“I was not,” said Rosamond. “She who never spoke of love!—I little imagined that she thought of it so highly, so seriously.”
“Yes, I do think of it seriously, highly may Heaven grant!” cried Caroline, looking fervently upwards as she spoke with an illuminated countenance. “May Heaven grant that love be a blessing and not a curse to me! Heaven grant that I may never, in any moment of selfish vanity, try to excite a passion which I cannot return! Heaven grant that I never may feel the passion of love but for one whom I shall entirely esteem, who shall be worthy to fill my whole soul!”
“Mother,” continued Caroline, turning eagerly, and seizing her mother’s hand, “my guide, my guardian, whenever you see me in any, the slightest inclination to coquetry, warn me—as you wish to save me from that which I should most dread, the reproaches of my own conscience—in the first, the very first instance, reprove me, mother, if you can—with severity. And you, my sister, my bosom friend, do not use your influence to soften, to open my mind to love; but if ever you perceive me yielding my heart to the first tenderness of the passion, watch over me, if the object be not every way worthy of me, my equal, my superior.—Oh! as you would wish to snatch me from the grave, rouse me from the delusion—save me from disappointment, regret, remorse, which I know that I could not bear, and live.”
Her mother, into whose arms she threw herself, pressed Caroline close to her heart, while Rosamond, to whom she had given her hand, held it fast, and stood motionless between surprise and sympathy. Caroline, to whose usual manners and disposition every thing theatrical or romantic was so foreign, seemed, as soon as she recollected herself, to be ashamed of the excessive emotion and enthusiasm she had shown; withdrawing her hand from her sister, she turned away, and left the room.
Her mother and sister both remained silent for a considerable time, fully occupied with their own thoughts and feelings. The mother’s reverie looked to the future prospects of her daughter;—confident in Caroline’s character, yet uncertain of her fate, she felt a pleasing yet painful solicitude.
Rosamond’s thoughts turned rather to the past than to the future: she recollected and compared words and looks, yet found insuperable difficulty in connecting all she had ever before known or fancied of Caroline with what she had just seen and heard. Rosamond did not fairly recover from her surprise, and from her look of perplexity, during a full hour that she remained absolutely silent, poring upon a screen, upon which she saw nothing.
She then went in search of Caroline, in hopes of renewing the conversation; but she found her busied in some of the common affairs of life, and apparently a different person.
Rosamond, though she made divers attempts, could not lead Caroline back again to the same train of thought, or tone of expression. Indeed, Rosamond did not attempt it very skilfully, but rather with the awkward impatience of one not accustomed to use address. Caroline, intent upon the means of assisting the poor young woman whom they had seen at the cottage, went there again as soon as she could, to warn old Dorothy, in the first place, to be less communicative, and not on any account to mention to any one else the names and circumstances which she had told them with so little reserve. Caroline next applied to Dr. Leicester, the vicar of their former parish, a most amiable and respectable clergyman, who had come from his vicarage, near Percy-hall, to spend what time he could spare from his duties with his favourite parishioners; at Caroline’s request he willingly went to see this unhappy young woman, and succeeded in his endeavours to soothe and tranquillize her mind by speaking to her words of peace. His mild piety raised and comforted the trembling penitent; and while all prospect of forgiveness from her parents, or of happiness in this world, was at an end, he fixed her thoughts on those better hopes and promises which religion only can afford. Her health appeared suddenly to mend when her mind was more at ease: but this was only transient, and Dr. Percy, to whom Caroline applied for his medical opinion, gave little hopes of her recovery. All that could be done by medicine and proper kindness to assuage her sufferings during her decline was done in the best manner by Mrs. Percy and her daughters, especially by Caroline: the young woman, nevertheless, died in six weeks, and was buried without Buckhurst Falconer’s making any inquiry concerning her, probably without his knowing of her death. A few days after she was no more, a letter came to her from him, which was returned unopened by Dorothy, who could just write well enough to make these words intelligible in the cover:
“SIR,
“Kate Robinson is dead—this four days—your child is with me still, and well.—She bid me tell you, if ever you asked more concerning her—she left you her forgiveness on her death-bed, and hopes you will be happy, sir.—