CHAPTER X.

"I've seen the rose forsake thy cheek,

"And those dear lips turn pale ;

"I've heard the sigh when thou wouldst speak,

"Thou lily of the vale:

"Yet ever on thy face would play

"A beam of hope, a smile

"That trembled like a moonlight ray

Upon a ruin'd pile."

three successive days, the lovely Emma was not only confined to her chamber, but the progress of her recovery was by no means so rapid as the sanguine expectations of Dr. Starmer had been led to suppose, from the slight attack which she had received, the pain in her side still continuing at intervals to awaken the apprehensions even of this most skilful physician, that the ultimate cause of her disorder was not yet effectually removed; and he immediately suggested to Mr. and Mrs. Trelawney, when he was left alone with them, the necessity, as well as the propriety, of change of air for Miss Bradbury, and that as soon as she was able to leave her chamber.

"She is doing very well," cried the worthy Doctor ; "I do not recommend this because there is any change for the worse; but she will do better when she inhales the fresh and bracing air of the country, which will, with time and gentle exercise, effectually restore the sweet girl to her former constitution. There is a great depression which still hangs on her spirits, and it is a sort of malady which cannot be removed by hurrying her to amusements, or creating any noise or bustle around her; it will only yield to calm and sequestered scenes of retirement; and her mind must by no means be exposed to agitation, for be it ever so slight she is too weak to bear it."

This hint was sufficient, both to Mr. and Mrs. Trelawney; and so watchful were they now over this precious charge, that they would not suffer any one of the family to approach her without first obtaining permission from them, except Miss Trelawney and Mrs. Pelhamn, who constantly sat in her chamber: even William was forbid to hold

any long conversation with her, and Tanjore was not suffered to see her at all, the cause of which was too well known to him either to wish or expect it, and though he was unceasing in his inquiries after Emma's health, yet he never once was heard to express a wish to see her.

To little Mary all this appeared an enigma, she wanted much to find out; and being one morning left alone with her brother Tanjore, she innocently exclaimed,-

“Do you know, we have all been this morning to see poor Emma. Mamma let us all go in and kiss her, and ask her how she did; and she said she was a great deal better; but she don't look so, for all that. Oh, she is so white, brother Tanjore,—as white as a lily, and so you will say when you see her; but I forgot that you have never seen her ;—it is very strange, brother Tanjore, that we have all been to see poor Emma but you! Ah! how unkind, I thought you loved her better."

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Mary, I wish you would not talk to me, my dear girl,” cried Tanjore, at this moment hardly able to restrain from shedding tears.

"Don't you like me to talk to you about Emma." cried Mary.

"I cannot bear to be talked to about any thing just now," answered Tanjore, putting his hand to his head; "I have got such an intolerable head-ache."

On which Mary very speedily made her exit, pondering in her own imagination what the reason could be that her brother Tanjore could neither bear to see her cousin Emma, nor yet hear her name mentioned.

"Ah, I suppose that Emma has done something to offend him," thought Mary: "but then it is very wrong of brother Tanjore to be so angry with her when she is so ill, and so I would have told him, if his head had not ached so badly."

Happy age! blissful state of youthful innocence! when no thought, unhallowed and impure, can intrude, or ever find entrance, to corrode, corrupt, or sorrow thy spotless heart; but how fleeting are its days, how short and transitory is the period appointed for thy lovely season of uninterrupted happiness! Alas! how swiftly does each winged moment fly of thy peaceful serenity! A few more summer suns blossom o'er thy head, and all thy infant joys are ended: thy young heart expands with maturity; thy youthful bosom glows with

passion, and beats with a thousand different sensations of nameless variety; thy cares begin,-perhaps in love thou art first doomed to sustain a disappointment; and if not there, in some other form it assails thee-perhaps by death some tender chord is broken, and thy heart convulsed with pangs unutterable. At all events, sweet infaney, thy lovely season blooms no longer, and all thy harmless days of innocence and mirth succeed to give place to the offsprings of maturity, experience, and age.

At the departure of little Mary, poor Tanjore, unseen, unheard, (as he then imagined that he was,) yielded to the indulgence of those feelings he had hitherto found it so difficult to restrain, and leaning his arm pensively on the table, he mournfully exclaimed,— "Oh, Emma! beloved Emma! and am I then accused, and even by infantine innocence, of indifference and negligence towards thee! Am I then compelled to fly from thy adored presence, only to conceal the pangs by which my heart is torn? Oh, how gladly would I pour out every drop of blood in these beating veins, to ease one moment of anguish or of sorrow to thee! Yes, Emma, unconscious as thou art of all the sufferings I am enduring for thy sake, there is no bosom burns with such devoted zeal towards thee as mine; and yet, sweet maid, we part, perhaps for ever!-and if not for ever, there is a barrier between thy love and mine, eternal, vast as the great billows of the boundless ocean, high as the mountain of Atlas, which, were I once to wage war with, might plunge us both into desolation, unequalled misery, and repentance. Therefore I go, Emma, to save myself and thee !--better to part, ten thousand times, than bring a ruin on thy head, to wound the heart of a loved brother, and disappoint the hopes of fond parents, in the fancied dreams of happiness they have long projected for thee and William.-Yes, we will part, and may all good angels visit thee with calm repose; while I alone, in foreign climes, shall breath out one fervent and unceasing prayer for thy future happiness, which I have considered far dearer than my own."

