"My disgrace had not yet reached the home of my childhood. A state of mental suffering brought on a low fever. I was seized with an indescribable longing, an aching of the heart to end my days in my native village.
"Pride in vain combated this feeling. It resisted all the arguments of reason and common sense. Nature triumphed—and a few days saw me once more under the shadow of the great oak which canopied our lowly dwelling."
ALICE.
"As I approached the cottage door, my attention was arrested by a low, mournful voice, singing in sad and subdued tones, a ditty which seemed the spontaneous outpouring of a wounded spirit. The words were several times repeated, and I noted them down as I leant upon the trunk of the old tree. Out of sight, but within a few feet of the songstress, whose face was hidden from me by the thick foliage of the glorious old tree, in whose broad-spreading branches, I had played and frolicked when a boy.
"'THE SONG.
I once was happy, blithe and gay,
No maiden's heart was half so light;
I cannot sing, for well a-day!
My morn of bliss is quenched in night.