Madeline wished the hour was arrived they were to renew their midnight ramble, and thought, if she should meet a thousand ghosts, she should not fear them, while Edwin, who loved her so tenderly and sincerely, was near to guard her. She was eager too, but scarcely durst acknowledge to herself she wished the passage might be found which led to the chapel in her nunnery.
CHAP. IV.
If there be any so fastidious and unfeeling as to condemn and deprecate the romantic hopes and flattering visions cherished in he buoyant bosom of nineteen, I am sorry for them, and here avow, I wish never entirely to forget the fascinating pleasure of such air-built hopes. Should they be sometimes attended with danger to the weak and frail, they are likewise accompanied with their advantages to the good and virtuous, and often enable us to encounter trials with a resolution and fortitude, which, at a more advanced period of our lives, when time has weakened our bodily frame, and experience deprived us of those gay illusions, we find it difficult and painful to acquire.—The philosophy of nineteen, though not abstruse, is flattering and conclusive; so much the more valuable; for, after all the researches of philosophy, what are we taught to know, but that man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards?—that we are merely the pilgrims and passengers of a day,—that our resting place must be found in a better, an unknown world,—that we must encounter innumerable trials on our journey, and at last die and be forgotten, even by those for whom we have toiled, and to whom we are most tenderly attached?—Surely then we may be allowed to snatch, or steal, a few of those innocent enjoyments just thrown in our way, to encourage our fortitude, and clear our path from some of the briars and thorns with which it is so profusely planted.
Happy is it for those in the common walks of life, that all their stock of philosophy is comprised in a few words, acquired without study, and retained without taxing their time or burthening their memory,—"it was my fate,—I could not run from it,—it was to be." These trite sentences reconcile them to many distressing events, and sometimes are their excuse for the frailties of their conduct.
When the parties met at breakfast the next morning, any careful observer might have discovered, by the confusion visible on the countenance of Madeline,—the constraint in her manner of addressing Edwin,—his more than usual vivacity, and the pale cheeks and swelled eyes of Roseline, that something had occurred to produce the change; but, suspicion not being a frequent gust at the castle, no such discovery was made: every one employed themselves as usual, and in a few hours universal cheerfulness seemed to prevail.
The only observations made by Lady de Morney were, that her dear Edwin looked remarkably well, was in charming spirits, and had dressed himself better and more becomingly than usual. Madeline coloured, and thought the same. Roseline smiled, and Edwin whispered something in the ear of Madeline that prevented the roses fading on her cheek.
The dress of Madeline, though to her particularly becoming, would to thousands have been totally the reverse. It was the dress of the order of Benedictines, to which she belonged, consisting of a black robe, with a scapulary of the same. Under the robe, nuns, when professed, wore a tunic of white undyed wool, and, when they went to the choir, they had a cowl like that worn by the monks; but the boarders, who were in what we may call a state of probation, were allowed to wear a tunic of muslin or cambrick, and covered their heads with a white veil. This dress, little suited to please the whimsical taste of the present time, was, strange as it may appear, simple and becoming, and proved the truth of the poet's observation, that
———Loveliness
Needs not the foreign aid of ornament,
But is, when unadorn'd, adorn'd the most.
Madeline, in the habit of her order, was so captivating a figure, that no one ever thought any alteration or change in it could have added a charm to those bestowed on her by the partial hand of nature. She was tall, and elegantly formed; the expression of her countenance, blended with softness and dignity, conveying an idea of superior virtue being united to superior loveliness.
Just before dinner, the Doctor observed that Madeline looked pale: having felt her pulse, he inquired what had given them cause to beat so much out of time.