vely warbler flew, as
it were, from the spray, and a torrent of unconnected exclamations and
questions burst from her, interrupted by fits of laughter, so horrid,
that Maria shut the door, and, turning her eyes up to heaven,
exclaimed--"Gracious God!"

Several minutes elapsed before Maria could enquire respecting the rumour
of the house (for this poor wretch was obviously not confined without a
cause); and then Jemima could only tell her, that it was said, "she had
been married, against her inclination, to a rich old man, extremely
jealous (no wonder, for she was a charming creature); and that, in
consequence of his treatment, or something which hung on her mind, she
had, during her first lying-in, lost her senses."

What a subject of meditation--even to the very confines of madness.

"Woman, fragile flower! why were you suffered to adorn a world exposed to
the inroad of such stormy elements?" thought Maria, while the poor
maniac's strain was still breathing on her ear, and sinking into her very
soul.

Towards the evening, Jemima brought her Rousseau's _Heloise_; and she sat
reading with eyes and heart, till the return of her guard to extinguish
the light. One instance of her kindness was, the permitting Maria to have
one, till her own hour of retiring to rest. She had read this work long
since; but now it seemed to open a new world to her--the only one worth
inhabiting. Sleep was not to be wooed; yet, far from being fatigued by
the restless rotation of thought, she rose and opened her window, just as
the thin watery clouds of twilight made the long silent shadows visible.
The air swept across her face with a voluptuous freshness that thrilled
to her heart, awakening indefinable emotions; and the sound of a waving
branch, or the twittering of a startled bird, alone broke the stillness
of reposing nature. Absorbed by the sublime sensibility which renders the
consciousness of existence felicity, Maria was happy, till an autumnal
scent, wafted by the breeze of morn from the fallen leaves of the
adjacent wood, made her recollect that the season had changed since her
confinement; yet life afforded no variety to solace an afflicted heart.
She returned dispirited to her couch, and thought of her child till the
broad glare of day again invited her to the window. She looked not for
the unknown, still how great was her vexation at perceiving the back of a
man, certainly he, with his two attendants, as he turned into a side-pat