Yet, though experiencing a pleasurable emotion, strong as it was novel, there was still one little wakeful wish throbbing vaguely at my heart.
Was it possible that my chilled, my sated misanthropic feelings, still sent forth one sigh of wishful solicitude for woman’s dangerous presence? No, the sentiment the daughter of the Prince inspired, only made a part in that general feeling of curiosity, which every thing in this new region of wonders continued to nourish into existence. What had I to expect from the unpolished manners, the confined ideas of this Wild Irish Girl? Deprived of all those touching allurements which society only gives; reared in wilds and solitudes, with no other associates than her nurse, her confessor, and her father; endowed indeed by nature with some personal gifts, set off by the advantage of a singular and characteristic dress, for which she is indebted to whim and natural prejudice, rather than native taste:—I, who had fled in disgust even from those to whose natural attraction the bewitching blandishments of education, the brilliant polish of fashion, and the dazzling splendour of real rank, contributed their potent spells.
And yet, the roses of Florida, though the fair est in the universe, and springing from the richest soil, emit no fragrance; while the mountain violet, rearing its timid form from a steril bed, flings on the morning breeze the most delicious perfume.
While given up to such reflections as these—while the sound of the Irish harp arose from the hall below, and the nurse muttered her prayers in Irish over her beads by my side, I fell into a gentle slumber, in which I dreamed that the Princess of Inismore approached my bed, drew aside the curtains, and raising her veil, discovered a face I had hitherto rather guessed at than seen. Imagine my horror—it was the face, the head of a Gorgon!
Awakened by the sudden and terrific emotion it excited, though still almost motionless, as if from the effects of a nightmare (which in fact, from the position I lay in, had oppressed me in the form of the Princess) I cast my eyes through a fracture in the old damask drapery of my bed, and beheld—not the horrid spectre of my recent dream, but the form of a cherub hovering near my pillow—it was the Lady Glorvina herself! Oh! how I trembled lest the fair image should only be the vision of my slumber: I scarcely dared to breathe, lest it should dissolve.
She was seated on the nurse’s little stool, her elbow resting on her knee, her cheek reclined upon her hand: for once the wish of Romeo appeared no hyperbela.
Some snowdrops lay scattered in her lap, on which her downcast eyes shed their beams; as though she moralized over the modest blossoms, which, in fate a delecacy, resembled herself. Changing her pensive attitude, she collected them into a bunch, and sighed, and waved her head as she gazed on them. The dew that trembled on their leaves seemed to have flowed from a richer source than the exhalation of the morning’s vapour—for the flowers are faded—-but the drops that gem’d them are fresh.
At that moment the possession of a little kingdom would have been less desirable to me, than the knowledge of that association of ideas and feelings which the contemplation of these honoured flowers awakened. At last, with a tender smile, she raised them to her lip and sighed, and placed them in her bosom; then softly drew aside my curtain. I feigned the stillness of death—yet the curtain remained unclosed—many minutes elapsed—I ventured to unseal my eyes, and met the soul dissolving glance of my sweet attendant spirit, who seemed to gaze intently on her charge. Emotion on my part the most delicious, on hers the most modestly confused, for a moment prevented all presence of mind; the beautiful arm still supported the curtain—my ardent gaze was still riveted on a face alternately suffused with the electric flashes of red and white. At last the curtain fell, the priest entered, and the vision, the sweetest, brightest vision of my life, dissolved!
Glorvina sprung towards her tutor, and told him aloud, that the nurse had entreated her to take her place, while she descended to dinner.
“And no place can become thee better, my child,” said the priest, “than that which fixes thee by the couch of suffering and sickness.”