d settled in the neighbourhood of London.
On the night of her return she sickened of the plague. From the haughty and
unbending nature of the Countess of Windsor, Idris had few tender filial
associations with her. This good woman had stood in the place of a mother,
and her very deficiencies of education and knowledge, by rendering her
humble and defenceless, endeared her to us--she was the especial
favourite of the children. I found my poor girl, there is no exaggeration
in the expression, wild with grief and dread. She hung over the patient in
agony, which was not mitigated when her thoughts wandered towards her
babes, for whom she feared infection. My arrival was like the newly
discovered lamp of a lighthouse to sailors, who are weathering some
dangerous point. She deposited her appalling doubts in my hands; she relied
on my judgment, and was comforted by my participation in her sorrow. Soon
our poor nurse expired; and the anguish of suspense was changed to deep
regret, which though at first more painful, yet yielded with greater
readiness to my consolations. Sleep, the sovereign balm, at length steeped
her tearful eyes in forgetfulness.

She slept; and quiet prevailed in the Castle, whose inhabitants were hushed
to repose. I was awake, and during the long hours of dead night, my busy
thoughts worked in my brain, like ten thousand mill-wheels, rapid, acute,
untameable. All slept--all England slept; and from my window, commanding
a wide prospect of the star-illumined country, I saw the land stretched out
in placid rest. I was awake, alive, while the brother of death possessed my
race. What, if the more potent of these fraternal deities should obtain
dominion over it? The silence of midnight, to speak truly, though
apparently a paradox, rung in my ears. The solitude became intolerable--I
placed my hand on the beating heart of Idris, I bent my head to catch the
sound of her breath, to assure myself that she still existed--for a
moment I doubted whether I should not awake her; so effeminate an horror
ran through my frame.--Great God! would it one day be thus? One day all
extinct, save myself, should I walk the earth alone? Were these warning
voices, whose inarticulate and oracular sense forced belief upon me?

Yet I would not call them
Voices of warning, that announce to us
Only the inevitable. As the sun,
Ere it is risen, sometimes paints its image
In the atmosphere--so often do the spirits
Of great events