 felicity. Ah! fortunate, thrice fortunate for ye both, was the
hour of your meeting; for heaven and nature surely designed ye for each
other! Fortunate, too, were those circumstances which divided my
Emmeline from Delamere, before indissoluble bonds enchained you for
ever. Had it been otherwise; had _your_ guardian angel slumbered as
_mine did_; you too, all lovely and deserving as you are, would have
been condemned to the bitterest of all lots, and might have discovered
all the excellence and worth of Godolphin, when your duty and your
honour allowed you no eyes but for Delamere. _Your_ destiny is more
happy--yet not happier than you deserve. Oh! may it quickly be fixed
unalterably; and long, very long, may it endure! So shall your Adelina,
for the little while she drags on a reluctant existence, have something
on which to lean for the alleviation of her sorrows; and when she shall
interrupt your felicity no longer by the sight of cureless calamity, she
will, in full confidence, entrust the sole tie she has on earth, the
dear and innocent victim of her fatal weakness, to the compassionate
bosoms of Godolphin and his Emmeline!'

The tremulous voice and singular manner in which Lady Adelina uttered
these words, made Emmeline tremble. She now tried to divert the
attention of her poor friend, from dwelling too earnestly either on her
own wretchedness or the promised felicity of her brother: but, as if
exhausted by the mingled emotions of pain and pleasure, she soon
afterwards fell into a deep silence; scarce attending to what was said;
and after a long pause, she suddenly called to Madelon, in whose arms
her little boy had fallen asleep, and looking at him earnestly a moment,
took him from the maid, and carried him towards the house. Emmeline,
more and more convinced of her partial intellectual derangement,
followed her, dreading lest she should see it encrease, without the
power of applying any remedy. Before Lady Adelina reached the gate,
which opened from the cliffs to the lawn, she was fatigued by her lovely
burthen and forced to stop. Emmeline would then have taken him; but she
said 'No!' and sitting down on the ground, held him in her lap, till
Barret, who had seen her from a window, came out and took him from her;
to which, as to a thing usual, she consented, and then walked calmly
home with Emmeline, who, extremely discomposed by the wildness of her
manner, was fearful of again introducing any interesting topic, lest she
should again touch those