At this moment Tanjore raised his eyes, and rested them on a figure who had softly approached the table where he was sitting, and who must have been some moments in the apartment before he was aware of it, and that was his mother.

They both looked at each other with an emotion which could not be suppressed, and both preserved a mournful silence, which they No. 8.

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seemed unwilling to break through. At length Mrs. Trelawney exclaimed,-

"My dear boy, I did not mean to intrude upon your privacy. I thought you had not been alone, for I heard your voice before I came into the room."

"A mother never can intrude on the presence of her child,” cried Tanjore, hastily rising, and giving her a chair close beside him; " and, least of all, my mother,—she is always welcome to her Tanjore ;" and he took Mrs. Trelawney's hand, and affectionately pressed it to his lips, which soon brought the tears in that fond mother's eyes, and she faulteringly replied,-

"I am soon going to lose you, my Tanjore. We have never yet been separated, and your absence will affect me greatly. I shall miss you much, though it is only for a short period."

"But that will be nothing, mother, to when I shall go abroad. I shall be absent much longer then, and I would that the period was already fixed by my father for my departure from my native land. Every day, every hour that I have now to stay in England is irksome, and only increases my anxiety, my impatience to be gone," cried Tanjore, sighing heavily.

"Good heavens! my dear child, and are you then already weary of our society?" replied Mrs. Trelawney, not willing to understand the nature of his present feelings, and more shocked than ever to find that his unhappy attachment for his cousin was gaining more ascendency over him than she imagined. "Are the scenes of his peaceful home an object of regret and even discontent to my Tanjore, that he so ardently wishes to lose sight of them? Is your father, is your mother no longer thought worthy of being the dearest friends and companions of your heart?-do we act so unkindly by our Tanjore, that he is ready to fly from our presence, and shun our society? Are his sisters no longer dear to him, his affectionate sisters, in whom he once delighted? and is his only brother no more considered an object fit to share in his confidence? Tell me, my boy, the cause of this sudden change ?—from whence spring these new, and, to me, afflicting and extraordinary emotions ?-why have you taken a distaste to all your former pleasures? Confide in your mother, and fear not that she will betray you?

loved

Here was a situation for poor Tanjore, in the presence of the only being on earth that he most respected and revered, and, next to

Emma, that he most adored his mother,—the tender mother who had given him birth, that mother who in all her life had never reproached him, or taxed him with one fault, but who had often shielded him from the severity of his father, when he had really merited his displeasure; and must he now shrink from an open avowal of all his sensations ?-could he bear to be taxed with a fickleness or change in his disposition, with a change of affection towards his father, sisters, and his brother—and by his mother! No, rather would he perish first! and he instantly exclaimed

"Ah, mother, how you wring my heart by these unmerited reproaches, these unkind accusations; but why should I dissemble, in declaring the real cause of my sufferings to my mother; and when you know them all, you will rather pity your Tanjore, and not thus cruelly condemn him. Mother, have you never loved ?—did you never feel the torment of loving one destined to fill the arms of another ?— did you never know that you was loved again by the object you adored, and feel at the same instant that you must resign your hopes for ever? If, mother, you have never felt all these pangs, I do not ask you to feel for your son; but if you have, mother, experienced all these, and for my father, I know that you will both feel for and pity me, and I do not ask for more-your own heart will suggest all I can say on the subject."

To form an adequate idea of the feelings of Mrs. Trelawney was impossible: it was an appeal which she could not resist, for precisely such had been her situation before her marriage with Trelawneyfor the father of Tanjore had she felt all these pangs, when his destiny, by the Will of his Father, had given him to the arms of Lady Alexina Fitzosbourne-then had her heart sustained the test of feeling and sensibility, which her son had now submitted to her as a true picture of his own; and bursting into tears, she acknowledged that such once had been her own feelings with his father.

"Then, mother," cried Tanjore, "why are you astonished that I should wish to fly from the presence of the only being whom I cannot consistently, with honour and propriety, remain in the sight of, without adding to the torments of the passion that I endure? Have not you and my father both destined Emma for the wife of my brother?-answer me that important question?”

To which, after a most painful pause, Mrs. Trelawney replied,— "The question, my dear Tanjore, is indeed almost too important