force,
 Has raised the ghost of pleasure to my fears,
 Conjured the sense of honour and of love
 Into such shapes, they fright me from myself.
                                                             The Fatal Marriage.
 
The ancient forms of mourning were observed in Glenallan House, notwithstanding
the obduracy with which the members of the family were popularly supposed to
refuse to the dead the usual tribute of lamentation. It was remarked, that when
she received the fatal letter announcing the death of her second, and, as was
once believed, her favourite son, the hand of the Countess did not shake, nor
her eyelid twinkle, any more than upon perusal of a letter of ordinary business.
Heaven only knows whether the suppression of maternal sorrow, which her pride
commanded, might not have some effect in hastening her own death. It was at
least generally supposed that the apoplectic stroke, which so soon afterwards
terminated her existence, was, as it were, the vengeance of outraged Nature for
the restraint to which her feelings had been subjected. But although Lady
Glenallan forebore the usual external signs of grief, she had caused many of the
apartments, amongst others her own and that of the Earl, to be hung with the
exterior trappings of woe.
    The Earl of Glenallan was therefore seated in an apartment hung with black
cloth, which waved in dusky folds along its lofty walls. A screen, also covered
with black baize, placed towards the high and narrow window, intercepted much of
the broken light which found its way through the stained glass, that
represented, with such skill as the fourteenth century possessed, the life and
sorrows of the prophet Jeremiah. The table at which the Earl was seated was
lighted with two lamps wrought in silver, shedding that unpleasant and doubtful
light which arises from the mingling of artificial lustre with that of general
daylight. The same table displayed a silver crucifix, and one or two clasped
parchment books. A large picture, exquisitely painted by Spagnoletto,
represented the martyrdom of St. Stephen, and was the only ornament of the
apartment.
    The inhabitant and lord of this disconsolate chamber was a man not past the
prime of life, yet so broken down with disease and mental misery, so gaunt and
ghastly, that he appeared but a wreck of manhood; and when he hastily arose and
advanced towards his visitor, the exertion seemed almost to overpower his
emaciated frame. As they met in the midst of the apartment, the contrast they
exhibited was very striking. The hale cheek, firm step, erect stature, and
undaunted presence and bearing of the old mendicant, indicated patience and
content in the extremity of age, and