heart
had slept but a few years longer, he might have been saved; but it awoke in
its infancy; it had power, but no knowledge; and it was ruined, even as a
too early-blowing bud is nipt by the killing frost.

I did not accuse Evadne of hypocrisy or a wish to deceive her lover; but
the first letter that I saw of hers convinced me that she did not love him;
it was written with elegance, and, foreigner as she was, with great command
of language. The hand-writing itself was exquisitely beautiful; there was
something in her very paper and its folds, which even I, who did not love,
and was withal unskilled in such matters, could discern as being tasteful.
There was much kindness, gratitude, and sweetness in her expression, but no
love. Evadne was two years older than Adrian; and who, at eighteen, ever
loved one so much their junior? I compared her placid epistles with the
burning ones of Adrian. His soul seemed to distil itself into the words he
wrote; and they breathed on the paper, bearing with them a portion of the
life of love, which was his life. The very writing used to exhaust him; and
he would weep over them, merely from the excess of emotion they awakened in
his heart.

Adrian's soul was painted in his countenance, and concealment or deceit
were at the antipodes to the dreadless frankness of his nature. Evadne made
it her earnest request that the tale of their loves should not be revealed
to his mother; and after for a while contesting the point, he yielded it to
her. A vain concession; his demeanour quickly betrayed his secret to the
quick eyes of the ex-queen. With the same wary prudence that characterized
her whole conduct, she concealed her discovery, but hastened to remove her
son from the sphere of the attractive Greek. He was sent to Cumberland; but
the plan of correspondence between the lovers, arranged by Evadne, was
effectually hidden from her. Thus the absence of Adrian, concerted for the
purpose of separating, united them in firmer bonds than ever. To me he
discoursed ceaselessly of his beloved Ionian. Her country, its ancient
annals, its late memorable struggles, were all made to partake in her glory
and excellence. He submitted to be away from her, because she commanded
this submission; but for her influence, he would have declared his
attachment before all England, and resisted, with unshaken constancy, his
mother's opposition. Evadne's feminine prudence perceived how useless any
assertion of his reso