taste of both these extremes. After a while, the weakness of heart got
seemingly the mastery, long battled with; and tearing open his vest, he
displayed the massive gold chain circling his bosom in repeated folds,
upon which hung the small locket containing Edith's and his own
miniature. Looking over his shoulder, as he gazed upon it, we are
enabled to see the fair features of that sweet young girl, just entering
her womanhood--her rich, brown, streaming hair, the cheek delicately
pale, yet enlivened with a southern fire, that seems not improperly
borrowed from the warm eyes that glisten above it. The ringlets gather
in amorous clusters upon her shoulder, and half obscure a neck and bosom
of the purest and most polished ivory. The artist had caught from his
subject something of inspiration, and the rounded bust seemed to heave
before the sight, as if impregnated with the subtlest and sweetest life.
The youth carried the semblance to his lips, and muttered words of love
and reproach so strangely intermingled and in unison, that, could she
have heard to whom they were seemingly addressed, it might have been
difficult to have determined the difference of signification between
them. Gazing upon it long, and in silence, a large but solitary tear
gathered in his eye, and finally finding its way through his fingers,
rested upon the lovely features that appeared never heretofore to have
been conscious of a cloud. As if there had been something of impiety and
pollution in this blot upon so fair an outline, he hastily brushed the
tear away; then pressing the features again to his lips, he hurried the
jewelled token again into his bosom, and prepared himself for those
slumbers upon which we forbear longer to intrude.




CHAPTER X.