ry is in love with Anthony Hurdlestone,
and can I be base enough to add another pang to a heart already deeply
wounded, by endeavoring to gain his affections? No. I will from this
hour banish him from my thoughts, and never make him the subject of
these waking dreams again."
But alas! for good resolutions. She found the task more difficult than
she had imagined. She could not obliterate the image stamped by the
power of love upon her heart. Like the lion, she struggled in the net,
without the aid of the friendly mouse to set her free. She wished that
she had never seen him--had never heard the rich tones of his mellow
voice, or suffered the glance of his dark serious eyes to penetrate to
her soul. Ah! Juliet, well mayest thou toss to and fro in thy troubled
slumbers; thy lover is more miserable than thou, for he _cannot sleep_.
Indignant at the insult he had received in so unprovoked a manner from
his ungenerous cousin, and at war with himself, Anthony Hurdlestone
paced his chamber during the greater part of the night--striking his
breast against the fetters that bound him, and striving in vain to be
free. The very idea, that he was the son of the miser--that he must
blush for his father whenever his name was mentioned, was not the least
of his annoyances.
Was it possible that a girl of Juliet Whitmore's poetic temperament
could love the son of such a man? and as he pressed his hands against
his aching brow, and asked himself the question, he wished that he had
been the son of the poorest peasant upon the rich man's vast estates.
Anthony did not appear at the breakfast-table, and when he did leave his
chamber and joined the family party at dinner, he met Godfrey, who had
just returned from Captain Whitmore's, his handsome countenance glowing
with health and pleasure.
"Why, Godfrey, my boy!" cried the Colonel, regarding him with parental
pride, "What have you been doing with yourself all the morning?"
"Gardening with the jolly old tar, Captain Whitmore; quizzing the old
witch, his sister; and making love to his charming daughter. Upon my
word, sir, she is a delightful creature, and sings and plays divinely!
Her personal charms I might have withstood, but her voice has taken me
by surprise. You know that I was always a worshipper of sweet sounds;
and this little girl kept her divine gift so entirely to herself, that
it was by mere chance that I found out that she could sing. She was a
little annoyed too by the dis
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