still members of the same family, she suffering, he glorified. He pointed out to her those texts of Scripture which imply recognition in Heaven, and in particular mentioned the hope expressed by St. Paul, of presenting his Colossian converts to his Lord, and the Apostles sitting on thrones to judge the tribes of Israel, who therefore must be respectively known as disciples and countrymen. Sometimes he would try to excite emulation, by pointing out the conduct of Isabel, who endured a similar affliction in the destruction of her fondest hopes, but whose spirits were supported by constant bodily exertion, while her mental faculties were no less exercised by fresh contrivances, at once to amuse her father, and to add to the security of his retreat. These efforts, he said, gave such an energy to her mind, that she was able to give instead of requiring consolation. Dr. Beaumont attempted to revive his daughter's taste for the beauties of nature; shewed her the rich variety of mountains, dales, woods, lakes, and rivers, which embellished the vicinity of her native village, and especially that most exhilarating of terrestrial objects, the sun rising to enlighten a world which bursts at his approach into splendid beauty.
Constantia listened, reproved her own weakness, and wept. Yet the pious admonitions of her father, and the example of her cousin, assisted by the meliorating influence of time, had a gradual though slow effect, in changing grief into meek resignation. Her lute, long endeared by the remembrance of Eustace, was now attuned to deplore the death of him who had restored her the treasure. When sorrow can flow in poesy, it becomes more plaintive than agonizing; and possibly the reader will be pleased to see that the long-protracted years of Constantia's anguish were soothed by those alleviations, which, in mercy to man, are permitted imperceptibly to soften the ravages of death.
It is thus that afflicted survivors, in talking and meditating on those who are gone before them to the unseen world, derive an enjoyment from musing on the past, and from anticipating in the future what the present is not able to afford.
CONSTANTIA TO ISABEL.
And dost thou mourn the sad estate
Of widow'd love? then silent be;
And hark! while for my murder'd mate
I wake the lute's soft melody.
How dear to me the midnight moon,
As through the clouds she sails along,