ressed to a heart that seemed to beat
only for her felicity. The blessing of her father, uttered by his
long-loved lips, had descended on her brow, and been sealed with his
passionate embrace.

The entrance of her mother, that terrible contest of her lacerated
heart, when her two parents, as it were, appealed to her love, which
they would not share; the inspiration of her despair, that so suddenly
had removed the barriers of long years, before whose irresistible
pathos her father had bent a penitent, and her mother's inexorable
pride had melted; the ravishing bliss that for a moment had thrilled
through her, being experienced too for the first time, when she felt
that her parents were again united and bound by the sweet tie of her
now happy existence; this was the drama acted before her with an
almost ceaseless repetition of its transporting incidents; and when
she looked round, and beheld her mother sitting alone, and watching
her with a countenance almost of anguish, it was indeed with extreme
difficulty that Venetia could persuade herself that all had not been a
reverie; and she was only convinced of the contrary by that heaviness
of the heart which too quickly assures us of the reality of those
sorrows of which fancy for a moment may cheat us into scepticism.

And indeed her mother was scarcely less miserable. The sight of
Herbert, so changed from the form that she remembered; those tones of
heart-rending sincerity, in which he had mournfully appealed to the
influence of time and sorrow on his life, still greatly affected her.
She had indulged for a moment in a dream of domestic love, she had
cast to the winds the inexorable determination of a life, and had
mingled her tears with those of her husband and her child. And how
had she been repaid? By a degrading catastrophe, from whose revolting
associations her mind recoiled with indignation and disgust. But her
lingering feeling for her husband, her own mortification, were as
nothing compared with the harrowing anxiety she now entertained for
her daughter. To converse with Venetia on the recent occurrence was
impossible. It was a subject which admitted of no discussion. They
had passed a week at Padua, and the slightest allusion to what had
happened had never been made by either Lady Annabel or her child. It
was only by her lavish testimonies of affection that Lady Annabel
conveyed to Venetia how deeply she sympathised with her, and how
unhappy she was herself. She