“Forgive you, my daughter?—yes, if you have done anything to be forgiven. Your old father, though his head is turned gray, has still a warm place in his heart for all your distresses, my child; and that heart will be cold in death before it ceases to feel for you. But come, I must not lose my song, either.”
And Virginia, her sweet voice rendered more touchingly beautiful by her emotion, sang the noble lines, which have almost atoned for all the vanity and foppishness of their unhappy author.
“Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind,
If from the nunnery
Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind,
To war and arms I fly.
“True, a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field,
And with a stronger faith embrace
The sword, the horse, the shield.
“Yet, this inconstancy is such
As you too shall adore;
I had not loved thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honour more!”
“Yes,” repeated the old patriot, as the last notes of the sweet voice died away; “yes, 'I had not loved thee, dear, so much, loved I not honour more!' This is the language of the truly noble lover. Without a heart which rises superior to itself, in its devotion to honour, it is impossible to love truly. Love is not a pretty child, to be crowned with roses, and adorned with trinkets, and wooed by soft music. To the truly brave, it is a god to be worshipped, a reward to be attained, and to be attained only in the path of honour!”
“I think,” said Mrs. Temple, looking towards the wood, “that Virginia's song acted as an incantation. If I mistake not, Master Hansford is even now coming to explain his own negligence.”
FOOTNOTES:
[3] I have taken these beautiful memoirs, now known to be the production of a modern pen, to be genuine. Their truthfulness to nature certainly will justify me in such a liberty.
[4] The modern reader will need some explanation of this old game, whose terms seem, to the refined ears of the present day, a little profane. Barley-break resembled a game which I have seen played in my own time, called King Cantelope, but with some striking points of difference. In the old game, the play-ground was divided into three parts of equal size, and the middle of these sections was known by the name of hell. The boy and girl, whose position was in this place, were to attempt, with joined hands, to catch those who should try to pass from one section to the other. As each one was caught, he became a recruit for the couple in the middle, and the last couple who remained uncaught took the places of those in hell, and thus the game commenced again.