[A] Wordsworth

[B] Dante




CHAPTER III


It was on my sixteenth birthday that my aunt received a letter from my
father. I cannot describe the tumult of emotions that arose within me
as I read it. It was dated from London; he had returned![15] I could
only relieve my transports by tears, tears of unmingled joy. He had
returned, and he wrote to know whether my aunt would come to London or
whether he should visit her in Scotland. How delicious to me were the
words of his letter that concerned me: "I cannot tell you," it said,
"how ardently I desire to see my Mathilda. I look on her as the
creature who will form the happiness of my future life: she is all
that exists on earth that interests me. I can hardly prevent myself
from hastening immediately to you but I am necessarily detained a week
and I write because if you come here I may see you somewhat sooner." I
read these words with devouring eyes; I kissed them, wept over them
and exclaimed, "He will love me!"--

My aunt would not undertake so long a journey, and in a fortnight we
had another letter from my father, it was dated Edinburgh: he wrote
that he should be with us in three days. "As he approached his desire
of seeing me," he said, "became more and more ardent, and he felt that
the moment when he should first clasp me in his arms would be the