What a drama had passed between them, and in silence! What feelings had been hidden under those few words of formal and ceremonious speech!
No sooner had she left than Winston rushed into his own apartment. Amongst the curiosities which he had collected in Italy was a genuine stiletto. This had sometimes accompanied him in his solitary rambles; and of late he had sometimes, in his moods of despondency, contemplated that instrument, thinking the while of some other purpose than that of striking a foe to which it might be applicable. They are dangerous moments which we spend in reflecting on the mere possibility of some fatal act. The imagination becomes familiarised with the deed. When the fiery and ungovernable passion falls upon us, it finds the train ready laid. Winston locked his door—ran to the stiletto—buried it in his heart!
The horror and distraction of Louisa and her mother may be easily imagined. It might be a subject of more deep and curious interest to trace the influence of such a catastrophe on the mind of Mildred; but this also we must leave to the reflection and perspicacity of the reader. Mr. Bloomfield and his sister soon after left Italy, embarking in the steam-boat direct for Marseilles: they had grown weary of travel. Colonel Willoughby and his daughter Mildred took the route by land, and quitted Naples for the north of Italy and the Alps.
THE EARLY TAKEN.
The idea embodied in the following verses is the subject of an old German legend, intended, perhaps somewhat painfully, to represent a repining and diseased spirit awed by a fearful vision of eventual futurity into a becoming resignation for the early loss of those who might have proved unequal to the temptations of a longer life.
A mother mourned her children dead,
Two blooming boys, whose opening prime
Along her path a light had shed,
Now quenched, alas! before its time.
She mourned as one who dreamed that here
Our home and dwelling place should be;
She mourned as if she felt no fear
Of earthly sin and misery.
Once, in the watches of the night,
Before her dim and tearful eye,
Beyond the clouds an opening bright
Revealed a vision of the sky.