e lost her gaiety, she laid aside her sports, and assumed an
almost vestal plainness of attire. She shunned us, retiring with Evelyn to
some distant chamber or silent nook; nor did she enter into his pastimes
with the same zest as she was wont, but would sit and watch him with sadly
tender smiles, and eyes bright with tears, yet without a word of complaint.
She approached us timidly, avoided our caresses, nor shook off her
embarrassment till some serious discussion or lofty theme called her for
awhile out of herself. Her beauty grew as a rose, which, opening to the
summer wind, discloses leaf after leaf till the sense aches with its excess
of loveliness. A slight and variable colour tinged her cheeks, and her
motions seemed attuned by some hidden harmony of surpassing sweetness. We
redoubled our tenderness and earnest attentions. She received them with
grateful smiles, that fled swift as sunny beam from a glittering wave on an
April day.

Our only acknowledged point of sympathy with her, appeared to be Evelyn.
This dear little fellow was a comforter and delight to us beyond all words.
His buoyant spirit, and his innocent ignorance of our vast calamity, were
balm to us, whose thoughts and feelings were over-wrought and spun out in
the immensity of speculative sorrow. To cherish, to caress, to amuse him
was the common task of all. Clara, who felt towards him in some degree like
a young mother, gratefully acknowledged our kindness towards him. To me, O!
to me, who saw the clear brows and soft eyes of the beloved of my heart, my
lost and ever dear Idris, re-born in his gentle face, to me he was dear
even to pain; if I pressed him to my heart, methought I clasped a real and
living part of her, who had lain there through long years of youthful
happiness.

It was the custom of Adrian and myself to go out each day in our skiff to
forage in the adjacent country. In these expeditions we were seldom
accompanied by Clara or her little charge, but our return was an hour of
hilarity. Evelyn ransacked our stores with childish eagerness, and we
always brought some new found gift for our fair companion. Then too we made
discoveries of lovely scenes or gay palaces, whither in the evening we all
proceeded. Our sailing expeditions were most divine, and with a fair wind
or transverse course we cut the liquid waves; and, if talk failed under the
pressure of thought, I had my clarionet with me, which awoke the echoes,
and gave the change to o