For a long time she was enabled to govern and controul her feelings, and
was silent, and, to outward seeming, resigned. She often remarked to her
father, that she could, and did, say daily upon her knees, "Thy will be
done,"--but that tears always followed that sincere, but mournful,
exercise. However her frame at last gave way--she sunk into great
weakness of body, and her mind became affected.

Her father watched her with unceasing solicitude throughout her
sufferings; but he was often driven from her chamber by the agony of his
emotions, as she read over the fatal letter, or sung, which she did
continually, that mournful song of Thecla.

The world it is empty, the heart will die,
There's nothing to wish for beneath the sky:
Thou Holy One, call Thy child away--
I've lived and loved; and that was to-day--
Make ready my grave-clothes to-morrow.


Such was the early and melancholy close of a young life of the loveliest
promise. The severe and sudden horror struck hard upon her fine mind,
and drove it mournfully astray. Her heart was so broken that she could
not live on. But Julius Alvinzi did not then or so perish: for seventeen
weeks he lay upon a hospital bed in Mantua, helpless as an infant;
and finally recovered so much of health as gave him again the common
promise of life. He was afterwards sent to pass the long period of his
convalescence at Venice; but the Julius Alvinzi, who rode forth from
Salzburgh, was no longer to be recognised: crippled in his limbs--his
fine countenance disfigured by deep and unsightly scars--his complexion
pale--his hair turned grey with suffering. He had already stepped on