I found M———— house, as usual, cold, comfortless, and desolate—with a few wretched-looking peasants working languidly about the grounds. In short, everything breathed the deserted mansion of an absentee.
The evening of my arrival I answered my father’s letters—one from our pleasant but libertine friend D———n,—read over yours three times—went to bed—dreamed of Glorvina—and set off for Inismore the next morning. I rode so hard that I reached the castle about that hour which we usually devoted to the exertions of the pencil. I flew at once to that vast and gloomy room which her presence alone cheers and illumines. Her drawing-desk lay open; she seemed but just to have risen from the chair placed before it; and her work-basket hung on its back.
Even this well-known little work-basket is to me an object of interest. I kissed the muslin it contained; and, in raising it, perceived a small book splendidly bound and gilt. I took it up, and read on its cover, marked in letters of gold, “Brevaire du Sentiment.”
Impelled by the curiosity which this title excited, I opened it—and found beneath its first two leaves several faded snowdrops stained with blood. Under them was written in Glorvina’s hand,
“Prone to the earth he bowed our pallid flowers—
And caught the drops divine, the purple dyes
Tinging the lustre of our native hues.”
A little lower in the page was traced, “Culled from the spot where he fell—April the 1st, 17—
Oh! how quickly my bounding heart told me who was that he, whose vital drops had stained these treasured blossoms, thus “tinging the lustre of their native hues.” While the sweetest association of ideas convinced me that these were the identical flowers which Glorvina had hallowed with a tear as she watched by the couch of him with whose blood they were polluted.
While I pressed this sweet testimony of a pure and lively tenderness to my lips, she entered. At sight of me, pleasurable surprise invested every feature; and the most innocent joy lit up her countenance, as she sprang forward and offered me her hand. While I carried it eagerly to my lips, I pointed to the snowdrops. Glorvina, with the hand which was disengaged, covered her blushing face, and would have fled. But the look which preceded this natural motion discovered the wounded feelings of a tender but proud heart. I felt the indelicacy of my conduct, and, still clasping her struggling hand, exclaimed—