hung over him with looks of compassion and love. Her eyes glistened with
tears when she thanked me, and the grace of her expressions was enhanced,
not diminished, by the fervour, which caused her almost to falter as she
spoke. Her mother, all eyes and ears, soon interrupted us; and I saw, that
she wished to dismiss me quietly, as one whose services, now that his
relatives had arrived, were of no use to her son. I was harassed and ill,
resolved not to give up my post, yet doubting in what way I should assert
it; when Adrian called me, and clasping my hand, bade me not leave him. His
mother, apparently inattentive, at once understood what was meant, and
seeing the hold we had upon her, yielded the point to us.

The days that followed were full of pain to me; so that I sometimes
regretted that I had not yielded at once to the haughty lady, who watched
all my motions, and turned my beloved task of nursing my friend to a work
of pain and irritation. Never did any woman appear so entirely made of
mind, as the Countess of Windsor. Her passions had subdued her appetites,
even her natural wants; she slept little, and hardly ate at all; her body
was evidently considered by her as a mere machine, whose health was
necessary for the accomplishment of her schemes, but whose senses formed no
part of her enjoyment. There is something fearful in one who can thus
conquer the animal part of our nature, if the victory be not the effect of
consummate virtue; nor was it without a mixture of this feeling, that I
beheld the figure of the Countess awake when others slept, fasting when I,
abstemious naturally, and rendered so by the fever that preyed on me, was
forced to recruit myself with food. She resolved to prevent or diminish my
opportunities of acquiring influence over her children, and circumvented my
plans by a hard, quiet, stubborn resolution, that seemed not to belong to
flesh and blood. War was at last tacitly acknowledged between us. We had
many pitched battles, during which no word was spoken, hardly a look was
interchanged, but in which each resolved not to submit to the other. The