softened by approaching convalescence. He knew me. What a brimful cup of
joyful agony it was, when his face first gleamed with the glance of
recognition--when he pressed my hand, now more fevered than his own, and
when he pronounced my name! No trace of his past insanity remained, to dash
my joy with sorrow.

This same evening his mother and sister arrived. The Countess of Windsor
was by nature full of energetic feeling; but she had very seldom in her
life permitted the concentrated emotions of her heart to shew themselves on
her features. The studied immovability of her countenance; her slow,
equable manner, and soft but unmelodious voice, were a mask, hiding her
fiery passions, and the impatience of her disposition. She did not in the
least resemble either of her children; her black and sparkling eye, lit up
by pride, was totally unlike the blue lustre, and frank, benignant
expression of either Adrian or Idris. There was something grand and
majestic in her motions, but nothing persuasive, nothing amiable. Tall,
thin, and strait, her face still handsome, her raven hair hardly tinged
with grey, her forehead arched and beautiful, had not the eye-brows been
somewhat scattered--it was impossible not to be struck by her, almost to
fear her. Idris appeared to be the only being who could resist her mother,
notwithstanding the extreme mildness of her character. But there was a
fearlessness and frankness about her, which said that she would not
encroach on another's liberty, but held her own sacred and unassailable.

The Countess cast no look of kindness on my worn-out frame, though
afterwards she thanked me coldly for my attentions. Not so Idris; her first
glance was for her brother; she took his hand, she kissed his eye-lids, and
hung over him with looks of compassion and love. Her eyes glistened with
tears when she thanked me, and the grace of her expressions was enhanced,
not diminished, by the fervour, which caused her almost to falter as she
spoke. Her mother, all eyes and ears, soon interrupted us; and I saw, that
she wished to dismiss me quietly, as one whose services, now that his
relatives had arrived, were of no use to her son. I was harassed and ill,
resolved not to give up my post, yet doubting in what way I should assert
it; when Adrian called me, and clasping my hand, bade me not leave him. His
mother, apparently inattentive, at once understood what was meant, and
seeing the hold we had upon her, yielded the point