Ah! Bonnibel, sweet Bonnibel! It is a dark world indeed on which your tearful gaze looks forth! It has been the grave of hope to many, yet destiny pushes us forward blindly, and we cannot stay her juggernaut wheels as they roll over our hearts.
"I am eighteen years old, and I am a widow," she moans at last, and staggers blindly to her feet, pushing back the fair locks from her brow with shaking hands. "I am a widow!"
Oh! the pathos of the words! As she speaks them she draws the blinds, drops the curtains, and the room is shrouded in darkness. She has shut out the world from the sight of suffering. You and I, my reader, will turn aside, too, from the contemplation of that cruelly tried young heart as it fights the battle in the gloom and silence.
"Who breathes must suffer; and who thinks must mourn;
And he alone is blessed who ne'er was born."
Six days later Colonel Carlyle was ushered into Mrs. Arnold's drawing-room and sent up his card to Miss Vere.
After a slight delay she came gliding in, pale and pure as a snow-drop, and demure as a little nun. Colonel Carlyle both felt and saw that some subtle and indefinable change had come over her as he bowed over the cold, white hand she placed in his.
It was a very warm day, even for May; but she was clothed from head to foot in heavy mourning draped with crape. Her golden hair was brushed straight back from her temples and gathered into a simple coil fastened with a comb of jet. From that somber setting her fair face and bright hair shone like a star.
"You are pale, Bonnibel; I trust you have not been ill," exclaimed the ancient suitor anxiously.