When last he had been her partner in a scene like the present, could some prophetic voice have said, “Within a few short months shall Edmund, whose only home is the deep, have wide domains and large possessions, inherited from his forefathers: Edmund, whose very name is but a borrowed right, have titles and dignities, descending through lines of honoured ancestry, and centring in him: Edmund, who knows not at what unlettered grave to mourn a father’s loss, be found the son of him whose memory has been embalmed by a nation’s tears!”
With what feelings had he hailed the wondrous prophecy! Yet, at this moment, was all the fairy-tale vision realized, and Edmund, notwithstanding, entered the mazes of the joyous dance, looking and moving like one, bewildered by the excess of mental suffering.
The laws of the figure constantly severed the hand of his partner from his, and as constantly required him to retake it; but, what with anticipating this part of the ceremony at one time, and delaying it at another, he was more than once guilty of actually deranging the order of the quadrille.
CHAPTER XIV.
… “Remorse return’d,
Torn of its inward workings she shriek’d aloud.”
Meanwhile Lady D.’s party, whom we left in high contest as to the identity of Lady Julia L.’s partner, seem to have settled that point in an amicable manner, and to be now busily occupied, listening to an oration from the old gentleman in black.
It is evident that he has been entertaining his audience with some of the particulars of our hero’s adventures when a child.