sorrow.

Let no one rashly pronounce me a coxcomb, vain and pretentious, for all
this. In my inmost heart I had no feeling of selfishness mingled with the
consideration. It was from no sense of my own merits, no calculation of my
own chances of success, that I thought thus. Fortunately, at eighteen one's
heart is uncontaminated with such an alloy of vanity. The first emotions of
youth are pure and holy things, tempering our fiercer passions, and calming
the rude effervescence of our boyish spirit; and when we strive to please,
and hope to win affection, we insensibly fashion ourselves to nobler and
higher thoughts, catching from the source of our devotion a portion of that
charm that idealizes daily life, and makes our path in it a glorious and a
bright one.

Who would not exchange all the triumph of his later days, the proudest
moments of successful ambition, the richest trophies of hard-won
daring,--for the short and vivid flash that first shot through his heart
and told him he was loved. It is the opening consciousness of life, the
first sense of power that makes of the mere boy a man,--a man in all his
daring and his pride; and hence it is that in early life we feel ever prone
to indulge those fancied attachments which elevate and raise us in our own
esteem. Such was the frame of my mind when I entered the little boudoir
where once before I had ventured on a similar errand.

As I closed the sash-door behind me, the gray dawn of breaking day scarcely
permitted my seeing anything around me, and I felt my way towards the door
of an adjoining room, where I supposed it was likely I should find the
senhora. As I proceeded thus, with cautious step and beating heart, I
thought I heard a sound near me. I stopped and listened, and was about
again to move on, when a half-stifled sob fell upon my ear. Slowly and
silently guiding my steps towards the sounds, I reached a sofa, when, my
eyes growing by degrees more accustomed to the faint light, I could detect
a figure which, at a glance, I recognized as Donna Inez. A cashmere shawl
was loosely thrown around her, and her face was buried in her hands. As she
lay, to all seeming, still and insensible before me, her beautiful hair
fell heavily upon her back and across her arm, and her whole attitude
denoted the very abandonment of grief. A short convulsive shudder which
slightly shook her frame alone gave evidence of life, except when a sob,
barely audible in the death-like silence